The USAF (United States Air Force, or in Portuguese, American Air Force) is evaluating profound changes in the concept and design of its future Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter to reduce expenses. The future of the program has been in question recently as the Air Force faces budgetary challenges.
As reported by Defense News, USAF Secretary Frank Kendall reaffirmed that the Air Force will continue with plans to develop the new sixth-generation fighter jet, opting to explore more affordable concepts. With the USAF dealing with rising costs on programs like the B-21 Raider and ICBM Sentinel, some difficult decisions must be made about the future aircraft. Kendall commented to Defense News:
“I can tell you that we are looking at the design concept of the NGAD platform to see if it is the right concept or not. We are looking at whether we can do something that is less costly and make some trade-offs.”
Last month, Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin mentioned that there were “a lot of very difficult options” to consider regarding NGAD. One of these options could be a redesign of the Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion (NGAP) engines, which, while maintaining the adaptive concept, would have less power.
Each NGAD fighter, estimated to cost more than $300 million, exceeds by more than three times the unit price of an F-22 Raptor, the aircraft that is scheduled to be phased out of the fleet over the next decade. Earlier this year, the USAF announced plans to acquire 200 fighters and 1.000 CCA's (Collaborative Combat Aircraft), with the aim of putting them into service by the early 2030s.
The USAF's 2025 budget request allocates more than $2,7 billion for NGAD development costs, plus another $577 million for the platform's CCA drones, totaling more than $3,3 billion. This will increase to nearly $7,3 billion in 2028 and $8,3 billion in 2029 before the platform enters service.
The USAF was expected to award a contract for the program later this year, but that decision may be delayed depending on future conceptual changes. With the withdrawal of Northrup Grumman of the dispute over the role of prime contractor, it is widely speculated that the Boeing and Lockheed Martin are the two main candidates to develop the next generation platform.
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