"Six" of Europe. What and why was shown at Le Bourget
What is NGF?
The International Aerospace Show Le Bourget-2019 kicked off on Monday in the suburbs of Paris. He became 53rd in a row. The importance of this event can hardly be overestimated. This is one of the largest aviation salons of the world, within the framework of which one can expect the conclusion of multi-billion dollar agreements that can predetermine the development of certain areas for many decades to come. The event is attended by 48 countries, including Russia, which, alas, has little to boast of in front of European "friends". For example, there will be only dummies from combat vehicles. This is not least due to the sanctions policy of the West.
However, even without “Sushchek” and “MiGs”, the aircraft cabin will be remembered, because on the very first day we were shown what many had been waiting for for many years. Namely - the appearance of a promising European fighter of a new generation of New Generation Fighter (NGF), which has become part of a large-scale defense program Future Combat Air System or FCAS.
It is sometimes also called the “system of systems”, since this program includes work in various directions and, ideally, should be the most significant defense program in stories EU.
Today, the main aspects of FCAS look something like this:
- Fighter new generation.
- Unmanned aerial vehicles (which, perhaps, will act as slaves).
- Satellite constellation.
- New aircraft weapons.
- New methods of control and management.
This is all relative, of course: specific plans may change more than once before the time when the NGF is supposed to be commissioned around the end of 2030. Now there are three active participants in the program for creating an aircraft: France, Germany and Spain that recently joined it. The leading role is played by the French company Dassault Aviation, and besides it, the responsibility lies with the engineers of the pan-European Airbus Defense and Space.
As previously announced, the new fighter will have to change Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon. As in the air forces of the European Union, and specifically in the French Navy. This is an important clarification, because at one time disputes over the concept of the fighter quarreled Britain, Germany and France, so the latter went its own way by building the aforementioned Rafale, which, as we know, also received the deck version.
What have we been shown?
A full-size model of the new aircraft gave much food for thought. Firstly, “minimalism” immediately caught my eye. Last year, the British, we recall, presented the model of their sixth generation fighter BAE Systems Tempest. And he was, to say the least, much better worked out in all respects and, in general, looked very impressive. The layout shown by Dassault Aviation most closely resembles one of the “airplanes” of a young model airplane group: it’s not quite clear why saving in such a serious matter.
Secondly (and this is perhaps more important), the appearance of the future combat aircraft changes not by days but by hours. We are talking about the evolution of the understanding of the European fighter, which, by the way, can predetermine the development of the entire military aviation of the world, as it was with the firstborn of the fifth generation in the face of F-22. The layout shown is very different from the concept of “Euro-testing”, shown in Airbus 2017, and more importantly, from the aircraft demonstrated by Dassault Aviation in 2018. If the aerodynamic layout of the latter resembled the scheme of the sixth generation American fighter concept F / A-XX, then in the case of the new layout, a connection with the YF-23 can be traced. We recall, he received an integrated aerodynamic scheme with a diamond-shaped mid-wing in the plan with cut-off tips and a V-shaped tail. If you pay attention to the shape of the air intakes, then there is a very clear connection with the F-35 and the Chinese J-20 and J-31. These solutions are designed to minimize such a key indicator for a modern fighter as a frontal (and not only) effective dispersion area (EPR). That is, roughly speaking, to make the aircraft as unobtrusive as possible while maintaining high flight performance.
You can also say with great confidence that the car will receive two engines and will be manned / optionally manned. This makes it related to other concepts of sixth generation fighters. Today it is already known that the French company Safran and the German MTU will jointly develop the engine of the new fighter.
Conceptual issues
A small amount of information and a strange presentation give rise to quite a fair question: do the Europeans themselves want a new fighter at all? After all, it cannot be excluded that the New Generation Fighter, and even BAE Systems Tempest, have become the reaction of the “Old World” to the Twitter activity of the current US President. And talk about "European defense sovereignty" will shatter along with the election of a new American leader who will more often think about his allies.
However, so far everything testifies in favor of the seriousness of the initiatives of the EU countries: it was impossible to imagine such activity several years ago, in principle. And until about the 2014, the Typhoon and F-35 seemed to be the main European fighters in the 2050.
Here you can “fantasize” for a long time, but it is better to give the floor to the Director General of Dassault Aviation, Eric Trapier, who presented the layout of the new fighter. “The progress we have achieved in the FCAS program over the past months is remarkable. It will form the most important military air program in Europe for the coming decades and will be a decisive step in building European sovereignty, ”said the head of Dassault Aviation.
It is worth going back a little and reminding that although the first information about the decision of France and Germany to conclude an agreement on the creation of a new “six” appeared more than a year ago, the actual start of work began later. The signing of an agreement on the start of the conceptual stage of research work within the framework of the new generation fighter program became known in early February. Now we are talking about a joint industrial proposal to the governments of France and Germany of the new machine. “I am very pleased with the level of trust and partnership that we created with Dassault already during the joint conceptual study, and now with the industrial proposal we are presented to both governments. The principles of our industrial cooperation include joint decision making, clear management tuning, transparent working methods, and general preparation and negotiation at this first stage of demonstrators training, ”said Dirk Hok, Chief Executive Officer of Airbus Defense and Space.
According to the previously reached agreement, this stage will take two years. In general, while the fate of the program seems to be cloudless. In this regard, we can recall the Permanent Structured Cooperation on Security and Defense (PESCO), signed by 23 countries of the EU back in 2017, as well as the common efforts of the ruling circles of France and Germany to create a united army of the European Union. No one says that NATO will become an unnecessary tool for Europe tomorrow, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to stop the uniting locomotive, despite the local successes of the ultra-right in the last election.
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