Confirming what was reported in early July, the U.S. Air Force (USAF) announced yesterday that it is working on a restructuring plan for its future sixth-generation NGAD fighter, aiming to reduce its original substantial costs to an amount lower than that of an F-35. This was stated by the current Secretary of the Air Force, Frank Kendall, during the Air, Space & Cyber 2024 event.
Quoting some of his remarks: “We are not moving away from the core mission of the U.S. Air Force to provide air supremacy (…) Let me give you this from memory: the F-35 represents, to me, the upper limit of what we would like to pay.” It should be noted that this would imply a cost between $80 and $100 million, significantly lower than the hundreds of millions originally proposed for the platform, which was three times the investment required by the USAF.
Specifically, the U.S. Air Force intends to have a redesigned program by the time the fiscal year 2026 budget is delivered, having started the reformulation process just two months ago. Although the anticipated changes to the program’s requirements have not been detailed, local specialized media are already speculating about potential reductions in the future aircraft’s capabilities in terms of range, payload, and number of engines. Other, less viable alternatives include starting a new refueling aircraft program, referred to as NGAS.
It is also useful to consider that changes to the NGAD program had been proposed previously, aiming for it to no longer be a potential replacement for the high-performance F-22s, which have high operational costs that make their deployment less cost-effective. In this regard, Vice Chief of Staff James C. Slife stated: “(…) designing the features around the platform; around the size of the radar needed, the aircraft’s range, how many G-forces are desired. All those things are optimized within the platform (…) We have reached a point where, thanks to our system-level integration, we have the ability to break down these capabilities and analyze air supremacy in a broader way.”
On the other hand, Secretary Kendall has stated that there is also work underway to reduce costs by transferring capabilities from the NGAD to collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) that complement the program: “Once CCAs start to be integrated and some equipment and mission capabilities are transferred to the CCAs, then a different concept can be discussed.” However, this should also be approached with caution, as the USAF is already investing a significant amount of money in their development, which could lead to a similar problem in the short term.
Finally, it should be noted that due to the urgency of this redesign for fiscal year 2026, the U.S. Air Force has established a new panel of experts to help evaluate the new approach adopted for the NGAD program with a reduced budget. This is a group of six people, composed of former USAF chiefs of staff and Defense Department experts. However, it should be clarified that their role will not be to make the final decision on the new proposed direction, a task that remains with the Chief of Staff, General David W. Allvin, and Secretary Kendall; ultimately, it will be up to the U.S. Congress for budgetary approval.
Images used for illustrative purposes
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