A mockup of the British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) future fighter jet sits on display at the Farnborough Airshow (Breaking Defense)
MILAN — The entry into service of the Global Combat Air Programme’s sixth-generation fighter jet could be fast-tracked “by a couple of years” ahead of the targeted 2035 timeline, the CEO of Italian defense firm Leonardo said today.
“It’s true that there is quite a strong push to bring forward the first entry into service of GCAP that was initially stated — that [is] still stated 2035 — closer by a couple of years,” Lorenzo Mariani said during an investor call. “This is something that has been said in meetings by the ministers and has been motivated correctly, in my view, by the urgency of having such a multi-domain system starting to operate as quickly as possible, as early as possible.”
As for whether it was really “feasible,” Mariani said it would require “probably modulating the requirements that this initial version would fulfill.”
“It’s always possible to be progressively meeting the final requirement, as it has always been the case in such complex programs,” he said.
