France was part of the original EFA group but dropped out to go it alone.
I also think this idea of going for UCAVs is daft.
The concept that they would be throw away mass attack craft has gone and instead they are looking likely to cost as much as a fully manned fighter plane.
Talk about reinventing the wheel. Some idiot in the British govt once upon a time thought all fighting would be done by missiles, and so a load of gret world beating projects were cancelled.
Yes UAVs have their place and so do UCAVs but to replace a manned strike fighter with a UCAV is madness.
The Tornado replacement the FOA - Future Offensive Aircraft has now turned to looking at UCAVs to fulfill the requirement. Big mistake as the UCAV will end up being large enough to put a man in it just by the nature of teh range/bombload requirements.
You know what will happen then. Some bright spark will go "Hey, we can put a guy in one of those things, have aman in the loop (again) so they'll spend millions to see how to fit a cockpit and everything else with it.
__________________
|