Very clearly, the Bourget 2025 fair is placed under the sign of defense. To the point that, in the opinion of many observers, the soldier steals the civil show.
However, an important European project in the matter has led in the wing: the SCAF (air combat system of the future). Or more precisely the part dedicated to the combat aircraft of the new generation, the “NGWS”, which includes airplanes and drones.
As a reminder, this last project is carried out by three European states (France, Spain, Germany) and has been the subject of a stormy collaboration for eight years between Airbus and Dassault Aviation. The Spanish Society of Technologies and Defense Indra Systems also participates in the Meccano.
The “NGWS” is not paralyzed. But he was late. “We are moving forward in phase 1b, we are at the beginning of the end of this phase,” said Jean-Brice Dumont, head of the Airbus Defense and Space military aircraft division on Tuesday, June 17 in journalists. But “we have experienced execution difficulties” in this phase 1b, he recognized the manager.
“You need a chef”
This phase is based on the “design, design” of future combat planes (“paperwork”, according to Jean-Brice Dumont). Phase 2, must begin in 2025 or 2026 and worry about “hardware”, the manufacturing part, and must lead to a demonstrator capable of flying in the second part of the current decade. The SCAF is supposed to, as a whole, is operational in 2040.
Far from taking advantage of the living room to reject, Airbus and Dassault Aviaiton showed more their differences. Even if you agree on one point: the way the project does not adapt to them. But for different reasons.
The European program itself “is a good thing,” said Eric Trappier, CEO of Dassault Aviation on Monday at BFM Business.
“What is governance by default. Having a great competitive and efficient industrial project, we do not simply gadgets, a solid government, a real client, that is, a unique decision maker at the level of the states and a true industrial project manager, an architect who has the freedom to choose its efficiency subcontractors,” he developed.
In April, the leader had already mentioned “an extremely difficult task” with the NGWs, and then spoke to the French deputies. “We cannot distribute the work according to what we consider the most effective in the interest of the project,” he said.
Do not go to “toxic” workloads
In Airbus, we deplore these intestine disputes. Michael Schoellhorn, general director of Airbus Defense and Space, said during an interview with Bloomberg at the Bourget Fair that “talking about old questions does (AIT) delicate things at this time.” The emphasis should be put in “the way we meet to bring something positive and advance the program,” he added.
Jean-Brice Dumont, on the other hand, said that Airbus did not question “the fact that there is a leader designated on the combat plane,” Dassault “with the leadership of the ‘Pilar 1’ (Pilar 2 is the engine, the cloud room, for example) of the SCAF.”
But the manager asked to review the workloads between the manufacturers. “What we have today is a distribution of positions that correspond to the actions of our governments, which should not be toxic in this program,” he said.
“There must be a simplification in the way this program is formed, to the extent that it was established in a somewhat theoretical way because there was no pressing war when this program began in 2017,” said Jean-Brice Dumont.
“We have to simplify (this program), the rules could be changed, perhaps certain elements of the workload could be changed, so that the program is executed,” he insisted.
According to him, there is an emergency. “We have to go faster” in the SCAF. “Why should we accelerate? Because there is war everywhere,” Jean-Brice Dumont warned. “We have to defend Europe, it must happen,” said the manager.
Resort to the British and Japanese
The manager also compared Dassault and Airbus with two “competitors” in “Goes to get casé”, which creates “ambiguities”, difficulties.
Could the difficult commitment push Airbus to approach the GCAP (Global Combat Air Program), the British-Iitro-Japonés project, SCAF competitor?
In September 2024, Jefferies Bank observed limited advances in SCAF, while the good “GCAP” Progress (AIT). “It is possible that France joins the GCAP program if the SCAF continues to stagnate, although this scenario is still unlikely in our opinion,” he wrote then.
Ultimately, the question really does not arise for the ex-lids. In Bloomberg, Michael Schoellhorn, he emphasizes that Airbus “is always open to do more with the GCAP” and that a fusion of the two programs “would have been a good decision.” But he acknowledges that this option was not “politically desired”, which remains the most important point in this type of proojet. The leader also (and still) said “optimistic” about the possibility of finding a commitment in the SCAF.
Jean-Brice Dumont, on the other hand, mentioned more an articulation between the two programs on the issue of weapons (especially through MBDA missiles) and “interoperability, connectivity.”
Source: BFM TV
