GCAP moves on, the Italian view
On December 17th, 2024, Leonardo organised a press session to discuss the recent signature of the agreement among the three teer-one partners of the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP), BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo (Italy), and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co Ltd (JAIEC)
“The current year has been key for the GCAP, as the programme scheme has become clearer, which together with the definition of the work allocation among the three nations as systems integrators led to the agreement on the future joint venture. Not only, also tier-one subcontractors, in the propulsion, electronic warfare, sensors, and other domains were identified. At the national level we signed R&D contracts worth around Euro 100 million with subcontractors, to allow developing the national contribution to put on the table of the future JV,” Lorenzo Mariani, Leonardo Co-General Manager stated.
He emphasized that Italy is fully engaged in the GCAP, the Government having earmarked funding, the Italian MoD having already provided some Euro 8.8 billion for the first phase of the programme. “Something that seldom happened during my career,” Mariani underlined.
During the Q3/2024 results presentation on November 7th, Roberto Cingolani, Leonardo CEO and General Manager, explained to investors that the workshare allocation and key terms of the programme have been agrees by the three partners, these having a 33.3% share and equal rights in the JV.
The Italian NATCO (national company) will be the leader in four domains, flight system integration, weapons integration, training integration, and in two activities for the mission system, the weapons effect management system, and the flight control system, with considerable artificial intelligence content.
Guglielmo Maviglia, Chief Global Combat Air Programme Officer, emphasised the new way of collaborating, an innovative model that will see the three national entities working together, the leading nation ensuring the coordination in the different sectors. EDR On-Line understood that this will lead to clusters of engineers from the three nations working together at the different sites, the main one for Italy being Torino Caselle, which is already the home of the Eurofighter assembly line. The aforementioned cooperation scheme will be adopted for all key activities linked to 6th generation aspects, while more conventional elements will be assigned to single nations for development.
The future JV will have four main sites, the headquarters in the United Kingdom, with each nation having a main site. As said, the main Italian site will be Torino Caselle, but the work will be spread among Leonardo sites in Rome, Pomezia, Florence and Nerviano for electronics and avionics, the GCAP programme having led Leonardo to cancel the planned closure of the Pomezia facility. Development work will also impact tier one subcontractors, such as Avio, MBDA, ELT Group, Umbra, etc.
The GCAP already started to have an impact on employment, a few hundred engineers having been hired specifically for that programme. “Thanks to new acquisitions and to the upgrading of the Eurofighter Typhoon, this programme will keep us busy until at least 2050,” Mariani explained, which means there will be some overlapping with the GCAP which leads to the need of increased manpower. Overall, Leonardo hired some 6,000 employees in the last two years, the Italian universities generating yearly a number of engineers which might be insufficient to cover the needs. “We are working closely with Academia to orient their syllabus in order to generate the kind of engineers that will be needed in 10-years’ time,” Lorenzo Mariani said.
“Overall over 9,000 people are involved in the GCAP at the current stage, as well as hundreds of providers along the supply chain,” Guglielmo Maviglia stated, 3,000 of them being Italian.
Cyber-engineers are another critical issue; “The GCAP being a 6th Generation bird is a fully interconnected and interoperable system, cyber protection and data management being therefore key issues,” the company Co-General Manager explained, therefore digital engineers are in high demand.” Cyber-security is a key issue not only for the GCAP itself but also for all the facilities, which will cooperate among them exchanging data at distance.
Today a three-partners programme, the GCAP aims however at increasing the number of nations involved, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia having shown considerable interest while the United Kingdom is approaching Australia, according to opens source information., EDR On-Line understood that new partners are more than welcome, however their participation will be subject to a validation process, should not disrupt the planning as well as the timeline, and should not limit export, some nations having more stringent rules compared to the UK and Italy.
Mr. Mariani does not consider realistic a possible merging of the two 6th Generation European programmes, however some elements of the two, which do not to simply develop an aircraft but rather a system of systems, such as armament or unmanned platforms, might well be developed to answer the requirements of both programmes.
Photos and images courtesy BAE Systems
