How will the FCas fighter launched by France, Germany and Spain be
France, Germany and Spain conclude an agreement on FCAS, a sixth generation fighter. All the details
The Franco-German-Spanish FCAS officially takes off.
France, Germany and Spain said on Monday they had reached an agreement on the next stages of the development of the air system of the future (FCAS) with the sixth generation fighter at the center.
The "system of systems" will include not only the new fighter aircraft, but also an updated weapon system, new remote transport drones, an advanced combat cloud, a new jet engine and advanced sensors and stealth technologies.
As Reuters anticipated earlier this month , the three countries reached an agreement after months of friction. France and Germany had originally set the end of April for an agreement, but disagreements over intellectual property rights had stalled the negotiations.
Berlin, Madrid and Paris will equally share the cost of 3.5 billion euros to be able to start the definition phase of a demonstrator of the next generation fighter that should fly by 2027. The total cost of the program is estimated at over 100 billion. EUR.
The French Dassault Aviation, the German Airbus and the Spanish Indra are involved in the project that aims to replace the Rafale and Eurofighters from 2040.
“The Scaf program is moving forward! Defense Europe is being built ”, French President Emannuel Macron tweeted yesterday.
Qui aurait cru possible de voir travailler ensemble l'Allemagne, l'Espagne et la France sur un même avion de combat? De voir nos grands industriels unir leurs efforts? Le program du Système aérien du futur, le SCAF, avance! Europe de la defense se construit. pic.twitter.com/w2iJRCOZE7
– Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 17, 2019
THE NEXT STEP 1B
The three countries will therefore share in equal measure the cost of 3.5 billion euros to start the development phase of the combat aircraft demonstrator (Next Generation Fighter).
Under the terms of the deal, the fighter will not have a black box to help preserve sensitive commercial know-how, a French defense source told Reuters .
FOLLOWED BY STEP 2
The construction of the demonstrator will instead take place in "Phase 2". From 2024 to 2027, Dassault Aviation and Airbus will run this Rafale engine-driven demonstrator (M88) as part of phase 2, and then fly it beyond 2027 during subsequent test campaigns.
THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN MTU, SAFRAN AND ITP AERO ON ENGINES
In fact, a loose knot also on the thorny issue of the Ngf fighter engine of the FCAS program.
At the end of April , the German company MTU Aero, the French Safran and the Spanish ITP Aero (a subsidiary of Rolls-Royce, the latter partner of Team Tempest, a sixth generation British-Italian-Swedish rival fighter project ) achieved a agreement on the development and production of the engines of the sixth generation fighter.
This agreement ensures a fair distribution of the workload between France, Germany and Spain.
THE BERLIN APPROVAL
However, even with the deal between governments and industry, Berlin has little time to get the approval of the German parliamentary committee.
The next step in the development of the aircraft is in fact subject to the approval of the German Parliament. And time is running out to present a proposal in time for the parliamentary committee to vote before the German parliamentary elections in September.
Approval is required before funds can be spent and the process can take months.
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE DEMONSTRATOR FOR THE FCAS PROGRAM ACCORDING TO THE ANALYSTS
The quality of the FCAS demonstration phase will be the key to the success of the Franco-German-Spanish program. "The goal is to reduce the risk of early stage technology hurdles in order to avoid delays and additional costs down the line," analysts told DefenseNews .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/come-sara-il-caccia-fcas-lanciato-da-francia-germania-e-spagna/ on Wed, 19 May 2021 07:27:35 +0000.