In 2018, the French ambassador in Brussels Claude-France Arnould warned: if Belgium had to choose the American F-35A fighter-bomber at the expense of a European offer [Rafale ou Eurofighter Typhoon]then she could not participate in the SCAF program [Système de combat aérien du futur], which had just been launched by France and Germany. The remark had earned him a “call to order” from Charles Michel, then Prime Minister of Belgium, and the Quai d’Orsay was content to “take note” of his reaction.
However, if Belgium did not join SCAF, it could have joined Tempest, the competing project just launched by the UK.
In any case, Belgium has since ordered 34 F-35As [le premier exemplaire doit lui être livré en 2023]. And Germany is preparing for it, despite its participation in the SCAF, which Spain has also joined. In addition, after many adventures against the background of disagreements between the manufacturers concerned, this project has moved to phase 1B, which opens the way for demonstrators. At the same time, after becoming Italo-British, the Tempest merged with the Japanese F-3 project as part of the “Global Combat Air Program”.
Be that as it may, in April 2021, Belgian Defense Minister Ludivine Dedonder reiterated in Parliament that Brussels is closely following the SCAF and the Tempest, and that Belgian industry involvement in one or the other of these projects is not out of the question. Then, last December, it set up an advisory committee responsible for examining the future of combat aviation across the country.
But according to Admiral Michel Hofman, Belgium’s defense chief, the Belgian government prefers the SCAF.
“There is a very strong political will to join the SCAF program,” Admiral Hofman said in a Jan. 24 meeting with the press. “At the political level, there are contacts with Germany, France and Spain to join the program. It is the minister who has the best information about the dossier because she maintains that type of contact,” he added, according to comments from La Libre Belgique daily.
Would Belgian participation in the Global Combat Air Program be completely ruled out? “It’s a fact that maybe we should look at both programs,” said Admiral Hofman, for whom interoperability with the F-35A will be a key factor. “But the arrows are pointing to the SCAF at the moment” and “politically, it’s the SCAF that gets the attention and the effort,” he stressed.
In any case, participation in one or the other 6th generation aircraft program is crucial for the Belgian aerospace industry. The CEO of SABCA, Thibauld Jongen, had therefore pushed in this direction in the pages of the business newspaper L’Écho.
“Belgian industry needs to be on board some military aviation programs to avoid repeating the mistake made twenty years ago with the F-35,” Mr Jongen said in December 2020.