The review examined whether it would be financially and technically feasible to continue the NGAD program as originally planned, with multiple alternatives such as disaggregated capabilities distributed across multiple assets.
The U.S. Air Force had announced early in December that the NGAD’s (Next Generation Air Dominance) ongoing review has concluded and that its fate now rests with the incoming Donald Trump administration. The study nevertheless supports the development of a manned, next-generation fighter, Breaking Defense reported.
However, in a statement to the publication, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, while not disputing the review’s results, also pointed towards several cost and technological considerations. While announcing the review in the middle of this year, the USAF had extended the Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction contracts for the Boeing and Lockheed Martin teams, as The Aviationist had reported. Both are expected to compete to become prime contractors and the extension allows them to continue working while the government decides on NGAD.
The final decision could be pushed beyond even Jan. 2025, taking into account the selections, nominations and confirmations of Trump’s cabinet, the Department of Defense’s leadership and the new government’s own perspectives on the program. Moreover, China flying two new claimed sixth-generation aircraft – seemingly a stealth regional bomber and a smaller fighter jet – the same day on Dec. 26, 2024, might also influence the new administration’s decision and tip the scales in the NGAD’s favor.
NGAD’s review
The NGAD, considered as a replacement for the F-22, is usually described as a “family of systems,” including the crewed aircraft as well as autonomous, unmanned ‘wingmen’ drones for ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), decoy or strike missions and other disaggregated capabilities.
Called CCAs (Collaborative Combat Aircraft), these drones are considered part of the family of systems, and are funded as an integral element of the NGAD program. The Air Force recently also revealed how it harbors an unconventional approach towards prototyping and fielding advanced variants for the CCAs in its progressive Increments.
The review for the NGAD was ordered owing to the immense technical complexity of the project, and a whopping price of several hundred million dollars per unit. The cost could have jeopardized other big ticket projects like the F-35 Lightning II, the B-21 Raider and the Sentinel ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile).
At one point, the U.S. Air Force was even considering an “expanded” role for the B-21 Raider, amid the review of the NGAD. This translated into new air dominance and air-to-air missions for the bomber, making it more of a multirole platform.
What the review constituted
The review meant to examine whether the development of a 6th generation fighter suited the evolving threat landscape before peer adversaries and budgetary considerations. Thus, as The Aviationist broke down in November reporting what the review constitutes, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall indicated that it will determine whether the Air Force continue with the original manned NGAD fighter concept, or shift to a distributed, multi-platform strategy.
In other words, would it be financially and technically more feasible to distribute sensing and weapons engagement across other unmanned systems and CCAs with the sixth-generation fighter acting as a “system of systems,” instead of packing them into a single expensive manned fighter?
Beside CCAs, the other aircraft could be bombers like the B-21 and other less expensive, more affordable fighters. Whether this means the Air Force review or the Trump administration’s decision would settle for an unmanned or an optionally manned jet remains to be seen. A subsequent aspect the review deals with is how unmanned systems and CCAs can complement or even substitute traditional fighter jets in some roles.
At least one full-scale prototype of NGAD has flown, and that announcement came almost 5 years ago. And at least 3 has been existence for a while. So unless this is the fully completed production model, this was not the world’s first 6th gen fighter’s maiden flight. https://t.co/uJCkcdbURp pic.twitter.com/SKPAFGAVbw
— Doha (@Doha104p3) December 26, 2024
U.S. Air Force’s Vice Chief of Staff General James C. Slife had previously expanded upon the issue, suggesting the direction the review was taking. “We’ve gotten to a point where [with] our systems-level integration, we have the ability to disaggregate these capabilities and look at air superiority more broadly,” Slife said. “So the radar may be in one location, the munition may be in another location.”
The increased number of manned and unmanned aircraft centered around a sixth-generation fighter is also in line with lessons from ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, which underscored the need for mass and size in a conventional war with a peer adversary. Here, scalable and mass-producible capital platforms like reasonably advanced jets and a preponderance of traditional ammunition that are not overly sophisticated, can decide a war’s strategic outcomes.
The broader rethink even encompassed conventional fifth generation manned fighters. The USAF chief Gen. David Allvin revealed in July, during a talk hosted by the U.K.’s Air and Space Power Association, that he envisions fighters that are “built to last” rather than “built to adapt.” This marked a shift from the Cold War-era design philosophy of having rugged and durable fighters, to developing easy to maintain, upgradable and scalable designs. He then also revealed an AI-generated image of a new jet, which the Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS) called a “Light Fighter.”
It is worth noting that the United States has already developed and might have flown its sixth-generation jet, the NGAD, a few years ago.
📸 CGI pic.twitter.com/kLunKmAr54
More from The Aviationist
— International Defence Analysis (@Defence_IDA) December 26, 2024
Review’s results
This raises the question of whether there are other tactical and doctrinal aspects that the review studied before reportedly okaying the NGAD concept. Breaking Defense quoted Kendall’s public comments, who mentioned the service checked how the NGAD would fit into the ACE (Agile Combat Employment) operational concept it is practicing across the European and Asian theaters and whether elements like a next-generation tanker would be needed.
“Our analysis also highlights that there may be significant opportunity costs associated with proceeding with NGAD, given the DAF’s [Department of the Air Force] strategic priorities and the potential level of Air Force and Space Force budgets,” Kendall added. “There are a number of interdependencies and alternative options at various risk and resourcing levels which the next administration will have to consider before making a decision. All options remain on the table.”
Without sharing the results, Kendall said that the NGAD analysis was “mostly done”, but the new Trump team “may want some additional analysis.” He added that the Air Force is “very close to being ready to proceed if that program continues its current form.”
This could be a reference to the recent comments by SpaceX’s chief and tech tycoon Elon Musk, who is a close Donald Trump associate, which recently called manned fighter jets “obsolete in the age of drones,” on X. Musk, who is expected to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been highly critic of the F-35 and new manned aircraft in general.
The influence of China’s new fighters
On Dec. 26, 2024, China unveiled two new stealth fighters, one from the Chengdu Aircraft Corporation (CAC) and the other from Shenyang Aircraft Corporation. Sources from Chinese internet claim them to be 6th generation aircraft demonstrators, although without knowing the capabilities of the aircraft it’s difficult to assess whether these are 5th or 6th gen aircraft.
The description of 6th generation itself is still being debated, as they are often seen as multirole assets, air superiority assets, “quarterbacks” of the attack force, depending on who you ask. The first sighting of these aircraft, which flew in broad daylight over densely populated areas without apparent effort to hide, came as a surprise to many, but not to USAF and DoD officials.
In 2022, in fact, the then head of the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, Gen. Mark Kelly, mentioned that China has been working on ‘system of systems’ similar to the ones being developed for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, including a 6th-generation manned fighter jet.
According to the General, the intelligence showed that China had similar views of what a 6th gen aircraft should be, with open mission systems, high computing power, deep sensing and very low observability. These characteristics would be accompanied by long operational range, high speed, large payload and the possibility to act as a command and control node or perform manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) operations.
Similarly to how the NGAD program was initially envisioned as a successor to the F-22 Raptor, the Chinese 6th gen aircraft might be envisioned as a successor to the J-20 Mighty Dragon. The U.S. Air Force saw a manned 6th-generation fighter as the centerpiece of the family of systems, accompanied by Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). China might do the same with the FH-97A drone unveiled in 2022 and described as a Loyal Wingman (the old name of the CCAs).
The U.S. Air Force already flew a full scale prototype of a next generation fighter, according to the announcement made by the then Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Dr. Will Roper, in 2020. Three years later, Secretary Kendall also revealed that a secret, multi-agency X-plane program paved the way for NGAD.
The U.S. might not be a lot behind China’s work, however the work to field the future 6th gen fighter jet is still long. Years of testing are only useful as long as you field an actual combat ready aircraft.
The introduction of new Chinese aircraft is often dismissed by the public with the usual comments about Chinese technology and its quality, but the U.S. military doesn’t take this lightly. We can rest assured that the intelligence is already at work and, most probably, already has more details than the ones we reported about.
It remains to be seen, however, how much these aspects will influence the continuation of NGAD. Political questions aside, the imperative to keep an edge over peer adversaries might prompt further changes in the NGAD program.
It’s a matter of capabilities and timelines, as NGAD is expected to outmatch the threats that the U.S. military might encounter in combat. There’s a possibility that the freshly concluded NGAD review already takes all this in account, however, as further details come out, we can’t exclude further evolutions.
In some ways, this was already anticipated by the comments of Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. Since “we did the initial analysis of alternatives for NGAD, frankly, our technology base has advanced in ways faster than we anticipated,” said Hunter. “So we see that there are capabilities that we have [now] that perhaps we would want to be part of this mission space going forward that weren’t baked into where we started with the NGAD system.”
