- The U.S. Air Force is allocating nearly $20 billion over five years to develop the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter jet, the alternative for the F-22 Raptor.
- NGAD will include not only a manned plane, but unmanned fighter-like drones, too.
- The U.S. will even buy more NGAD fighters than it bought F-22s, as each manned plane will control several in combat.
The U.S. Air Force is about to drop some serious coin on the long run of air power. The service will spend almost $20 billion over five years to develop Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), its secret recent sixth-generation fighter jet and future alternative for the F-22 Raptor. NGAD will even be the primary aircraft program conceived from the beginning as a mix of each manned and unmanned aircraft.
Raptor Alternative
In 2020, then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Will Roper revealed the air service had designed and flown a prototype of the NGAD fighter in only one 12 months, with the assistance of latest digital engineering technologies. The aircraft design and other details were never revealed, nor was the identity of the defense contractor involved.
Since then, the service has teased out a handful of other details. The name itself, Next Generation Air Dominance, makes it clear that the aircraft is just not a fifth-generation jet just like the F-22 Raptor or the F-35 Lightning II, but a generational leap ahead that may make it, unless one other country beats America to it, the world’s first sixth-generation fighter. NGAD’s capabilities could define the brand new generation. These could include daytime or optical stealth, laser weapons, and using artificial intelligence to cut back pilot workload.
In May 2022, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said each manned NGAD aircraft will cost “multiple lots of of hundreds of thousands of dollars.” A F-35A Lightning II, by comparison, costs $82.5 million. Air & Space Forces Magazine reports that the service will buy between 200 and 250 manned NGAD aircraft, in regards to the same because the variety of B-21 Raider bombers the service would ultimately prefer. The Air Force has also said there is perhaps two versions of the manned fighter, one for the European Theater, perhaps carrying a bigger weapons payload, and one for the Pacific Theater, with an extended range.
Now, Air & Space Forces reports that the service will spend $19.5 billion over five years on NGAD. The Air Force will pick two firms this 12 months to develop their versions of the manned NGAD aircraft, with one ultimately picked to construct the ultimate design.
Manned and Unmanned
Unlike previous fighters, the manned NGAD fighter shall be complemented by unmanned aircraft generally known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). CCA shall be a stealthy, high performance autonomous aircraft with the flexibility to hold quite a lot of payloads, from sensors to jammers and weapons.
Unmanned CCA planes will operate as extensions of the manned NGAD fighter, adding firepower and sensor reach. CCA planes will fly ahead of the manned NGAD plane, using their very own sensors to brush the skies and the bottom below, allowing for early detection of threats. This delegating of sensor use could allow the manned plane to operate with its sensors off entirely, making it even harder to detect by enemy forces.
Within the air-to-air role, NGAD could direct its unmanned minions to ambush enemy aircraft at long ranges while remaining hidden, acting as flying magazines of missiles. Within the air-to-ground role, CCA bots could fly ahead and jam enemy radar and communications, paralyzing the enemy’s ability to mount an efficient defense, then destroying surface-to-air missile threats. The intent is to permit the NGAD pilot to act because the puppet-master, with the robotic aircraft taking all of the risks.
The Air Force will spend $8.8 billion over the identical 5-year period to develop CCA, which shall be individually cheaper, due to the dearth of a pilot, life support systems, and a more specialized mission profile. This enables the Air Force to purchase the drone in greater numbers; ultimately, the service wants as many as 1,000 CCA drones. The Air Force will pick three firms later this 12 months to construct and fly prototypes, with one or two becoming the ultimate aircraft.
Wargaming the Future
In 2023, the Mitchell Institute, an air-power think tank, ran a wargame simulation designed to check the effectiveness of pairing sixth-generation aircraft and CCAs. Over the course of an air campaign designed to destroy Chinese air and naval forces surrounding Taiwan, CCAs were in a position to “disrupt, confuse, overwhelm (People’s Liberation Army) air defense targeting,” “discover targets for follow-on attacks,” and “gain the degree of air superiority needed to enable Allied penetrating strikes.”
Wargamers playing the Allied side used CCAs to force China’s KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft to disclose themselves, allowing the Allied players to focus on and kill them. This had the results of blinding Chinese forces operating out of range of their land-based radars, reducing their effectiveness at long ranges. The low-cost, unmanned planes also acted as missile sponges, sacrificing themselves so as to exhaust Chinese fighters of their missile stores, which in turn left them vulnerable to American planes.