GCAP

The Global Combat Air Programme is the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan's joint sixth-generation fighter effort, launched in December 2022 by merging the British Tempest project with Japan's F-X. The trilateral GIGO joint venture, headquartered near London, integrates BAE Systems, Leonardo, and JAIEC and aims to deliver an initial operating capability around 2035. The aircraft is designed for long range, low observability, optionally-manned operation, and tight integration with attritable adjuncts and a combat cloud. GCAP gives Tokyo a sovereign European partner outside the U.S. orbit, gives London and Rome a successor to Eurofighter Typhoon, and complicates SCAF's commercial calculus.