France to go it alone on next-gen combat aircraft after FCAS collapse

PARIS — France will develop a next-generation combat aircraft domestically as a successor to the Rafale, after a joint project with Germany and Spain for a future combat air system collapsed earlier this year, Air and Space Force Chief of Staff Jérôme Bellanger said. The country now conceives the future fighter, dubbed Avion de Combat du Futur or ACF, as a national project, with a target of flying conventional missions in 2040, Bellanger told the National Assembly’s defense committee in a hearing here on Wednesday. “We’re now moving on to work that will prefigure and enable the birth of this…