LCADE

LCADE, Low-Cost Air Defence Effectors, is Britain's national slice of the five-nation LEAP framework, and the first money any LEAP partner has actually released. On 13 July 2026 the UK's National Armaments Director Group split £3.16 million across three domestic SMEs: Frankenberg Technologies, Greenjets and Cambridge Aerospace .

The award is deliberately modest: seed funding to keep small British counter-drone suppliers developing cheap interceptor technology, not a production contract. It puts Britain ahead of its four LEAP partners in turning the February 2026 Krakow agreement into an actual national procurement move, a first-mover position that matters for domestic industrial capacity as the wider LEAP effort matures towards 2027 production.