Tensions over the flight controls are holding up progress toward the development of FCAS’ demonstrator program.
Tony Osborne
The FCAS Joint Concept Study is examining three Next-Generation Fighter configurations as potential remote carrier types. Credit: Airbus Defense and Space
The industrial partners in Europe’s Future Combat Air System should at this point be moving toward development of a demonstrator that could fly in 2027. Instead, there is deadlock—two of the biggest partners in the program, Airbus and Dassault Aviation, disagree on how to work together on the flight controls of the New--Generation Fighter (NGF) at the heart of the program.
The impact of the disagreement has sent waves across the program, and the industrial enterprise is largely at a standstill until it can be resolved.
Frustration is building, particularly as the project—which aims to deliver a new-generation crewed combat aircraft, advanced engines, a combat cloud network and fleets of uncrewed remote carrier air vehicles ready for operations in the 2040s—is in the almost unprecedented situation of having not only political backing but also validated funding from the partner nations.
In early June, Dassault Aviation Chairman and CEO Eric Trappier suggested that the FCAS could miss the 2040 deadline for service entry because of the slow pace of discussions. Speaking at the Paris Air Forum, he hinted there might have to be a “Plan B” in case the partnership fractured.
Yet his Airbus counterpart, Guillaume Faury, strikes a more optimistic tone. “We are going find a way to balance this model of cooperation for future phases, and we will get there,” Faury told Aviation Week at ILA Berlin on June 24.
Airbus and Dassault, Faury said, have had different approaches to cooperation, noting that Dassault had often led on its own. “It takes time to bring those cultures together,” he said.
“We have agreed on the [FCAS] workshare, but it’s the mode of cooperation that is today being discussed,” Faury noted. “We need to have governments [help] enable this.”
Part of the problem for the program is that recent elections—in Germany at the end of 2021 and in France this April and June—have meant that industry and ministers have been unable to gather around the table. With the elections behind them, industry is hoping ministers can restore harmony to the project and get it back on course (AW&ST April 4-17, p. 60).
As the lead on the NGF, Dassault wants to tackle the flight controls alone. But Airbus, with its experience on the Eurofighter and Tornado, avers that it can provide strong input. Flight controls are seen as a “symbolic” part of the program and play a critical role in reducing the workload for the pilot. Rather than flying the aircraft, NGF pilots are likely to be more like system operators and aerial battle managers, taking control of swarms of networked weapons and drones. Simulations at ILA of how the NGF could be used in air campaigns demonstrated how control of the air battle could be delegated to NGF crews when the command-and-control aircraft is threatened and must leave the area.
Such requirements will put additional emphasis on the autonomy of the platform’s flight control systems.
Yet despite the industrial dramas, progress is being made. In March, work on Phase 1A, defining the road map and technologies that will need to be developed for the FCAS, was completed. And a Joint Concept Study, started in 2019 to define the assets that will shape the FCAS, has now short-listed three different NGF configurations, including the configuration of the remote carriers most suitable for the mission sets.
Of the three NGF designs, one is optimized for broadband low observability, another has been optimized for high maneuverability, and the third is a balance of those two.
Another key factor for the program is that France wants to be able to develop a variant of the NGF that can operate from its 75,000-ton nuclear--powered aircraft carrier currently under development.
Work is also underway on a mix of small and large remote carriers and a loyal wingman that will take off conventionally and be able to fly at the same speeds as the NGF. Small remote carriers will be attritable and deliver a variety of effects including jamming or more kinetic impacts. Larger remote carriers will be able to carry their smaller brethren, rather like a flying Matryoshka doll.
Different combinations of NGF design and remote carrier configurations are being tested in a complex simulation environment that will help evaluate which is the best option. The scenarios are even being influenced by the Russia-Ukraine war.
Faury says the differences between the partners can be resolved this year. “We must have the industrial players and states around the table. . . . We need to crack that nut,” he said.
