The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) has awarded a contract extension worth £656 million ($815 million) to BAE Systems for the next generation combat aircraft development, known as Tempest fighter.
The company notes that the UK together with the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) partners in Japan and Italy want to put the aircraft into service with the Royal Air Force by 2035.
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The aircraft is designed to be an innovative stealth fighter with supersonic capability and equipped with cutting-edge technologies, including state-of-the-art sensing and protection capabilities. It will replace British and Italian Eurofighter Typhoon, and Japanese Mitsubishi F-2 aircraft. In fact, it is a combination of British Tempest and Japanese Mitsubishi F-X programs. Sweden is likely to join as well.
“By investing in GCAP, we will stay ahead of these intensifying and proliferating threats, and provide a highly credible deterrent capability for decades to come,” Richard Berthon, MOD Director Future Combat Air.
Should be noted that the Global Combat Air Programme has a competitor – the Future Combat Air System, a European combat system of systems under development by Dassault Aviation, (France) Airbus (Germany) and Indra Sistemas (Spain), that develops a New Generation Fighter (NGF).
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