GCAP £4.6bn fighter deal puts UK budget hold to the test
Britain, Italy and Japan have moved their sixth-gen fighter project into a spend-rate check, putting £4.6 billion behind Edgewing for just 18 months. This is not a production contract. The deal pays for the end of the advanced concept effort and more design and development work on GCAP, the Global Combat Air Programme. The number puts more detail on a programme that investors had mostly watched through long-term defence pledges. At £255.6 million a month if spread out evenly, the new award is about 6.7 times bigger than April’s bridge contract, which comes out to £3.1 billion a year. The UK’s own four-year GCAP budget stands at £8.6 billion, or £2.15 billion annually before factoring in Italy and Japan’s contributions.