They’ve still got to persuade the Bundestag to pay for it…
https://www.defensenews.com/global/e...rator-program/
New trinational deal paves way for FCAS demonstrator program
STUTTGART, Germany — Nearly four years after the pan-European Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program was first brought to light, the three partner nations have reached a deal to develop a demonstrator fighter aircraft by 2027.
French Minister of Defense Florence Parly formally announced Monday that France, Germany, and Spain had finalized an agreement that will allow industry partners to start developing a flying prototype aircraft, after months of uncertainty surrounding the negotiations.…..
Parly confirmed in Monday’s statement that the FCAS program is still expected to reach full operational capacity by 2040. The “system of systems’' will include not only the new fighter aircraft, but also an upgraded weapon system, new remote carrier drones, an advanced combat cloud, a new jet engine, and advanced sensors and stealth technologies.
There were mixed signals from Paris and Berlin late Monday about the costs involved.
A French defense spokesman confirmed that the demonstrator phase was expected to cost 3,5 billion euros (U.S. $4.25 billion), split equally among the three participating nations.
Defense officials in Berlin said the Implementing Agreement 3, which is the document governing the upcoming program stages 1B and 2, comes with a price tag of more than 4 billion euros ($4.9 billion) for Germany alone.
Either way, the figures are up significantly from a previous cost estimate of 2,5 billion euros that the governments prescribed to companies as a ceiling last year……
The new agreement includes only one demonstrator, to be built by Dassault, the spokeswoman said. Additional demonstrators, as some German lawmakers have called for, would have to be purchased extra, and the stipulation is that they must be identical to the first one.