U.S. Air Force NGAD Program Has Clouds on the Horizon: The U.S. Air Force’s Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter program has already endured starts and stops. The Air Force has high hopes for the 6th-generation jet, but it has been on “pause” due to design improbabilities and its high estimated cost, which has ballooned to an estimated $300 million each. Air Force acquisition honchos are trying to figure out the future of NGAD and what they want out of the newfangled airplane.
What is happening now? Will the NGAD higher ever come to fruition? Here is what we know right now:
Air Superiority Is Needed First and Foremost
One aspect of this thinking is the need for the NGAD to show air superiority in complex and dangerous threat environments expected from China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran—all countries in which future conflict could arise. NGAD needs to be the best of the best, with a manned pilot or an unmanned remotely piloted version.
Air Force Secretary Wants NGAD to Be Manned
However, there is speculation about the future of NGAD since Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall put the breaks on further development until the branch has a better handle on it. Kendall said “we’re still going to do a sixth-generation, crewed aircraft.”
Consider Kendall a vote for the manned option. However, he may not be the Air Force Secretary under the administration of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. Kendall has stated that he wants to remain at the helm, so future Air Force leadership is another question mark for NGAD.
Still a Murky Future
Some other Air Force leaders have been ready to return to the drawing board with the NGAD. Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife said at a defense conference last month “From a requirements perspective, what I would say is we’re going back and starting at the beginning with ‘What is the thing we’re trying to do?’” Slife said. “‘How do we achieve air superiority in a contested environment?’ would be one way to frame the question. A different way to frame the question would be, ‘How do we build a sixth-gen manned fighter platform?’ I mean, those are not necessarily the same questions.”
This commentary does not give me confidence. I get the air superiority bit, however, a top Air Force general is still unsure about the NGAD and that’s not promising.
What I Would Like to See From the NGAD
My inclination is that the NGAD should be manned by a two-person crew – one pilot and one weapons officer. It should also employ the “Loyal Wingman Concept” in which one or more combat or reconnaissance drones are tethered to the NGAD. The Air Force has renamed this as the “Collaborative Combat Aircraft” or CCA.
Drone Teams for Air Dominance
The Air Force wants to invest $6 billion in the next four years on CCA drones. Air Force-Technology.com describes the CCA as “a system-of-systems approach with the next-generation fighter aircraft, weapons, sensors, networking and battle management systems to maintain air superiority in the coming decades.”
That sounds interesting and the CCA could be autonomous too which would meet the air superiority objective. The CCA also needs to be stealthy – equal to the radar evasion capability of the NGAD. It also means both the CCA and NGAD would need next-generation stealth aerial re-fueling. This would keep an entire mission beyond the reach of enemy radar systems.
The Best in Artificial Intelligence and Cyber Warfare
The next thing I would like to see with the NGAD and CCA is the maximum use of artificial intelligence and machine learning as these technologies get better in the next ten years. Advanced cyber warfare capabilities would be nice. Also, NGAD and CCA need a new generation of weapons to match the leaps in AI/ML.
So, we have a long way to go with the NGAD and CCA. The Air Force should be concerned about the program’s goals and objectives. However, something will have to replace the F-22. The NGAD and CCA need to move to the engineering, manufacturing, and design development phase soon. NGAD will not be a traditional fighter so the whole concept of aerial combat needs to be re-imagined for the threat environment in the 2030s and beyond.
We will watch the development of the NGAD closely. The stakes are high, and the money, time, and resources expended has already been significant. Let’s hope the program does not get cancelled in a new presidential administration and the Air Force can be thorough during its design and initial engineering phase and move the program from red to the green light.
About the Author: Dr. Brent M. Eastwood
Brent M. Eastwood, PhD, is the author of Don’t Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare, plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former U.S. Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.
Jacksonian Libertarian
October 16, 2024 at 11:04 pm
In the Information Age of drone swarms “What is Air Superiority’s purpose?”.
In the Industrial Age, gaining “Air Superiority” meant bombing the enemy with impunity and providing air support to ground forces while the enemy could not do the same.
But, with the presently dominant air defense systems, gaining air superiority is impossible, as flying over the battlefield even with “Stealth” is suicide.
The fact is “Drones own the modern battlefield” and the side with the most drones will win.
For the price of one NGAD ($300 million) hundreds if not thousands of cheap, long-range, runway-independent, expendable drones can be fielded.
Where are America’s drone swarms?
The Pentagon is utterly incompetent.
pagar
October 16, 2024 at 11:30 pm
NGAD unlikely to materialize.
The main reason being joe biden recklessly emptied the stores of the military to fund and support his pet project in ukraine.
Thus biden gutted the US military and drained away nearly all its vital funds (included those set aside for black designs and black ops), so no real money to spare for legit items like NGAD.
No money, so no future for the aircraft. Thanks, joe.
JingleBells
October 17, 2024 at 2:21 am
This much ballyhooed fighter is probably dead in the water.
That’s because zelenskyy is insisting on his victory plan to be accepted by NATO.
But the ‘victory plan’ requires membership in NATO, security guarantees and also nuclear weapons, presumably b61 bombs.
Nothing mentioned at all in the Victory Plan about 6-gen fighters like NGAD.
All only about NATO weapons already now available from brussels and also washington.
Biden needs to make his decision now on the great victory plan put forward by zelenskyy.
Biden is travelling to germany in the next few hours and a yes to the Victory Plan will spell the end for NGAD.
Finito then for sixth-gen.