A contract has been concluded by the French Ministry of the Armed Forces, pilot of the project which also brings together Germany and Spain, with manufacturers for the future European combat aircraft, also called Future Air Combat System (SCAF), announced industrialists on Friday.
Worth 3.2 billion euros, divided equally between the three States, this contract aims to fly in 2029 a demonstrator of the combat aircraft which must take over from the French Rafales and the German Eurofighters. and Spanish by 2040, according to the joint press release from Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Indra and Eumet.
Rivalries between Dassault Aviation and Airbus
“Paving the way for the development phase of the program, this demonstration phase 1B will allow the further development and maturation of the advanced technologies required for the flights of the demonstrators, as well as the consolidation of the project architectures, with in-flight demonstrations planned in the next phases by 2028-2029", explain the manufacturers.
A major program for the three countries, the project had been blocked since August 2021 due to rivalries between Dassault Aviation, responsible for pillar 1, that of the combat aircraft itself, and its partner Airbus, which represents the interests of Berlin and Madrid.
More than a next-generation combat aircraft (NGF), the program is a "system of systems" that revolves around the aircraft with accompanying drones, all connected, via a "combat cloud" linked with the other military assets involved in an operation.
The scale of the project - 100 billion euros, according to experts - is such that it must be designed at European level, carrying it out on a national scale is not possible.
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