A new U.S. Air Force analysis recommends continuing the development of NGAD, as well as terminating the NGAS stealth tanker program which was supposed to support the next gen fighter in contested airspace.
After months of internal debates and analysis, the U.S. Air Force seems to have reached a decision on two large programs under development that had come under intense scrutiny because of their cost.
The Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation stealth fighter, after hanging on the wire for months and undergoing a lengthy review that carefully dissected the program, seems to have finally received a favorable ruling. However, the Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) stealth tanker seems destined to a gloomy future, as the USAF recommended against pursuing it.
While the NGAD stealth fighter and the NGAS stealth tanker seem unrelated developments, they became related to each other under the long USAF analysis, as they are both high-cost programs and each could become less relevant if the other is pursued. Deploying large stealth tankers could be useful if the Air Force could not pursue a long-range advanced next-generation fighter, allowing greater range to current stealth and legacy platforms, but if instead a long-range NGAD is acquired, then the need for stealth tankers decreases.
Moreover, pursuing the NGAD program and a large fleet of conventional large tankers like the KC-46 Pegasus, the U.S. Air Force aims to achieve survivable aerial refueling by disrupting the enemy’s already complicated process of finding, tracking and engaging even large conventional aerial targets at extremely long ranges.
“There are many attack surfaces that we can attack to bring survivable air refueling,” said Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel, the Air Force’s director of Force Design, Integration and Wargaming on the Air Staff in the Pentagon. “NGAS might be part of the solution, but there are other places along this kill chain that we can attack the adversary, and that’s the approach.”
The introduction of smaller and cheaper unmanned tankers, like the new MQ-25 Stingray, could further push the conventional, less-survivable tankers outside the reach of the enemy, while still allowing an increase in range for the strikers and offering this capability at a lower cost than that required for fielding large stealth tankers.
The U.S. Air Force’s conclusions of the analysis on both NGAD and NGAS remain only recommendations, and could be overturned or disregarded (the long story of the possible retirement over the years of the A-10 Thunderbolt II being a good example of this). However, as the new Trump administration is finalizing the fiscal 2026 budget proposal, the results of military analysis could play an important role in the shaping of the budget requests for Congress and the future of the programs under development.
“NGAD remains an important part of our force design, and it fundamentally changes the character of the fight in a really, really good way for the joint force,” added Kunkel. “If the joint force wants to fight with an NGAD and air superiority in these really, really tough places to achieve it, then we’ll pursue NGAD. Frankly, it’ll be less operational risk.”
The NGAS program
The first steps of the program that later became the Next-Generation Air Refueling System (NGAS) happened back in 2006 as part of the Air Force’s decision to replace its aging fleet of refueling airplanes, with around 400 KC-135 tankers slated for replacement over the years in three phases.
The first part of the plan, named KC-X, involved a lengthy competition that initially saw a victory for the Northrop Grumman/EADS KC-45, a derivate of the European Airbus A330 MRTT tanker. The decision was later reversed with the contract then awarded to the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus, with 179 airframes bought.
The follow-on KC-Y contract to replace the larger KC-10 tanker (whose last airframe has been recently retired by the USAF) was similarly awarded to the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus, with a further 140 airframes acquired, but with the addition of survivability upgrades.
To replace the last KC-135 airframes, the final part of the program, KC-Z, instead featured the possibility of a large stealth tanker, with designs envisioning a flying wing or blended wing body configuration. Over the years, KC-Z became the current NGAS program. NGAS was expected to be able to operate closer to the frontlines to better support fighters, while more “traditional” tankers would be employed at a safer distance.
The Air Force envisioned three roles for tankers as part of NGAS. The bulk of the air refueling missions would be performed in a permissive environment by “traditional”, commercial-based tankers such as the KC-46, while a second tanker with additional self-protection upgrades would operate closer to the fight thanks to improved survivability and connectivity.
The last type, KC-Z, would operate in the same area of operations of fighter jets for high-end missions, thus requiring more self-protection and advanced networking than the current types, addressing threats that are posed by potential adversaries to high-value aircraft such as tankers while still being able to perform its air refueling mission. In addition to refueling, the NGAS tankers were expected to provide further capabilities, including autonomy, and battle management. Some of these capabilities might find their way on operational KC-46s even before NGAS enters service.
However, the high cost of fielding a stealth tanker (ranging from the cost of the stealth coatings and their expensive maintenance to the cost of designing a whole different airframe instead of using a commercial derivate), and the compromises it entails (including a smaller payload for its size) have been a serious issue for the NGAS program.
With the USAF already needing funds for the new B-21 stealth bombers, the replacement of Minuteman III ICBM with the new Sentinel ICBM, the testing and fielding of novel hypersonic weapons and the development of NGAD and new drones (like the upcoming CCA platforms), the possibility to fund another expensive program like the NGAS stealth tanker was already dim.
It remains to be seen what the Air Force’s new plans are regarding its tanker fleet, whether to field additional KC-46 Pegasus, run a new competition for a new (and possibly larger, to take over the role once played by the KC-10) tanker, complement the manned tankers fleet with unmanned drones like the MQ-25 Stingray or to simply delay the acquisition of a stealth tanker to the future.
Tags: US Air Force, USAF, KC-46, Pegasus, NGAS, Stealth tanker, MQ-25 Stingray, KC-135, KC-10, A330 MRTT
