According to recent reports from foreign media, at a hearing of the National Defense Committee of the French National Assembly, French Dassault CEO Eric Trapier criticized the cooperation of the "Future Operational Aviation System" (FCAS) project of the sixth-generation fighter jet in Europe. The project is intended to promote strategic autonomy in Europe, jointly promoted by France, Germany and Spain, with Dassault and Airbus as the main participating companies.

  Trapier pointed out that during the project progress, Dassault and Airbus continued to argue about the division of labor, which brought great obstacles to cooperation. He stressed that Dassault cannot unilaterally solve this cooperation dilemma, and all participants need to jointly explore effective project management methods.

  Trapier said that the working models of the FCAS project participants are scattered and there is a lack of centralized and coordinated planning. Every time the project is further promoted, new differences will arise. As the main contractor of the new generation of fighter jets, Dassault Company only has one-third of the decision-making power. In terms of planning work processes and allocating resources, it requires a lot of time and energy to coordinate opinions from all parties, and the decision-making process is extremely difficult. Not only that, in terms of technical cooperation, when Dassault seeks technical support from partners, the other party often refuses on the grounds of technical confidentiality and uneven distribution of interests.

  Trapier said that it will still take a lot of time for the cooperation parties to reach a phase two agreement. When asked whether Dassault can develop the sixth-generation fighter jet alone for France if the FCAS project fails, Trapier said that Dassault has the technical strength to independently develop the sixth-generation fighter jet. He said that even if the sixth-generation fighter jet in Europe is put into production, Dassault’s Rafale fighter is still a more cost-effective choice.

  In response to Trapier's above remarks, Airbus responded that the FCAS project is progressing steadily and the partner is promoting the second phase of the contract. Airbus stressed that the new German government plans to accelerate the promotion of the project, which is of great significance under the current geopolitical situation as a key pillar of European defense industry and strategic autonomy.

  Dassault and Airbus have completely different attitudes, which have caused speculation and doubts about the prospects of the FCAS project. Analysts pointed out that in the previous joint development project of the fourth-generation fighter jet in Europe, France and Germany, Spain and other countries had serious differences in the setting of fighter jet performance indicators and were difficult to reconcile. In the end, France parted ways with Germany, Spain and other countries and developed the Rafale fighter alone, and Germany, Spain and other countries jointly developed the Typhoon fighter. In view of this, the FCAS project is very likely to repeat the same mistakes.

  However, some analysts believe that Trapier's claim that Dassault is capable of independently taking on research and development is a strategy that forces Airbus to make concessions. In recent years, the technological strength of European defense industry has declined significantly, and joint development has become a helpless move to make up for the shortcomings in technology and capital. Dassault is strong in European military-industrial enterprises, but the joint launch of the FCAS project with Desi is not just for the sake of promoting European defense integration. It has certain limitations in terms of technological breadth, capital reserves, etc., and it is difficult to deal with complex challenges alone.

  In addition, the performance of the FCAS project remains to be tested, and it is still unknown whether it can meet the actual needs of France, Germany and Spain in the future. For example, from the avionics system architecture shown in the new generation of fighter models, this architecture has a certain gap with the current global cutting-edge avionics technology in terms of information fusion and processing speed. In the future, it is worthy of continuous attention to how all parties will respond in the future.

[Editor in charge: Gao Qiang]