The world is immersed in a race to develop a sixth-generation fighter jet. This was stated by Guillaume Faury, the CEO of Airbus, during a visit to Spain back in March, just months before his company definitively broke with Dassault, the French aerospace giant. The two firms had previously agreed to build such a plane: it was supposed to be launched in the 2040s.
The Future Combat Air System (FCAS) — which also had the participation of Indra Systems, a Spanish technology and defense company — included the development of a combat cloud. It was the European Union’s most ambitious military-industrial program this century, with an estimated investment of over $100 billion.
Now, while Germany and Spain await further developments to determine how to proceed, the U.S. is taking advantage of the program’s standstill (which has lasted for over a year) to further increase its industrial and technological advantage over Europe.
“The U.S. has an eight- to 10-year head start on us [in Europe] when it comes to the development of fighter jets. And that’s being optimistic,” says Antonio Fonfría, a professor of Applied Economics at the Complutense University of Madrid.
To understand this advantage, one must go back to when the F-18 was manufactured by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). The fourth-generation fighter jet had its first flight in 1978. Meanwhile, the European equivalent — the Eurofighter Typhoon — didn’t have its maiden flight until 1994.
Since then, the companies comprising the consortium that developed and manufactured the European fighter jet — Airbus, BAE Systems (representing the United Kingdom) and Leonardo (representing Italy) — have focused on improving the aircraft with each new batch. This is according to industry sources, who point out that this process has been easier than getting European nations to agree on a fifth-generation aircraft (which is what the U.S. offers today with the F-35, manufactured by Lockheed Martin).
The United States effectively enjoys a kind of monopoly in this field, as no European nation possesses an aircraft with these characteristics. Besides the Eurofighter, the Old Continent has the French Rafale and the Swedish Gripen… all fourth-generation fighter jets. “Since we were already late to the fourth generation with the Eurofighter, we’ll also be late to the sixth,” Fonfría adds, referring to the F-47 being developed by Boeing, which is expected to be launched in the early-2030s.
It should be noted, however, that the F-47 isn’t intended for export. This is explained by Nicolás Sanz, a partner and the European lead for Aerospace and Defense at the consulting firm Kearney. “Neither was the F-22 [another fifth-generation fighter], which was never sold outside the United States. It’s an air superiority platform for domestic forces. What is intended for export are [the plane’s] adjacent systems: the companion drones, the mission autonomy software and the integration systems.”
In this context, with no fifth-generation fighters in Europe — and given the needs of a continent that is rearming, especially on its eastern flank — the U.S. has already received F-35 orders from 13 European countries, including Germany, Italy and the U.K., with more than 600 units committed. This number could reach 700, according to a count by the specialized publication Infodefensa.
Poland — the European country that’s allocating the most funds to defense relative to the size of its economy, reaching more than 4% of GDP last year — has just expressed its interest in doubling its F-35 order to 64 units. As for Spain, the government has ruled out purchasing this aircraft. This is despite the fact that the aircraft carrier Juan Carlos I is designed specifically for the F-35B (the version of the plane that can operate from ships).
And the success of the F-35 has come despite ongoing operational issues. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the jet’s so-called full mission capable rate — which measures the percentage of time an aircraft is able to perform all assigned missions — fell from 38% in 2021 to 25% last year, despite the fact that the F-35 program costs have been increasing since then.
Although Europe may have fallen behind with its fourth-generation fighter jets, an industry source stresses the importance of having the Eurofighter. While it entered service later than the F-18, it now provides a platform from which to make the leap to sixth-generation aircraft. “Without it, the technological gap would have been so large that we wouldn’t be able to [conceivably] build a sixth-generation fighter,” the source states.
The paths toward a new fighter jet
The FCAS’s demise doesn’t mean that Europe won’t have a sixth-generation fighter jet, as there are alternatives. The first is the GCAP — a joint project between the U.K., Japan and Italy — that’s still moving forward, with an estimated cost of less than half that of the FCAS. Other options could include a French fighter, as well as a joint project between Spain and Germany — potentially joined by Sweden’s Saab, which has expressed interest in collaborating with Airbus.
But what exactly is a sixth-generation fighter jet? “It’s an aircraft that will arrive in the 22nd century. It will be closer to Star Wars than to World War II,” replies a source with decades of experience in the military industry, who requests anonymity.
“In the sixth generation,” Sanz explains, “the manned aircraft ceases to be the central tactical unit and, instead, becomes the command node of a distributed combat ecosystem. It flies while accompanied by several autonomous drones that it can direct in real time, in order to carry out reconnaissance, electronic warfare, or attack missions, all without exposing the pilot.”
“This entire constellation of platforms — the fighter jet, the drones, the satellites, the ground systems — is connected by what is called the combat cloud: a secure digital network that merges all this information into a single, instantly [updateable] operational picture.”
The Kearney consultant offers a very striking example of what this leap would entail: “The onboard software of a Eurofighter contains around 1.5 million lines of code. The F-35 reached 25 million [lines] in its most recent versions. Estimates for a sixth-generation fighter — like the U.S. F-47 — point to close to 100 million. A hundredfold increase in less than two decades.”
For his part, Pol Busquets — a partner in charge of Industrial Products & Services at the Madrid offices of consulting firm Roland Berger — emphasizes the importance of maintaining the combat cloud, despite the failure of the joint aircraft. “It’s a fundamental pillar, as it guarantees the future viability of coalition operations, even if France and Germany end up using different aircraft. It facilitates collaborative combat between manned and unmanned aircraft, distributed detection and faster decision cycles. Furthermore, it keeps open the possibility of an interoperable European air force, without imposing a single common fuselage.”
France’s solo adventure
One of the main difficulties in launching a project to develop a new fighter jet is the large sum of money required. Spain, for example, had committed more than $2 billion to the FCAS before it was cancelled.
This high cost explains why Germany is seeking allies like Spain or Sweden to develop its sixth-generation fighter jet. France, for its part, has attempted to partner with the United Arab Emirates to finance the creation of a fifth-generation version of the Rafale. However, after Paris refused to share technologies with the Gulf nation, Abu Dhabi withdrew from the project. To make up for the loss of funding, Dassault hopes to finalize the sale of 114 Rafale aircraft to India, which submitted a formal request to acquire them a couple of weeks ago.
“France, since Charles de Gaulle, cannot conceive of depending on third parties for its national defense, even if the cost is prohibitive […] it’s an expense that they’re willing to shoulder,” explains a source in the military-industrial sector. “The number of exports lowers the cost of projects. The U.S. has the advantage of having such a large domestic market that it can finance [the planes] alone, unlike the French,” he adds.
As all the sources consulted for this report note, Europe once again finds itself in a situation similar to the one that gave rise to the Eurofighter and the Rafale — two aircraft that have not only competed with the United States but also with each other for export orders. “That episode — sometimes [described as] the splitting of European combat aviation — taught a lesson that many analysts still cite today: the industrial fragmentation of Europe, in the defense [sector], has real costs in terms of money, capability and influence,” Sanz concludes.
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