The NGAD’s fate could be determined by the end of the year.
Earlier this summer, the Air Force seemed to be growing wary of its Next Generation Air Dominance Fighter program, which is intended to be the replacement for the F-22 Raptor interceptor beginning in the 2030s.
The “NGAD” — as defense nerds refer to it — is not yet in production. But that doesn’t mean the program isn’t controversial.
As Defense News put it back in June, the NGAD
is a highly classified program featuring a crewed sixth-generation fighter with adaptive engines that can switch to the most efficient configuration as flying conditions change. The effort also calls for autonomous drone wingmen — known as collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA — and other new systems such as cutting-edge sensors, weaponry, and technology that improves the jet’s ability to connect with satellites and other aircraft.
The key point here is that the Air Force is developing a manned fighter-of-the-future when we all know that drones of all kinds and varieties are rapidly improving and advancing.
Now, there are good reasons to want a manned warplane. There are the dystopian ethical considerations of push-button killing on the battlefield. There are the technical challenges and risks associated with counting on drones — in an era of advanced electronic warfare and jamming — to always be useful and available on the battlefield: A manned aircraft, even if it has lost comms with higher command and control, would still be able to fight and get back home. Could a drone?
And there is the tricky fact that, if we bet on drones but our potential adversaries end up fielding advanced manned fighters, we could be putting ourselves at a huge disadvantage.
On the other hand, there are real downsides to moving forward with the NGAD, beginning with cost. In an interview with Defense News this summer, Air Force secretary Frank Kendall said the NGAD is “now expected to cost roughly three times as much as an individual F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.”
Yowza.
With F-35s costing about $80 million to $100 million, that means NGAD’s price tag could be verging on $300 million apiece — and would greatly limit the size of its potential fleet.
“It’s a very expensive platform,” Kendall said. “It’s three times, roughly, the cost of an F-35, and we can only afford it in small numbers.”
This brings me to the write-up I saw in Air & Space Forces Magazine today. The magazine’s Chris Gordon reports that “the future of the Air Force’s next-generation combat jet will be decided by the end of the year, the service’s top officer said Oct. 25.”
“We intend to have that by December,” Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin said at the Military Reporters and Editors Conference in Washington, D.C. “We also want to be able to influence the Department’s Presidential Budget Submission in February.”
Hey, I’m not usually one to complain about the Pentagon moving too fast on major defensive contracts and weapon-systems development — it’s the opposite that’s usually the problem — but I have to say I’m surprised.
This single decision will be a consequential one for our nation in the next few decades — and not merely for our pocketbooks. Are we sure we know what we’re doing?
Correction: I reader pointed out to me that I had originally misidentified Frank Kendall as the Air Force chief of staff instead of as the secretary of the Air Force. I regret the error.