Three countries are building a new fighter jet together. This week, they signed a big new contract for the plane. It will take many more years to finish.
Why does it take so long to build a new fighter jet, and what happens next?
The UK, Italy and Japan are working together on a new fighter jet. This fast military plane can fight other planes in the sky. The three countries call this plan the Global Combat Air Programme, or GCAP. They want their new jet to be very hard for radar to see. This is called a stealth design.
On 3 July, the three countries signed a new contract to pay for the work. This contract is worth £4.6 billion. That is about $6.1 billion. The money goes to a company called Edgewing. Edgewing is new. It was made by three companies: BAE Systems from the UK, Leonardo from Italy, and JAIEC from Japan.
The new contract will pay for the next stage of work. Engineers will finish the design of the jet. They will check that all the parts fit together well. Then they will build the first working model of the jet to test the design. This first model is called a prototype.
This work will take about 18 months. But the whole plan will take much longer. The three countries want the new jet to be ready and used every day by 2035. When a plane is ready like this, we say it is in service.
GCAP started in December 2022. Before that, the UK, Italy and Japan each had separate plans to build a new fighter jet. The three countries decided to join their plans into one programme. This made the work faster and cheaper for everyone.
This is not the first big contract for GCAP. The UK signed an earlier contract in April, worth £686 million. The UK government also plans to spend £8.6 billion on GCAP over the next four years. Building a new fighter jet costs a lot of money and takes a long time. Many engineers in all three countries will work on the jet before it is finished. But the three countries say the plan is moving forward well.
Check your understanding
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Which three countries are building the new fighter jet together?
The article opens by naming the UK, Italy and Japan as the three countries working together on GCAP.
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True or false: the three countries want the new jet to be in service by 2030.
The article says the countries want the jet ready by 2035, not 2030.
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Why did the UK, Italy and Japan combine their separate jet-building plans into one programme?
The article says joining their separate plans together “made the work faster and cheaper for everyone.”
- contract (noun) – a formal, legal agreement to do work or pay for something. Typical use: “sign a new contract”.
- design (noun) – the detailed plan for how something will look and work. Typical use: “finish the design of the jet”.
- prototype (noun) – the first working model of a new machine, built to test the design before making more. Typical use: “build a prototype”.
- in service (phrase) – ready and used regularly, not just for testing. Typical use: “the jet will be in service by 2035”.
If you’d like to read about another brand-new aircraft’s first flight, see our article on the Dassault Falcon 10X’s maiden flight.
CEFR Level A2 / ICAO Level 3
