NGAD: Why the U.S. Air Force’s New $300 Million Fighter Is in Trouble

How fares the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) project?  The NGAD is designed to produce a new generation of fighter aircraft, replacing much of the Air Force’s legacy fleet and bringing a suite of new capabilities to the long-range strike mission. The NGAD was also supposed to revolutionize the defense industrial base (DIB) and change the way that the United States builds and buys fighter planes.

But there are evidently some troubles. The Air Force seems to be backpedaling on its commitment to the NGAD, and the entire project appears to have left the DIB cold. Does the NGAD still have a future, or are we seeing the sunset of the manned air superiority fighter?

NGAD: What Is It?

The NGAD is intended to be a long-range, stealthy penetration aircraft designed to fly and fight in airspace that is not merely contested but actively owned by an opponent.

Like the B-21 and the F-35, the NGAD is supposed to act as a communications and sensor hub, helping to direct capabilities from outside contested airspace (drones, stand-off missiles) to targets inside that bubble. This is distinct from the mission of the F-22 Raptor, but the NGAD was nevertheless expected to replace the Raptor in the Air Force’s fleet over the next several decades. The NGAD was also supposed to play well with the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) or “loyal wingman” drone, which would carry weapons and perform a variety of other missions in support of deep penetration efforts.

NGAD: Less F-35, More Toyota Camry

But the NGAD is more than an aircraft; it’s an idea for reshaping how the US procures fighter jets. The NGAD has long been identified with Will Roper, former Air Force acquisition chief. In Roper’s vision the NGAD would look less like the F-35 and more like the Toyota Camry. The former is built to tight specifications that are extremely difficult to change or update, requiring an industrial infrastructure and workforce designed around precision and repeatability. The latter gets updated every year, and key components from the system can find their way into the Siena or whatever other platform the firm needs to produce.

Roper envisioned a disconnect (made plausible by advanced drafting software and modern manufacturing techniques) between design and production, consequently breaking the monopoly of the big aerospace firms over the entire life cycle of a fighter.  Roper explicitly cited the Air Force’s experience with the “Century Series,” a family of fighters that served at the dawn of the jet age, in descriptions of what the NGAD program might eventually look like.

The NGAD program appeared to make good progress through the first half of last year. Three demonstrators were built, and a competition for the major contract was inaugurated.  Air Force officials have begun to express uncertainty about the project’s future. The program is now on pause.

Why Is NGAD In Trouble?

Projects like NGAD fall apart for several reasons. The strategic situation may change; key technologies may develop in unexpected ways; the economic foundation of the project may never come together. There are indications that the latter two of these issues may afflict the NGAD.

Cost projections now list the aircraft at around $255-300 million, roughly three times the price of an F-35. The plan to sidestep the edifice of the American defense industrial base has, unsurprisingly, been less than popular with the American defense industrial base. Because of the nature of the program (producing a variety of aircraft with different specifications) it seems extremely unlikely that there will be returns to scale in terms of maintenance costs; different aircraft will require different parts and differently trained maintainers. Experience in the Russia-Ukraine War (admittedly at a far lower level of technology) hasn’t shown much promise for penetration by manned aircraft deep into contested airspace. Indeed, the extensive use of drones in that war for a wide variety of missions may have cooled the enthusiasm of both the Navy and the Air Force for another ultra-expensive generation of manned fighters.

What Happens Now?

We don’t yet have full perspective on the NGAD project. It may be that asking for a new fighter while the F-35 remains relatively early in its production lifespan was a bit too much. It wouldn’t exactly be shocking if a project explicitly patterned around the Century Series of fighter aircraft ended up in complete disaster. The Century Series itself was a bit of a disaster, producing some good fighters, some flying coffins, and some jets that were obsolete by the time of their test flights. But it is too early to say that the project will end in failure. The complexity of service politics and of relations between Congress and the Department of Defense make it difficult to predict the future of the NGAD.

There is no question, however, that the NGAD is on less solid ground now than a year ago.

About the Author: Dr. Robert Farley

Dr. Robert Farley has taught security and diplomacy courses at the Patterson School since 2005. He received his BS from the University of Oregon in 1997, and his Ph. D. from the University of Washington in 2004. Dr. Farley is the author of Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force (University Press of Kentucky, 2014), the Battleship Book (Wildside, 2016), Patents for Power: Intellectual Property Law and the Diffusion of Military Technology (University of Chicago, 2020), and most recently Waging War with Gold: National Security and the Finance Domain Across the Ages (Lynne Rienner, 2023). He has contributed extensively to a number of journals and magazines, including the National Interest, the Diplomat: APAC, World Politics Review, and the American Prospect. Dr. Farley is also a founder and senior editor of Lawyers, Guns and Money.