The GCAP Combat Air Demonstrator Begins Flight Testing

• Power-on of the UK’s Flying Combat Air Demonstrator is planned for mid-2027, the aircraft ready by the end of 2027 and flight test starting from early 2028.^[1]
• More than 11,500 parts have been designed and released to manufacture, around 90% of the demonstrator’s weight, with more than half already made.^[1]
• Around half the main aircraft structure is in final assembly at BAE Systems’ Lancashire site; the front, centre and rear fuselage sections built at Samlesbury join there before the end of 2026 into what the team calls the cigar tube, then move to Warton to meet the wings and fins.^[1]
• Three wings and three fins have been built and each goes through structural testing in late 2026; over 300 hours have been flown on ground rigs using flight-standard compute and actuation.^[1]
• On 3 July 2026 the GCAP Agency awarded Edgewing – the trinational prime owned equally by BAE Systems, Leonardo and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co – a £4.6bn contract running to 31 December 2027, opening the detailed design phase.^[1]
• Italy, Japan and the UK intend to field the sixth-generation fighter in 2035.^[1]

Notable features

• The demonstrator is a UK-funded crewed aircraft built to prove the technologies and skills that de-risk the UK’s role in the sixth-generation fighter; it is a pathfinder, not the Tempest prototype.^[1][2]
• It has a single cockpit, canted twin tails and two engines, with a large cropped delta wing and a chined fuselage for low observability.^[3]
• Low-observable requirements drove its size, shape and carbon structure, and the wing carries what BAE Systems calls “the largest and most complex panels we’ve ever designed and then manufactured”.^[1]
• Two Rolls-Royce EJ200 engines from the Typhoon sit behind long serpentine ducts that shield the fan blades from radar, with control algorithms making each engine behave as though it were installed in a Typhoon.^[1][2]
• It uses an unmodified Martin-Baker Mk16A ejection seat as fitted to the Typhoon, and landing gear modified from a Tornado undercarriage.^[2]