Goodbye SCAF? Is this the end of the road for the Franco-German-Spanish fighter dream?

Behind polite diplomatic language and official commitments to partnership, the SCAF fighter programme is unravelling. A German union has declared they won’t work with France’s Dassault, while Germany and Spain have been exploring alternative partners such as Sweden. France now appears increasingly ready to walk away. Welcome to Europe’s most dysfunctional defence collaboration programme.

By the middle of 2025, there were signs that the Franco-German-Spanish sixth-generation fighter programme was teetering on the brink of cancellation, though officially, the partners were still working towards launching ‘Phase Two’. This was intended to include the production of the New Generation Fighter (NGF) combat aircraft demonstrator.

In September 2025, the French Ministry of the Armed Forces announced that it was “fully committed with its German and Spanish counterparts to reaching a mutually acceptable solution [to Phase Two] by the end of the year”. This seemed to signal that public disagreements aired by Dassault and Airbus at the Paris Air Show had been solved, and that the ‘end of year’ milestone was within reach.

As the year came to an end however, it was clear that the deadline would be missed, and that the two sides were further apart than ever.

A convoluted history

The SCAF (Système de Combat Aérien du Futur) programme was launched industrially by a Franco-German (Dassault/Airbus-led) consortium in 2018, joined later by Spain in 2019. SCAF was intended to offer a family of systems (sometimes also known as the Next-Generation Weapon System or NGWS), with an NGF as ‘Pillar 1’ of seven development pillars which also included unmanned collaborative combat aircraft (or remote carriers), engine technology, simulation, sensors, and stealth, and a ‘combat cloud’ linking a wider system of systems.

SCAF is known by a variety of acronyms, with France favouring the Système de Combat Aérien du Futur (SCAF) designation, while Airbus uses the alternative FCAS (Future Combat Air System). For its part, Germany uses Zukünftiges Luftkampfsystem (ENG: Future air combat system) while Spain uses Futuro Sistema Aéreo de Combate (FSAC).

An initial EUR 65 million, 18 month initial framework (Phase 1A) contract was finally signed on 12 February 2020, delayed by a German requirement for approval by the Bundestag’s Budget Committee. The Phase 1A agreement supported early research and conceptual studies, and was intended to develop the system architecture and explore key technology areas (including fighter and unmanned platform design, and the combat cloud). Specific roles and responsibilities were assigned to the French and German partner companies, with Spanish workshare being left for the Phase 1B contract, which was finalised on 17 May 2021.

Phase 1B covered the design of the NGF and Remote Carrier airframes and systems (as well as demonstrators for both), integration and test strategies, a simulation environment, and the initial production strategy. Phase 1B was expected to take about 3.5 years to complete, with an NGF demonstrator originally supposed to be ready to fly by the summer of 2026. This subsequently slipped to (the as yet unsigned) Phase 2, and a first flight is now tentatively slated for 2029.

According to the agreement, Dassault would serve as prime contractor for NGF, with Airbus serving as its main partner, and Indra Sistemas was assigned as the Spanish industrial partner.

 

Airbus was to be the prime contractor leading the development of accompanying remote carrier vehicles (with MBDA its main partner) and was to be prime contractor responsible for the broader system’s supporting combat cloud, with Thales as main partner and with Rohde & Schwarz providing the artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled combat cloud backbone. The combat cloud will be a multiply redundant, mesh-based, heterogeneous network that avoids critical single points of failure, and that will be resistant to jamming, and dynamic cybersecurity threats. It will enable secure, real-time data sharing and collaboration between manned and unmanned systems across all domains.

Safran was assigned to be prime contractor for the engine, with MTU as the main partner, while MBDA and Thales were made responsible for weapons and sensors, respectively.

Prime contractors for each pillar were notionally selected on a ‘best athlete’ basis, though this has proved controversial, and there have been accusations that the French side tried to seize control across all of the pillars. They were prevented from doing so due to the way the programme had been structured, and how agreed principles of industrial co-operation had been established. These included joint decision making, clear governance and transparent ways of working.

The lack of effective cooperation is shown by the fact that both Dassault and Airbus have continued to show two quite different concepts since the beginning, perhaps indicating a lack of agreement on a single configuration.

The first NGF CGI renders were released by Airbus, and showed a twin-engined cranked Delta aircraft with widely spaced tailfins, this seemed to be a two-seater. Airbus have continued to show CGIs and models based on this configuration.

 

Dassault then unveiled a small-scale model of its NGF concept at the Euronaval show in October 2018. The concept was a stealthy, twin-engined, tailless delta aircraft, which Dassault Aviation CEO Eric Trappier described as being “more ambitious than the F-35”.

A new full-scale mock-up was unveiled at the Paris Air Show in June 2019. This had a completely new (and rather more conservative) configuration when compared to the earlier Euronaval concept and featured an arrow wing, a butterfly tail, and forward swept intakes.

 

In November 2023, Major General Jean-Luc Moritz, who leads the French segment of the programme, said that a down-selection process was underway, and said that he expected two designs to be chosen by mid-2024 and with the choice of a single final configuration anticipated by March 2025.

The different configurations shown by Dassault and Airbus reflect the different national requirements for the manned NGF. All three NGWS partners wanted the aircraft to be capable of operating in a traditional fighter role, projecting air dominance and surviving in heavily contested future threat environments. But they also saw the NGF manned platform as a ‘command fighter’ that would control unmanned adjuncts and effectors and other combat aircraft, employing AI and datalink technologies to allow pilots to perform battle management functions.

Growing friction

Yet while the NGF would be a Eurofighter replacement for Germany and Spain, augmented (in the German case) by F-35As in the strike and interdiction roles, France needed the aircraft to be carrier-capable, and optimised for the nuclear strike role. Quite apart from these differences in requirements, tensions have been brewing at the heart of SCAF/FCAS and NGF.

Dassault’s actions have suggested it wants to lead rather than be an equal partner in a Eurofighter GmbH-style Joint Venture. Dassault’s expectation that it should have ‘design leadership’ in collaborative programmes derailed the company’s planned participation in the multinational Eurofighter (then the Future European Fighter Aircraft) programme, and has mitigated against further participation in collaborative manned combat air platform programmes.

When the Phase 1B agreement was reached, it was decided that the demonstrator aircraft would be built by Dassault in France, triggering an early row between Airbus and Dassault. Dassault’s Éric Trappier said that the company that designed the aircraft should also design the flight controls, to the fury of Michael Schoellhorn, Chief Executive of Airbus Defence and Space, who pointed out that Airbus was the main partner on the flight controls and stealth, and not Dassault’s supplier.

Schoellhorn was clearly irked that Dassault had declared itself to be the “‘best athlete’ by asserting that we, Airbus, know nothing about the flight controls of fighter aircraft”. He noted, “That is not only untrue but contributes to undermining the spirit of co-operation and mutual respect.”

Friction has not been limited to the NGF manned fighter pillar of SCAF. The NGWS system of systems will see the use of unmanned adjuncts (known as Remote Carriers within the NGWS programme) accompanying and supporting the manned aircraft. These will use ‘swarming and teaming’ tactics alongside AI to create unpredictability for the adversary.

Two classes of Remote Carriers are being developed with MBDA leading the development of smaller, cheaper expendable remote carriers (ERCs) as part of FCAS Phase 2. They bring a range of different effects to the battlespace, including kinetic and non-kinetic effectors, electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, offboard sensors, and communications relay. These ERCs will have an operational flight endurance of about an hour, and will enjoy fighter-like performance and manoeuvrability, allowing them to ‘keep up’ with NGF manned aircraft – or to serve as realistic decoys. They will also be cheap enough to be used to saturate enemy defences, delivering much-needed, low-cost, combat mass.

 

There will also be a class of larger, though more expensive recoverable remote carriers (RRCs), for which Airbus is the prime contractor. Airbus revealed a full-scale concept model of its Wingman unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV) at the International Aerospace Exhibition (ILA) in Berlin in June 2024.

Despite Airbus’ UCAV unveiling, Dassault decided to unveil a new UCAV, clearly based on their earlier nEUROn design, at the Paris Air Show in 2025. Dassault’s Trappier said that the new UCAV would not form part of FCAS “for the moment,” but the new drone effectively seemed to represent a competitor for (or alternative to) the new Airbus-led RRC.

One industry insider observed that: “Dassault’s definition of a collaborative partnership is one in which Dassault decides the direction and gets the workshare and intellectual property, while its partners sit back and pay the bills, gratefully accepting any crumbs that fall from the table.” Another observed that SCAF was: “the least harmonious collaborative combat air programme in history. We have three national partners bickering over who gets to do what, and two of those partners have taken arguing to the level of being an Olympic sport.”

Reports that France was seeking an 80% workshare on the NGF led Germany to fear that it would have to give up too much sovereignty and independence and would end up effectively financing what would be a French project with German money.

 

But for Dassault’s Trappier, the SCAF/NGF programme lacked “one true leader” but instead had “three ‘co-co-co’s.” Trappier asked: “How can I have leadership when I have someone in front of me who weighs twice as much? We are not capable of distributing the work according to what we think. We have to compromise, negotiate constantly.”

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius observed that: “What’s important for the two of us is that the projects represent German-French co-operation and partnership, they don’t represent national egotism.”

Head of airpower at Airbus Defence and Space Jean-Brice Dumont, said: “We don’t challenge that there is an appointed leader for the fighter programme: That leader is named Dassault.” But Dumont also said that other partners deserve a fair share, and that the partnership “doesn’t have to become toxic”.

While French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, promised to address the subject of governance with his German and Spanish counterparts, and to encourage dialogue between Guillaume Faury (president of Airbus, representing the interests of Germany and Spain), and Éric Trappier, Trappier himself has suggested that Dassault Aviation could withdraw from the SCAF programme altogether, and ‘go it alone’.

In an article written for the Royal Aeronautical Society’s magazine, Aerospace, author Bill Sweetman postulated that Dassault Aviation could abandon SCAF to concentrate on the Rafale (which is enjoying something of a resurgence in sales), and whose F5 version is expressly linked to the company’s new UCAV programme. Sweetman assessed that this is felt to be “an affordable approach that will beat the threat well into the 2040s”. He also highlighted that the company might struggle to execute the NGF (and its associated demonstrator), given the need to resource Rafale F4 fielding and F5 development, as well as the new UCAV, and the Falcon 10X business jet.

The French company’s enthusiasm for SCAF/NGF may have been further dimmed by concerns about exportability (with misgivings about Germany’s position on exports to some countries, and with concerns that the NGF may be too large and too costly for many potential customers). There may also be a worry that timescales will mean that NGF will arrive on the market long after its main competitors. Trappier has said that: “With the delays, it’s already too late for 2040. We’re more likely headed for the 2050s.” He subsequently gave a more optimistic estimate of “sometime between 2042 and 2044.”

 

For the 2025 Paris Air Show, the NGF full-scale model was moved from its usual prominent position in the Dassault coral, its place being taken by a static display of the Rafale F5 and the new UCAV, while the company’s stand in the exhibition halls saw the single small NGF model relegated to the third row of an array of company products, behind 14 Rafales and an array of Falcon biz jets. Even Dassault company graphics seemed to de-emphasise or demote the NGF, while highlighting Rafale, Falcon 10X and the new UCAV.

German and Spanish support for the SCAF programme has also seemingly eroded in recent years and months. But in September 2025, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez met in Madrid and expressed their wish for the programme to move forward with urgency.

Sanchez highlighted existing agreements, which, he said all three countries must respect, noting that Spain wanted FCAS “to come to fruition under the conditions originally agreed upon by the three partner countries”.

Merz said that: “We are both in discussions with the French government, and we both want to find a solution as soon as possible, by the end of 2025. We are both aware that we need such a project. But things cannot continue as they are now. We share the same opinion: the current situation is not satisfactory. We are not moving forward with this project.”

Behind the scenes, Bloomberg reported that Germany was exploring options to develop the NGF without France if Dassault Aviation continued to insist on having a controlling role. Options under consideration included Germany and Spain moving ahead and developing the FCAS and NGF without French participation, or replacing Dassault with new partners. There have also been reports of German overtures to join the Anglo-Italian-Japanese GCAP project, and of talks with Sweden’s Saab.

Pressure to abandon the original trinational SCAF/NGWS programme came to a head in December 2025. On 8 December, Juergen Kerner, deputy chief of the German industrial union IG Metall (representing Airbus workers in Germany) and Thomas Pretzl (Chairman of the General Works Council at Airbus Defence and Space) wrote to German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil, warning that they would stop co-operating on the programme if Dassault remained involved. “We no longer trust Dassault,” they said, alleging that the French company had “completely disqualified itself as a reliable partner”.

“We are happy to collaborate with French businesses but not with Dassault,” the letter stated. “We stand by European co-operation and the Franco-German friendship. But Dassault is trampling over both ⁠for selfish reasons.”

The labour bosses called for a “smart repositioning of FCAS” which it said should take the form of a two-fighter aircraft solution. The German Aerospace Industries Association (BDLI) has also advocated for a system of systems with “two high-performance next-generation aircraft”.

 

Volker Mayer-Lay, Air Force spokesperson on the parliamentary defence committee for Chancellor Merz’s conservative party, also called for a split with France, pointing out that French military requirements for FCAS were very different from those of Germany or Spain. France “needs a system designed for nuclear deterrence, including the use of aircraft carriers and the specific integration of delivery systems”, Mayer-Lay argued, while “France and Germany don’t necessarily need the same aircraft.”

Mayer-Lay suggested that France should build its own manned fighter, while Germany and Spain seek new partners for a separate aircraft. He also suggested that other elements of the FCAS system of systems (most notably the integrated computer data combat cloud, and some effectors and adjuncts) could still be shared between the two platforms. This division, he said, “would allow us to better meet national military needs and overcome obstacles to industrial cooperation.”

On 2 January 2026, a German chancellery spokesperson confirmed that there had been a further postponement of the final decision on Phase 2 of the FCAS programme, originally due by the end of August 2025, and then by the end of that year. “Contrary to the original plan, a final decision on the continuation of the FCAS project has not yet been made at the end of the year.”

The delay was attributed to “the extensive Franco-German agenda in foreign and security policy issues, which has not yet made it possible to deal with the issue of a joint fighter aircraft at the level of the President and the Federal Chancellor.”

The spokesperson could not give a new date for a decision, and did not comment on reports that the delay was actually mainly due to arguments about what share of the project would be given to Dassault, Airbus, and Indra.

Some observers see these latest developments as indicating that SCAF is effectively dead in the water, while others take a more optimistic view. They reason that a SCAF family of systems could include both a high-end sixth-generation combat air platform focused on air dominance and a cheaper tactical fighter that could provide a useful alternative to, and replacement for the F-35. The usefulness of the F-35A is increasingly coming under question in the light of the US ‘pivot’ away from Europe, NATO, and the rules-based order which has long underpinned European security. Many believe that the F-35 is too vulnerable to any withdrawal of US support, sustainment, logistics and mission data, and that Europe’s defence budgets would be better spent locally, rather than in the USA.

Jon Lake

Author: Passionate about aviation and flying, Jon Lake grew up around aeroplanes, learned to glide before he could drive, learned to fly with the University of London Air Squadron, and has been in aviation publishing since 1984.