GCAP: The Stealth 6th Generation Fighter That Could Fire Lasers

We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

Key Points: The Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) could yield an incredibly advanced 6th-generation fighter.

However, the program has several significant challenges — perhaps the biggest hurdle will be coordination between three countries with very different operational requirements and expectations.

Global Combat Air Program (GCAP) Could Be a Real Game Changer 

The Global Combat Air Program, also known by its acronym GCAP, is a collaborative, 6th generation fighter project that leverages the combined knowledge of the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy. The program, originally announced publicly in late 2022, saw Italy as the last to join, bringing together Japan’s F-X fighter project and the United Kingdom’s Tempest initiative. If successful, the project will augment or replace the Eurofighter Typhoon, Japan’s Mitsubishi F-2 either, and the American-led F-35 stealth fighter project.

Instead of simply designing and building a new fighter jet, the GCAP initiative will, if successful, yield more: a central combat platform and essential node in a networked combat ecosystem that aims to redefine air combat and air capabilities. 

However, it might not be smooth sailing: multination defense projects run the acute risk of high development complexity, given multiple industrial bases, strategic priorities, specific combat roles, and political considerations.

Central to the GCAP design is an emphasis on passive and active stealth technologies to keep the aircraft aloft and survivable in contested aerial environments against peer rivals. Radar-absorbent materials and airframe shaping will likely be complemented by electronic countermeasures that can trick enemy detection systems. Other sensors and systems will afford pilots a previously unheard-of and unprecedented situational awareness.

Advanced active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, infrared search and track (IRST), and advanced electronic support measures (ESM) are expected to be part of the GCAP program and would augment pilot situational awareness, serving as electronic eyes and ears — but crucially, would also help pilots differentiate from friendly or enemy aircraft in highly dynamic and contested environments.

Depending on how the technology matures in the coming decade, directed energy weapons could also be integrated into the GCAP program and onto other 6th-generation aircraft. 

High-energy laser beams offer a highly cost-effective weapon platform with unlimited magazine capacity. The technology requires a great deal of energy generation and so far has been integrated onto naval ships, not aircraft.

GCAP: What What We Know 

Given the very early stage of the GCAP program, little has been concretely defined about the aircraft’s appearance or specific capabilities. 

Promotional material, however, seems to indicate that a manned aircraft is not outwardly dissimilar from the American F-35, although it features dual engines and a different wing shape. Nonetheless, given the lack of prototypes at this stage in the program, this promotional material should not be taken for what the GCAP will ultimately look like.

Another crucial aspect of the GCAP program is artificial intelligence. In particular, artificial intelligence will help to reduce pilot workload via automating some pilot responsibilities. The role that artificial intelligence would play for the GCAP — and indeed, for other 6th-generation fighters and some 5th-generation fighters — would be through controlling and coordinating unmanned aerial vehicles flying in tandem with a manned fighter like the GCAP. Coordination between unmanned and manned fighters would essentially be a force multiplier: individual UAVs or swarms of UAVs could fly more risky direct attack, reconnaissance, or electronic warfare mission profiles in place of a piloted aircraft.

Lastly, there is significant room for growth in 6th-generation propulsion technology. Adaptive engine technology — engines that adjust their configurations for optimal performance could give the GCAP greater fuel efficiency, range, and thrust than traditional jet engines.

Potential Challenges

Technical aspects of fielding a 6th generation fighter like the GCAP project aside, one of the more difficult challenges would be coordination between three different defense industries on two different continents. All three patterns have their supply chains, manufacturing strengths and weaknesses, and different operational requirements, dictated in part by their vastly different geography and regional security environments.

Balancing the success of the GCAP program will require careful measuring against national interests via close negotiation and cautious compromise. Export restrictions or liberalization would also necessitate explicit negotiation and could hinder the program’s overall cost.

Irrespective of the multinational cooperation that a program like GCAP would require, domestic political considerations could throw a wrench into the works. Decision-making in a project like GCAP is inherently complicated, given differing national procurement policies and strategic priority differences. Taken together, the danger of cost overruns and production delays are higher than they would be if GCAP were to be undertaken by just one nation.

The United Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence has allocated £2 billion to GCAP since 2021 out of a budget of £12 billion for the next 10 years. A report explains that “the eventual costs will depend on “the solutions proposed, how efficient the international delivery model is, and our ability to deliver at pace.”

Technological challenges

Political hurdles aside, fielding a viable 6th generation fighter is a massively complicated and complex undertaking: integrating stealth technology, networked communications with assets in the air but also at sea and on the ground, and artificial intelligence has not been done before.

Given the informational connectivity inherent in a project like this, cybersecurity would also something for the GCAP program to consider —without strong cyber defenses, GCAP’s capabilities would be severely curtailed.

Despite these challenges, GCAP holds promise for advancing the state of the art in military aviation. By pooling their resources, the three nations aim to mitigate risks and reduce costs while achieving capabilities that would be difficult to attain independently.

For example, integrating advanced data fusion technologies will allow the GCAP aircraft to process information from multiple sources simultaneously, providing a comprehensive picture of the battlespace. This capability far surpasses what is available on current platforms, enabling the fighter to act as a command-and-control node in networked operations.

Into the Future

GCAP’s projected timeline is nothing short of ambitious. The project hopes to field a GCAP prototype by 2035 and reach full operational capability sometime in the 2040s. Neither the United Kingdom, Italy, nor Japan have developed a stealth fighter, let alone an advanced, 6th-generation fighter. 

However, if the three countries can manage to keep costs within budget and research and development timelines on schedule, the GCAP project could ultimately be successful.

Since the GCAP announcement, rumors have swirled about other nations joining the project, with Saudi Arabia, Sweden, and Germany raised as potential partners. This remains speculative, however.

One question mark hovering over the project is the United States. As the only country allied with the United Kingdom, Japan, and Italy to have fielded several generations of stealth aircraft in large numbers, the United States has a significant knowledge advantage over the GCAP program. 

The United States, too, has several 6th-generation fighter programs in development. While those are many years yet to come to fruition, the possibility of folding GCAP resources into an American-led stealth fighter program is one potentiality.

About the Author: Caleb Larson 

Caleb Larson is an American multiformat journalist based in Berlin, Germany. His work covers the intersection of conflict and society, focusing on American foreign policy and European security. He has reported from Germany, Russia, and the United States. Most recently, he covered the war in Ukraine, reporting extensively on the war’s shifting battle lines from Donbas and writing on the war’s civilian and humanitarian toll. Previously, he worked as a Defense Reporter for POLITICO Europe. You can follow his latest work on X.