Security News > 2022 > December > Italy, Japan, UK to jointly launch sixth-gen fighter jet by 2035

The United Kingdom, Japan and Italy will pool resources to build a sixth-generation warplane scheduled to be ready for deployment by 2035, with capabilities understood to include AI to rival never-before-seen tech on fighter jets built by China and Russia, although this wasn't stated explicitly.

The "Sharing the costs" bit will be important to the UK, which hasn't built a fighter jet alone for quite some time.

The UK, Italy and - most recently - Sweden already have a joint effort underway via an existing Future Air Combat System program, known as Tempest, which was developing a stealth fighter jet that will reportedly be capable of carrying hypersonic missiles and controlling swarming drones, with some of the pilot's decision-making being aided by machine learning.

A mockup illustration of the upcoming Japan-Italy-UK fighter jet flying in various poses in front of the Palace of Westminster, the Colosseum, and Mount Fuji looks a lot like the concept model for the Tempest project, but also looks similar to Dassault/Airbus's NGF. It's also vaguely reminiscent of Extreme Deep Invader, the futuristic military stealth airplane in the absolutely terrible 2005 movie Stealth, where the fighter jet in question is a drone-like uncrewed air combat vehicle - as opposed to the optionally crewed Tempest.

While various outlets have reported that the upcoming fighter jet will have AI/ML capabilities, it was not immediately clear to The Register that the project would include this aspect of the Tempest program, and how it would be incorporated, as it appears the Tempest and F-X programs would be combined.

The Register understands that inside the cockpit of the new fighter jet, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and haptics may be used to aid the pilot.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/12/09/gcap/