https://aviationweek.com/defense-spa...th-gen-fighter
‘Empowered’ Government Agency To Develop GCAP Into Sixth-Gen Fighter
The Global Combat Air Program nations—Italy, Japan, and the UK—have agreed to form a government agency that will run development of the future crewed combat aircraft.
Created through a trilateral treaty, the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) International Government Organization—or GIGO—is the “empowered” organization that will lead the multinational project from development into production, service entry and beyond….
The GIGO agency aims to eliminate shortcomings associated with previous fighter programs.
The NATO Eurofighter and Tornado Management Agency, for example, was created to manage those aircraft programs but never was empowered to do so. Instead it was left to an industry-led organization, Eurofighter, to coordinate the program’s partners.
GIGO will function more like the U.S. Joint Program Office for the Lockheed Martin F-35, placing contracts for the different phases of the GCAP program regardless of whether they are unilaterally or bilaterally needed. It will also define and prioritize requirements and resolve issues between partners, and most crucially, it will manage and support exports, albeit within the guidelines of the partner nations.
GIGO is to be based in the UK—its final location is to be determined—and run initially by a Japanese national.
The agency will be joined by an industrial joint-venture counterpart formed by the three airframers—the UK’s BAE Systems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The joint-venture also will be headquartered in the UK and headed initially by an Italian national.
The creation of that joint venture will follow trilateral agreements signed by companies working in the different program pillars that look at how they enhance their cooperation and share information….
According to the Japanese Defense Ministry, the three ministers also confirmed the work distribution will be “proportionate to each country’s contribution by financial and technical means under the spirit of equal partnership.”
However, the timelines are tight. Government and industry have just one year to prepare to begin work. They will need to develop the platform and prepare it for service entry in 2035, before five years of “rapid spiral development” to ready it for the front line….