(Bloomberg) -- Next-generation fighter jets might take longer to produce and cost more than anticipated given their complicated system-of-systems approach to combat technology, the chief executive officer of Italian defense company Leonardo SpA warned in an interview on Tuesday.
The sixth-generation fighter, known as Tempest in the UK, is a joint effort between the UK’s BAE Systems Plc, Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Leonardo. It’s scheduled to start replacing the Typhoon in the Royal Air Force fleet in 2035, but the resource-intensive development process might cause delays, Roberto Cingolani said during an interview Tuesday at the Farnborough International Air Show.
Cingolani’s cautious outlook for the three-country initiative called the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) follows remarks by UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer at the same event about the importance of sixth-generation fighter jet. Starmer, who took office on July 5, was addressing concerns over the funding of the program under the new Labour government he leads.
GCAP is expected to require about €40 billion ($43 billion), based on government estimates — “enough to get started” but likely not sufficient to fully see it through, said Cingolani, who was appointed last year to run Italy’s state-controlled defense firm. He declined to specify how much more money would be required.
Even if the new combat aircraft will be able to fly by 2035, accompanying technologies like AI and drone swarms may not be ready, Cingolani said. Delivering it within 10 to 12 years would be “very challenging,” he added.
“You have to make a sort of flying supercomputer that governs 40 drones,” with the same speed and range but different functions and capabilities, he said. “Of course it’s feasible, but it’s a big technology, big stuff. It’s not easy.”
An option to address any funding gap could be to team up with new partners to merge similar initiatives and boost funding and headcount, Cingolani added. He mentioned Saudi Arabia, which has expressed interest in joining GCAP as a partner country, to work on the supersonic jet with the UK, Italy and Japan.
“Never say never in a condition like this, in which we are trying to develop something which is absolutely new and disruptive,” Cingolani said.
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