For years, vague public statements regarding the Air Force’s program to develop a complicated sixth-generation stealth fighter specializing in air-to-air combat called Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) indicated that not less than two rival firms were at advanced stages of development. A minimum of one prototype was alleged to have already flown, way back in 2020.
NGAD is meant to interchange the Air Force’s exquisite F-22A Raptor stealth fighters within the 2030s. Though extremely agile and ultra stealthy, the Air Force’s relatively small F-22 fleet has proven prohibitively expensive to operate and upgrade, resulting from their reliance on Nineteen Nineties-era non-open architecture systems and early maintenance-intensive radar absorbent materials technology.
Nevertheless, at a D.C. meeting, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall laid to rest the concept that the Air Force might procure a couple of NGAD aircraft to rest.
“We’re not going to do two NGADs. We’re only going to do one,” he stated, according to John Tirpak of Air and Space Forces. The lead candidates are undoubtedly drawn from combination of Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman, backed up by rival jet engine makers Pratt & Whitney and General Electric.
The Air Force opened up submissions for an NGAD design on May 18. The winning concept will probably be announced in 2024, and the Air Force will aim to get 200 or (it would like) 250 NGAD fighters—each of which it admits would cost multiple a whole lot of thousands and thousands of dollars to acquire. For comparison, the present F-35A stealth fighter costs around $85 million, thanks partially to massive economies of scale. NGAD will undoubtedly profit from higher sensors and communication links than the F-22, while having the agility of the F-35.
Research, development, testing and evaluation of NGAD is predicted to cost $16 billion over the subsequent five years. Nevertheless, the Air Force does reportedly want the long run warplane to have “drastically” lower operating costs than its F-22s and—one hopes—its F-35s.
Kendall also indicated that the Pentagon sought to avoid centralizing ownership of an excessive amount of of the NGAD in a single manufacturer, an issue causing IP disputes between the Pentagon and F-35 manufacturer Lockheed. The goal for NGAD will probably be to have the federal government retain mental property for more aircraft systems from the onset, in order that it might probably easily slot in recent technologies from other firms and even devise its own quick fixes without facing a barrage of cease-and-desist letters.
It’s value noting that, mind-bogglingly, there are literally two “Next Generation Air Dominance” programs with the very same names, the opposite being run by the U.S. Navy to eventually replace its FA-18E/F Super Hornet carrier-based fighters.
The Rebirth and Death of the Latest Century Series
For some time, it appeared like the Air Force might even multiple variants of NGAD using a brand new evolutionary procurement model advocated by former tech czar Will Roper that may emphasize rapid development and short production cycles (50 to 100 aircraft) with shorter service lives. He believed this was possible because of digital design tools, which might allow for very rapid design, tweaking and testing of prototypes.
Even by Roper’s own calculation, nevertheless, this approach would have been dearer than the present long-term service life model—though his pitch was that the dollars would stream to purchasing brand-new designs every decade or so slightly than updating and refurbishing old ones. His point of reference was the Century Series of jets within the Fifties-Sixties—the F-100 through F-111—most of which were quickly entered and withdrawn from service resulting from the breakneck pace of advancements in military aviation technology.
In recent times, though, the concept that the U.S. could start churning out a number of successively higher sorts of combat aircraft as rapidly as Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs evolve their online products has been met with deserved pushback, and not reflects the Pentagon’s current strategy. It’s value recalling a big fraction of the unique Century Series aircraft had horrific accident rates or rapidly proved ineffective or outdated.
To be fair, computer design tools have already demonstrated their great potential to speed up design tasks. And ideally, the appearance of open-architecture systems should make updating weapons, systems and capabilities easier to upgrade.
NGAD and China
The U.S. Air Force has more and higher combat aircraft than China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force. It also has vastly more support assets, operational experience and realistic training. However the qualitative technical edge isn’t as overwhelming because it was 20 years ago.
China is now producing aircraft comparable to U.S. non-stealth F-15s, F-16s and FA-18s, in addition to a decent J-20 stealth fighter with a second following in development. Though its aviation industry remains to be mastering production of high-performance jet engines, unlike Russia, it’s apparently deploying advanced AESA-class radars on not less than a few of its fighters and very-long range air-to-air missiles the U.S. doesn’t yet have an equal to.
NGAD is hoped to offer a brand new ‘technological offset’ to U.S. military air-to-air combat capabilities, which must also remain effective throughout the air defense zone of surface-to-air missiles. But moreover, the NGAD likely have prolonged range—because of internal fuel—to raised meet the challenges of operating across the vast distances of the Pacific Ocean.
Short range is a significant limitation of current U.S. fighters, which might should be based inside easy striking distance of Chinese land-attack missiles were they to be involved in a conflict over Taiwan or defense of Japan. Aerial refueling isn’t only logistically demanding, but can only go to date, because the tankers are usually not stealth aircraft themselves.
It’s thus suggested that the Air Force may order each short- and long-range models to be used within the European and Pacific theaters respectively.
NGAD can also be certain to be designed to fight alongside multiple expendable loyal wingmen-style drones that may carry more weapons, tackle riskier tasks, and even divert attacks away from the manned NGAD jet.
Though specialized in air-to-air just like the F-22, NGAD will retain some ground attack capabilities—including for suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD)—and is hoped to have a greater internal weapon capability than the F-22.
For now, we will only speculate what the competing designs resemble and which will probably be chosen. It’s absolutely clear now that there can only be one, despite Lockheed’s impressive F-22 Raptor prototype defeating Northrop’s admirable YF-23 Black Widow three many years ago—a call still debated by aviation enthusiasts many years later.