Franco-German Dassault/Airbus Next Generation Fighter

Airbus, Dassault tapped to pin down Franco-German fighter plans

The ambitious Future Combat Air System program chugs along with more concept development to be done. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

COLOGNE, Germany — The French and German defense chiefs announced a contract award to Airbus and Dassault Aviation on Wednesday to narrow down the two governments’ vision of a common, sixth-generation aircraft.

The announcement moves the ambitious Future Combat Air System project further along, authorizing the contractor duo to come up with more concrete concepts for the future weapon’s main elements. Those include the manned aircraft at the center of the project, unmanned drones swarming around it and the data infrastructure tying all elements together.

The two-year deal is worth €65 million (U.S. $74 million) and is meant to lay the groundwork for demonstrator programs to be launched at the Paris Air Show in June, according to a joint Airbus-Dassault statement.

“FCAS is one of the most ambitious European defense programs of the century,” Airbus Defence and Space chief Dirk Hoke said in a statement. “With today’s contract signature, we are finally setting this high-technology program fully in motion.”

Dassault head Eric Trappier touted his company’s chops as "systems architect and integrator” in the statement — a likely reference to the prized job of overseeing how all components work together. “This new step is the cornerstone to ensure tomorrow’s European strategic autonomy,” he said.

The FCAS program is meant to replace France's Rafale and Germany's Eurofighter aircraft sometime around 2040. Officials have termed the envisioned aircraft a sixth-generation weapon. With it comes the ambition for the European industry to skip an aircraft generation, having never built a plane on par with the F-35.

For the moment, the program is riding on the wave of enthusiasm for the Franco-German defense relationship envisioned by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At the same time, cultural differences are beginning to bubble up that register anywhere between one country’s boisterous assertiveness in global defense policy and the other’s propensity for calculated hedging.

For example, French industry executives have complained that defense cooperation with Germany could hurt their chances of exporting the joint products to countries that Berlin considers rogue nations because of human rights abuses.

Meanwhile, the French and German defense secretaries, Florence Parly and Ursula von der Leyen respectively, also announced Wednesday that a team of Franco-German engine makers, made up of Safran and MTU, would spearhead development of the future aircraft’s propulsion system. The two governments expect to sign a contract for an engine demonstrator in mid-2019, according to a statement from the French Armed Forces Ministry.

Parly and von der Leyen inaugurated a new Safran plan in Paris Wednesday where engineers will develop a new generation of turbine blades. The company received a €115 million study contract toward that end.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/02/06/airbus-dassault-tapped-to-pin-down-franco-german-fighter-plans/

Concept



https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3525832.html

Wow... someone stole a Tejas but the tail fell off... and their engines are not powerful enough so they are going to fit two engines instead of one...

Yeah... that will take the EU 20 years to get working...

Spain joins the Franco-German Fighter Program

On February 14, 2019, on the margins of the meeting of NATO defense ministers of NATO member countries in Brussels, Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles signed an agreement of intent regarding Spain to join the joint Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program of France and Germany to create a promising Next Generation Fighter (NGF) fighter .

After signing the document, the Spanish Defense Minister stated in her statement that “Spain joins this project on an equal footing with France and Germany,” which will ensure Spain’s significant position in the European security and defense policy. Robles also stressed the importance of this project for the modernization of the armed forces of Spain and, in particular, the air force, as well as an impetus for the development of the Spanish defense industry.

From the side of bmpd, we recall that in April 2018, the Minister of the French Armed Forces Florence Parley and the Minister of Defense of Germany Ursula von der Layen in Berlin signed a High Level Common Operational Requirements Document (HLCORD) on the harmonization of the joint requirements of the advanced aviation complex FCAS for the development of a promising fighter Next Generation Fighter (NGF; previously referred to as Next Generation Weapon System - NGWS) in the interests of these two countries. On June 19, 2018, the same ministers of France and Germany signed an intergovernmental memorandum of understanding regarding the joint implementation of the FCAS program. According to the memorandum, the program to create a promising aviation combat system FCAS, the basis of which will be the new combat aircraft NGF will be headed by France.

According to the memorandum, from the end of 2018, a “conceptual research” phase of the program was to be launched, with the formulation of a concept by 2025. Arrival of the new aviation complex is expected in 2040. The new aircraft should come to replace the Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale fighters in the German and French Air Forces.

On February 6, 2019, Florence Parley and Germany Ursula von der Layen at a meeting in Paris signed a contract with the European group Airbus and the French company Dassault Aviation to jointly carry out the conceptual stage of research work (FCC). The cost of the contract is 65 million euros, this stage of R & D is designed for two years and should be started on February 20. This marks the actual start of the beginning of the creation of works on the promising Franco-German fighter. The formal announcement of the launch of the program is planned at the air show at Le Bourget in June 2019.

The French company Dassault Aviation will act as the "system architect and integrator" of the project. In turn, a consortium of the French group Safran and the German company MTU Aero Engines will lead the development of the propulsion system of the future aircraft.

According to the official statements of the parties, FCAS will become a multipurpose combat air "system of systems" of the 21st century using artificial intelligence and operating in the "combat cloud" (Combat Cloud) and network ("ecosystem") of existing and future manned and unmanned systems, including various types of unmanned aircraft (remote carriers) and guided weapons. The German Ministry of Defense described FCAS as the largest and technologically complex European defense program. Now the French and German sides officially call the promising NGF aircraft “the sixth generation fighter”.



https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3534746.html

Presentation of the "conceptual" layout of the promising European NGF fighter program FCAS



At the Le Bourget Air Show, which opened today (June 17, 2019), Dassault Aviation, a French company, presented a full-size model of a fifth-generation European fighter, Next Generation Fighter. The aircraft is being developed in cooperation with several countries of Europe and in the future should replace the fighter jets of the 4 ++ Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon fighters.













https://bmpd.livejournal.com/3678255.html

YF-23 was always my favourite... even though the F-22 is basically a stealthy F-15 which is a copy of a MiG-25...

European FCAS fighter program under threat due to disagreements between Dassault Aviation and Airbus

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4537875.html

^ Really ? Common. It would be cool to have another 5th gen fighter in the world. This project is so so dead. With EU and UK inflation , the Tempest is probably just as dead too.

These countries should get a production agreement from South Korea. But that project is looking a lot like Japans 5 gen program. Where did all the hype go

How can they make a 6th gen fighter when they can't even make a 5th gen fighter... you have to learn the lessons of the generation before you can step beyond that...

And they are not used to agreeing on anything... they take orders from the US and they try to dictate terms with Russia and China , and even amongst themselves some appointed liberals in Brussels decide important things for the entire block and wont take no for an answer...

The ongoing disagreements of the parties in the program to create a promising European fighter FCAS

The Financial Times in Peggy Hollinger's article "Franco-German fighter jet project still faces turbulence . Macron and Scholz declarations are no guarantee of trouble-free collaboration on defense programme” (“The Franco-German fighter project is still facing turbulence. The statements of Macron and Scholz are no guarantee of trouble-free cooperation on the defense program”) about the ongoing disagreements of the parties in the ongoing French , Germany and Spain joint program to create a promising combat aviation complex (fighter) of the new generation Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

Twice in two weeks, French and German politicians have announced a break from a long deadlock in their project to create one of the most sophisticated fighter programs in the world - a system of systems that combines manned aircraft, drones and advanced communications.
And twice they were put in their place by Dassault Aviation, the French aerospace and defense company, which will lead the main part of the program - the creation of the actual fighter [Next Generation Fighter - NGF].

Dassault chief executive Eric Trappier last week dismissed claims by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that they had reached an agreement to build a prototype as "pseudo-political." A few days later, following comments made to her in Germany by French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, the company again insisted that no production agreement had been signed.

Dassault is playing a tough game, however, as always. Deeply integrated into both the political and military structures of France, the company is highly confident in its role as guarantor of French sovereignty in the field of combat aircraft. The company, which is largely controlled by the Dassault family, has always demonstrated a certain independence from the norms of corporate diplomacy when it comes to expressing its opinions to politicians. But it's a good reminder that no matter what politicians say, they'll need age-old rivals - France's Dassault and Germany-based Airbus Defense and Space - to play flawlessly if they want Europe's biggest defense project to succeed.

The two companies have long been bitter rivals, ever since Airbus held a large stake in a much smaller aerospace group as a proxy for the French government. Over the past year, they have struggled with all their might over how to share the intellectual property of a promising fighter and the development of a critical flight control system. These battles - sometimes overly emotional, according to the people involved in the project - have already delayed progress on the project by a year. To be fair, the politicians weren't entirely wrong. Some progress has been made in removing two obstacles in the so-called technology demonstrator phase.

It looks like Dassault's original flight control system will be used for the prototype aircraft, according to a number of people familiar with the talks. And, secondly, an obvious compromise was reached in the framework of a completely separate Franco-German program to develop a promising tank. The German Bundestag has always insisted that fighter and tank projects be carried out in parallel in order to guarantee their country leadership in one of the joint projects.

It is currently expected that a production agreement for the so-called phase 1B (Phase 1B) of the advanced fighter program can be signed within a few days.

But that doesn't guarantee a trouble-free future for the project, which also has Spain as a partner. While Dassault may have won the prototype battle, there is still much to be fought for in the next stages of the program. For example, Airbus still expects to participate in the development of a flight control system that will be used for production aircraft. Since this critical system is unlikely to be developed entirely from scratch, Airbus will need access to Dassault's intellectual property, something the French company still instinctively opposes.

Meanwhile, the German Bundestag continues to insist on an equal distribution of the technological advantages of the program. And there is no evidence that either side has substantially changed its position.

Politicians may have thought they could speed things up with a public announcement after a few reluctant concessions. But Dassault cannot be forced. Its Rafale fighter jet is selling like hot cakes, aided by government support. According to Trappier, with constant updating of the technical appearance, this machine will remain in operation for several more decades. The company can afford to wait out if need be.

At best, the agreement to be signed by Dassault and Airbus will simply buy time for both parties to continue negotiations on the larger effects of the program. There seems to be hope that once they start working together, the engineers, not the politicians or senior management, will develop the positive momentum needed to get the project going.

This is a big adventure. From a political standpoint, cooperation is important - it is a key element in Europe's quest for greater strategic defense autonomy. But this is not necessarily an enticing prospect for the industry. Neither Airbus Defense and Space nor Dassault would have chosen each other as a partner for an advanced fighter program. It is difficult to see how "pseudo-political statements" can change this state of affairs.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4623171.html