Britain, Italy and Japan awarded Edgewing a £4.6 billion contract on Friday for the GCap sixth-generation fighter jet programme. Luke Pollard said the deal is "a major step forward towards delivery" as the work moves into the next phase.
The Global Combat Air Programme will give pilots a cutting-edge stealth fighter jet, he said, and the governments are backing the project with £8.6 billion over four years. The countries want the jet ready by 2035, giving the programme a timetable as well as a budget.
Edgewing for the GCAP
Edgewing is the joint venture set up to develop GCAP. It is jointly owned by BAE, Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement, with headquarters in Britain and a CEO from Italy. That structure puts the industrial work inside a tri-national partnership rather than a single national programme.
The sixth-generation stealth fighter jet is being developed by BAE Systems in Britain, Leonardo in Italy and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan. BAE has previously said GCAP would be three to four metres longer than the Typhoon military jet and designed to fly a longer range.
Britain, Italy and Japan
The Friday award follows the collapse of the rival Franco-German fighter programme in June. Britain, Italy and Japan have also drawn outside attention to GCAP from Saudi Arabia and Canada, but expansion to any GCAP would still require agreement from the three founding members.
That leaves the programme moving ahead with a funded contract and a defined industrial team, while any wider expansion stays subject to consent from Britain, Italy and Japan. For now, the immediate question for the programme is not whether it is advancing, but how quickly the three partners turn that contract into aircraft work on the ground.
