For years, the Air Force has consistently affirmed that its secrecy-shrouded program to develop a Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation jet fighter would make sure the service could proceed to dominate the skies into the mid-21st century and replace the already impressive (but digitally dated) F-22 Raptor stealth fighters.
The service maintained that NGAD, projected to cost $16 billion, was being developed with unprecedented speed. In 2020, the Air Force revealed a minimum of one full-scale NGAD demonstrator had begun flight testing—and would remain the service’s top priority. Indeed, the Air Force was expected to award a contract this yr to either Boeing or Lockheed-Martin to construct a minimum of 200 NGAD fighters, each of which was projected to cost a whole bunch of tens of millions of dollars.
So, it got here as a little bit of a “big-time Lucy-and-the-football move” (as aviation journalist Bill Sweetman put it) when on June 14, the Air Force chief of staff Daniel Allvin got very cagey about NGAD’s future.
“The deliberations are still underway, there’s been no decision made,” he said in a roundtable. “We’re taking a look at a number of very difficult options that we’ve to think about.”
Adding to the ominous management-about-to-announce-layoffs vibes, he suggested the service had found “a special way for developing capabilities” without necessarily requiring a manned sixth-generation fighter: by “leaning into” the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone jet fighter originally intended to accompany NGAD into battle.
It’s possible that the Air Force’s suddenly funereal tone regarding NGAD could also be a political ploy geared toward scary Congress into granting additional funding. Indeed, the services sometimes present unappealing outcomes within the hopes of inciting such money-laden interventions. (There are also instance of congressional interventions to save lots of programs or vehicles the services genuinely did need to retire, including the A-10 Thunderbolt and Littoral Combat Ship.)
However it’s not inconceivable that an actual budgetary squeeze—combined with shifts in how the Air Force is evaluating the usefulness, cost, and longevity of introducing a sixth-generation stealth fighter—could find yourself dooming NGAD.
Notably, the Navy also recently revealed that it was indefinitely delaying NGAD’s sister program (also named NGAD), geared toward developing a carrier-based sixth-generation jet fighter called F/A-XX (also dubbed Project2937 or Link Plummeria in some budget documents). This might replace the Navy’s non-stealth FA-18E/F Super Hornet jets, which can stop production in 2025.
Though expected to award an FA-XX contract to the massive three (Northrup Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing) this yr, in March, the service announced that it will delay two-thirds of this system’s $1.5 billion annual budget so it could deal with improving readiness rates of operational squadrons.
What was NGAD imagined to do?
The Air Force currently operates two stealth fighters: about 180 (set to shrink to roughly 150) F-22A Raptor stealth fighters which are optimized for air-to-air combat, and a burgeoning force of roughly 260 F-35A Lightning multi-role fighters which are more oriented towards strike missions. Over 1,000 more F-35A Lightnings are expected to follow.
Unfortunately, the awesomely maneuverable Raptors are burdened by outdated Nineteen Nineties electronics and dear stealth coatings, and major upgrades could be impractically expensive, because the F-22 isn’t any longer in production.
So, the Air Force was counting on NGAD to exchange the F-22 and complement its F-35s as a totally 21st-century-tech air superiority fighter, complete with greater thrust generated by a next-generation adaptive cycle engines, more cost-efficient stealth materials to scale back operating costs, integrated AI and drone control capabilities, and advanced sensor and fire control networking capabilities. These traits are intended to assist maintain an edge over China and Russia’s recent stealth aircraft and ground-based integrated air defense systems.
Did land-based nukes kill the Air Force’s recent stealth fighter?
A senior Air Force official posting under the social media handle ‘Mike Black’ wrote that the service’s investments in conventional warfare are undermined by having to concurrently modernize the land- and air-launched nukes it will reasonably never use in a fight.
Through unlucky timing, the service is carrying out three major modernizations which are concurrently affecting its ground-based LGM-30G Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), B-2 stealth bombers, and B-52-launched AGM-86 cruise missiles. Their respective replacements can be Northrup Grumman’s LGM-35 Sentinel ICBM, Northrup Grumman’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber, and Raytheon’s AGM-181 LRSO cruise missile. Sentinel’s price, particularly, has already run 37% over budget to $125 billion.
“The present DAF topline can’t afford B-21, NGAD, and Sentinel. Period,” Black wrote. “Don’t pass go, don’t make tradeoffs, it’s just an absolute nonstarter.” He notes this was predictable a decade earlier, but it surely only became a “‘rubber meets the road’ situation budgetarily” within the 2026 budget since the “budget bomb everyone knew was coming on Sentinel exploded.”
He argued that the service would much prefer NGAD fighters, but is inflexibly committed by politically driven expectations into sinking tens of billions into refurbishing/rebuilding nuclear missile silos.
Did F-35s eat NGAD’s budget?
One other theory advanced by aviation journalist Bill Sweetman argues that F-35 operating cost overruns and the floundering Block 4 effort may cut into the budgetary margins needed to fund NGAD.
The F-35 stealth fighter was notoriously burdened by a torturous and over-budget development process, but has been a business success within the 2020s (export orders proceed to grow) and up to now appears to be perform satisfactorily within the air.
But two stubborn problems remain: its operating costs per flight hour remain high and proceed to rise (currently, for the Air Force, they run around $6.6 million annually per F-35A), which has prompted the services to fly the aircraft less steadily as operational availability rate has steadily declined over five years.
Meanwhile, this system to upgrade F-35s to a brand new Block 4 standard is so a few years behind schedule and has gone up to now over budget that, in April, the Air Force announced it was substantially truncating the upgrade by trimming away quite a few capabilities planned for its ‘Tech Refresh 3’ update.
Could Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones substitute for NGAD?
The Air Force appears to see a path wherein the NGAD’s individually developed CCA drones team up with F-35s (and maybe even non-stealth F-15EXs and F-16s). Armed with recent long-range air-to-air missiles (AIM-260 and possibly oversized LREWs), the service seems to think they might theoretically maintain air superiority without NGAD.
To make certain, NGAD’s CCA drone is already intended to fly alongside the services’ 5th generation F-35 stealth fighters, and can likely be adapted eventually to be used with other combat aircraft.
One potential tactical concept, then, is to depend on CCA drones to man the high-risk ‘frontline’ in an air-to-air engagement, while a “standoff force” of manned fighters stays dozens of miles further back—each controlling multiple drones concurrently while also contributing long-range missile shots.
It’s value noting that Air Force requirements are shaping the CCA drone to be a comparatively capable and expensive non-expendable aircraft—though, one which costs one-third the value of a manned stealth fighter reasonably than the one-tenth originally conceived for ‘loyal wingman’ drones. That cost does have major downsides, but it surely might mean that the CCA’s premium features could higher compensate for older hardware on accompanying 5th– or 4th-generation fighters.
Moreover, drones might be evolved or replaced in response to recent technologies more cheaply and simply than manned aircraft, which entail very long commitments to sustain, upgrade, and train operators.
Nonetheless, Black argued that while the Air Force could attempt to “cram” NGAD’s role and capabilities into an F-35 “…you’re going to be losing inherent capabilities you’ll get from the NGAD airframe (low-observability performance, range/kinematic performance, and payload […]).”
Particularly as China expands its fleet of J-20 stealth fighters and deploys recent types (just like the J-35 and, eventually, its own sixth-generation air superiority jet), it could be harder to maintain threats from closing inside effective attack range of friendly manned aircraft.
In such scenarios, a stealth jet with the thrust and maneuverability to sustainably perform aggressive air combat maneuvers could be a desirable complement to the F-35. Moreover, NGAD is probably going be engineered for greater range than the F-22 and F-35, making it each a greater fit for the expansive Pacific theater and able to escorting B-21 stealth bombers far deeper into hostile airspace while relying only on internal fuel.
Perhaps the Air Force simply isn’t confident that any highly expensive stealth fighter it cooks up today will remain effective long enough to justify the billions in sustainment costs that can be incurred over multiple many years.
Officials have implied that the service might prefer to avoid long-term commitments to a manned design (which could rapidly turn out to be obsolete) in favor of a type of serial monogamy—picking up and discarding inexpensive drones in response to technological developments.
Only time will tell, because the Air Force’s seeming change of heart regarding NGAD (feigned or not) is certain to impress controversy and debate in Congress, and the military-industrial sector more broadly.
Sébastien Roblin has written on the technical, historical, and political points of international security and conflict for publications including 19FortyFive, The National Interest, MSNBC, Forbes.com, Inside Unmanned Systems and War is Boring. He holds a Master’s degree from Georgetown University and served with the Peace Corps in China. You possibly can follow his articles on Twitter.