UK-Japan-Italy Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) News & Technical Analysis

timmymagic said:
The advantage of a GCAP lite would depend on the country. For Sweden, Germany and Spain it would give them access to a powerplant and other technologies for a smaller manned platform that would integrate with a larger platform.
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Don't Germany get the same benefits by continuing the other FCAS pillars (all but the NGF), but with a much larger % workshare for their own players? E.g. Germany could continue the FCAS engine pillar (Euromet) with 33% workshare for MTU, the sensor pillar with 33% for Hensoldt, etc.

The aircraft platform would still be up in the air. But rather than a GCAP lite that doesn't meet their stated needs, it's more likely they will either cobble together a new fighter partnership with Sweden and Spain, or (especially if Airbus DS has a say) fall back to a short term fix like a mixed buy of Eurofighters, CCAs and a few F-35s which buys them time (probably another decade).
 
H_K said:
Don't Germany get the same benefits by continuing the other FCAS pillars (all but the NGF), but with a much larger % workshare for their own players? E.g. Germany could continue the FCAS engine pillar (Euromet) with 33% workshare for MTU, the sensor pillar with 33% for Hensoldt, etc.
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Again lets first wait and see if both Parties are even going to stay with FCAS and this can be increased with more people if wanted / needed.
H_K said:
The aircraft platform would still be up in the air. But rather than a GCAP lite that doesn't meet their stated needs, it's more likely they will either cobble together a new fighter partnership with Sweden and Spain, or (especially if Airbus DS has a say) fall back to a short term fix like a mixed buy of Eurofighters, CCAs and a few F-35s which buys them time (probably another decade).
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The Aircraft plattform can run independent from the rest. There is also a possibility for a mixed fleet and more but this is highly based on whatever GCAP lite could do. For now lets get the first step down with FCAS/SCAF...
 
EmoBirb said:
I can't believe that the UK (I suspect more so than Italy) wouldn't have considered the Japanese reservations and hurdles with regards to exports. It would seem rather short sighted and it's not like any of that is a secret.

As for the second thought, I always assumed the whole workshare agreements were set and done already?
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My guess is it's going to be an issue with the combat cloud.
Japan will naturally work in tandem with the US.
The UK and Italy will want a unified combat cloud across the EU.
If this were to happen, the three countries would not be able to quickly share CCAs with each other in the event of war.
 
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/meet-the-neovark/
No further technical details of the aircraft have been made available, but the GCAP design is still depicted by the same artwork and models that were revealed last year—a very large delta-wing aircraft. ‘It’s different from NGAD (the Boeing F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance project) and it’s not an F-35. It’s complementary to current aircraft,’ the official says.

It is, he suggests, ‘a stealth F-111’. Known during its 37-year Royal Australian Air Force career as the Pig, and to the US Air Force as the Aardvark or just Vark, the swing-wing General Dynamics bomber tipped, or possibly crushed, the scales at 38 to 45 tonnes fully loaded, substantially more than the most heavily laden F-15E, including an impressive and useful 15 tonnes of internal fuel.
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The reasons for the aircraft’s imposing size are the usual: weapon load and range. ‘Anti-access, area denial (A2AD) extends far out into our own territory,’ the official says, ‘and is accompanied by surface-to-surface fires. And if we allow A2AD to silence us, if we can’t communicate in the contested area, we will lose. Someone has to carve the pathway into the threat environment.’ The goal, he adds, is ‘1,000 miles of ingress’ (nautical miles, 1,850 km) into the A2AD zone.

Internal weapon load, elsewhere described as twice an F-35’s, or 4 tonnes at least, is driven by the need to make each costly sortie count, but also by weapon diversity and futureproofing. Asked if there is a family of weapons associated with GCAP, the official says that the goal is an aircraft that can be adapted to carry any weapon that is available, within limits, and that the team is thinking about weapons in size classes.

He also refers to GCAP as a ‘21st century Mosquito’, recalling a high-performance World War II aircraft that could carry a mix of air-to-air weapons and bombs or an all-bomb load comparable with the B-17 bomber’s. Those decisions are occupying the team’s attention now: ‘Every inch of weapon-bay space we have to pay for, but you only get to make that cut once.’
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1994065783085797554
View: https://x.com/garethjennings3/status/1994065783085797554


Going through my @DefenceIQ #IFC2025 notes ahead of the anticipated launch of the #GCAP full development and design phase, and a very interesting conops has the aircraft acting as "the perfect parasite".
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Speaking under Chatham House Rule, an official said that the goal is to mimic the conops of the MiG-29, of all things, in that it should be able to use any and all base infrastructure, weapons, etc, wherever it happens to be operating from.
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"We aim to make GCAP ‘the perfect parasite’. Allegedly, the MiG-29 was the most NATO compliant platform ever built. The idea being that as [the Soviets] rolled over [NATO airbases], it would use NATO ground power, would use NATO bullets, would load a Sidewinder that it found in a weapons dump rather than a [Soviet] A-11. That concept is what we want to use within GCAP so that wherever we land, we can make maximum use of what we already find, and not rely on having to wait for a C-17 or something [to resupply]."
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Interoperability is the name of the game nowadays and if there ever was a plane that could do it GCAP is probably the best bet.

All 3 nations operate F35s so that covers MADL plus their integration of Link 16 on other aircraft they operate, Italy and the UK are both involved in ESSOR and MIDS and Japan has it's J/Link.

We'll probably start to see more about it's onboard AI and computing capabilities when they discuss this in the future.
 
Hull down said:
That is uhhh, optimistic.
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Ignoring any remaining Soviet/Russian made AAMs since they should have all been sent to Ukraine by now, what are your options?

IR AAMs: Sidewinder, ASRAAM, AAM-3 or AAM-5 (edit) and IRIS-T
BVR AAMs: Meteor, AMRAAM, AAM-4B, Aspide?

Bombs: everyone uses JDAMs and Paveways. SDBs.

ASMs: all flavors of SPEAR, ???

AShMs: ASM-3, Stratus/FC-ASW, ???

That's not an impossible task. I don't even think it's all that optimistic.

Basically, we're talking about "anything cleared for use by F-35"
 
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Scott Kenny said:
Ignoring any remaining Soviet/Russian made AAMs since they should have all been sent to Ukraine by now, what are your options?

IR AAMs: Sidewinder, ASRAAM, AAM-3 or AAM-5
BVR AAMs: Meteor, AMRAAM, AAM-4B, Aspide?

Bombs: everyone uses JDAMs and Paveways. SDBs.

ASMs: all flavors of SPEAR, ???

AShMs: ASM-3, Stratus/FC-ASW, ???

That's not an impossible task. I don't even think it's all that optimistic.

Basically, we're talking about "anything cleared for use by F-35"
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You can add IRIS-T to IR AAM's, remove Aspide.

"Basically, we're talking about "anything cleared for use by F-35"".....we're definitely not talking about that...that would be disastrous...
 
Is that MiG-29 claim even true?

Surely every major NATO fighter has been designed with these features in mind since the 1970s?
And they'll never get every single part to be interchangeable, you'll still end up with a valve or computer chip that you need to wait for. Maybe the embarrassing F-35 incidents despite an international F-35 supply chain have caused over-reddening of faces in the MOD?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Ignoring any remaining Soviet/Russian made AAMs since they should have all been sent to Ukraine by now, what are your options?

IR AAMs: Sidewinder, ASRAAM, AAM-3 or AAM-5
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You probably want to add IRIS-T for Italy.

Scott Kenny said:
BVR AAMs: Meteor, AMRAAM, AAM-4B, Aspide?
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Is anyone still using Aspide in the AAM role as opposed to in SAM systems? Definitely no need to integrate it in anything new.
 
Hood said:
Is that MiG-29 claim even true?

Surely every major NATO fighter has been designed with these features in mind since the 1970s?
And they'll never get every single part to be interchangeable, you'll still end up with a valve or computer chip that you need to wait for. Maybe the embarrassing F-35 incidents despite an international F-35 supply chain have caused over-reddening of faces in the MOD?
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I think the idea isn't as much that it is completely maintenance independent, more that if an empty GCAP rocks up at a NATO airbase it will be able to load whatever weapons or other consumables are available rather than waiting for GCAP nations' own stocks.
Maybe that means in practice some means of the aircraft working out for itself how to talk to the missile, essentially integrating it on the spot? I'm not sure how it would work for analogue or even older digital missiles, and you'd still need physical fit checks, but at least you wouldn't need both a physical example of the missile for that and wouldn't have to update it for new versions of the same missile?
Not based on any firm knowledge, just throwing ideas around.
EDIT: Sort of like that robot that adapts to whatever limbs it is given, the aircraft would work out how to use its sensors and datalinks to cue the missile.
 
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SailorBoy said:
Maybe that means in practice some means of the aircraft working out for itself how to talk to the missile, essentially integrating it on the spot? I'm not sure how it would work for analogue or even older digital missiles, and you'd still need physical fit checks, but at least you wouldn't need both a physical example of the missile for that and wouldn't have to update it for new versions of the same missile?
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There's a small enough number of missiles in service, and all Mil-Std-1760B compliant, to just carry around a database of what each one can do. The major issue is confirming you can safely and functionally release them, and that needs integration testing and launches.
 
DWG said:
There's a small enough number of missiles in service, and all Mil-Std-1760B compliant, to just carry around a database of what each one can do. The major issue is confirming you can safely and functionally release them, and that needs integration testing and launches.
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How rigorous is release testing/ what are the typical safety margins?
It wouldn't take a very big computing unit inside the fuselage to run a half-decent simulation of release under various conditions. Or is the risk that the simulation is wrong worse than the risk of not completing the mission?
Of course you would try to drop-test as many missiles as possible, but it might be advantageous to be flexible with how it could be done quickly.
PS not directly related, but might it be possible for the aircraft to mimic the datalink waveforms etc. it needs to communicate with an unknown missile by testing it out? A bit like how you program a universal TV remote?
 
SailorBoy said:
How rigorous is release testing/ what are the typical safety margins?
It wouldn't take a very big computing unit inside the fuselage to run a half-decent simulation of release under various conditions. Or is the risk that the simulation is wrong worse than the risk of not completing the mission?
Of course you would try to drop-test as many missiles as possible, but it might be advantageous to be flexible with how it could be done quickly.
PS not directly related, but might it be possible for the aircraft to mimic the datalink waveforms etc. it needs to communicate with an unknown missile by testing it out? A bit like how you program a universal TV remote?
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It’s a huge effort to clear stores for release from a platform because release behavior is specific to store, host vehicle, station, and the release envelope. For releasing anything more aerodynamically complex than a dumb bomb (think JASSM), You will need the HPC hardware that takes up a good section of a data center to do that simulations over all of the possible variances of the problem in a reasonable amount of time (1-2years per combination of store/station/host). You can short change the simulation a lot by doing a lot of captive trajectory (CTS) testing in wind tunnels but that is also going to be a 1-2 year effort given lead times and how booked up wind tunnels that are capable of doing CTS test. Once you have WTT data you can run much more computationally simple Monte Carlo simulations to

Store release testing is extremely rigorous because the rules are written in blood. All you have to do is search “Store Separation Incident” on YouTube and you will get all kinds of videos of store separation going wrong. Depending on how complex the store and the aero-interaction with the host is, you will need to do a combination of full CFD with coupled 6DOF simulations for nominal and edge cases, do a bunch of Monte Carlo analysis to get probabilities and sensitivies to the release conditions, wind tunnel test of critical release conditions with low margins before you even go and try to plead your case to an organization like SEEK EAGLE to let you test drop your stuff from a real airplane.

Store separation analysis and engineering is a huge effort and is very rigorous because doing it wrong can and have cost lives before. It’s basically one of the reasons why the cost of TASSM ballooned and ended the program. Store separation analysis is why it takes so long to integrate a new weapon or store to an aircraft even though it seems like it should work from a pure fit and weight check.
 
DWG said:
You probably want to add IRIS-T for Italy.
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Fair enough.



DWG said:
Is anyone still using Aspide in the AAM role as opposed to in SAM systems? Definitely no need to integrate it in anything new.
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Do the Italians have a personal BVRAAM newer than Aspide, or are they using Meteor?




DWG said:
There's a small enough number of missiles in service, and all Mil-Std-1760B compliant, to just carry around a database of what each one can do. The major issue is confirming you can safely and functionally release them, and that needs integration testing and launches.
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Exactly.

But there's 4x IR AAMs, 3x BVRAAMs, and whatever bombs and AGMs fit in the F-35.

Not all that much to integrate.



timmymagic said:
Just for the LOL's surely...
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Well, yeah, I've been assuming that the Germans should have joined GCAP, not SCAF.



SailorBoy said:
How rigorous is release testing/ what are the typical safety margins?
It wouldn't take a very big computing unit inside the fuselage to run a half-decent simulation of release under various conditions. Or is the risk that the simulation is wrong worse than the risk of not completing the mission?
Of course you would try to drop-test as many missiles as possible, but it might be advantageous to be flexible with how it could be done quickly.
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The computer simulations are what got the Super Hornets those super draggy angled pylons. Bad code, as the program also thought that the Legacy Hornet would have issues as well. That had never happened in 40ish years of dropping bombs from Bugs.

You absolutely MUST do physical drops.
 
SailorBoy said:
How rigorous is release testing/ what are the typical safety margins?
It wouldn't take a very big computing unit inside the fuselage to run a half-decent simulation of release under various conditions. Or is the risk that the simulation is wrong worse than the risk of not completing the mission?
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How would you predict these real world release issues in a simulator?

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPTnmZ_HPAs


It's typical to start off with releasing an aerodynamic shape in straight and level, then graduate to different release attitudes, a powered shape if appropriate, and eventually, potentially several years down the line, a guided weapon. And you may do other tests involving different stations, different combinations of weapons, and so on. All with lots of analysis in between each test.

With untested weapons, we're not talking simply a risk of failing the mission, but potentially losing the aircraft and crew. You can do it, but you have to accept that there are risks.

SailorBoy said:
PS not directly related, but might it be possible for the aircraft to mimic the datalink waveforms etc. it needs to communicate with an unknown missile by testing it out? A bit like how you program a universal TV remote?
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There are NATO standards for datalinks.
 
Yes physically testing stores release is a difficult multi year process. Software side is a lot easier due to common datalink interface and its not unknown for newer weapons simply to appear in a fighters weapon management as a similar older weapon for software compatibility. That allows basic functionality such as weapon release authorisations without updating the aircrafts software, but to take advantage of the extra kinematic performance or features you do have to update the aircrafts software as well.
 
Presumably the GCAP members will each clear their stores intended for the aircraft. Which implies a concurrent process. But one that shared across them results in each being cleared for all members stores.
The JSF experience is likely exerting this outcome.

Probably they will share simulations to further expedite this.
 
zen said:
Presumably the GCAP members will each clear their stores intended for the aircraft. Which implies a concurrent process. But one that shared across them results in each being cleared for all members stores.
The JSF experience is likely exerting this outcome.

Probably they will share simulations to further expedite this.
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That would be my expectation as to what they're going to do. Also, it means that the stores separation tests can be run concurrently once there are at least 3 airframes available.
 
Do we know what will happen to the japanese F-15? I mean we know atleast are going to the JSI standard but i doubt all will be upgraded so it seems logical that GCAP would fill that role.

Edith: i looked at the MoD graphic and it seems that i completly forgot that most Go into the F-35. Tho there graphic for 2022 still leaves a 33 fighter gap.
 
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