{"id":1429,"date":"2026-02-16T08:04:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T06:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1429"},"modified":"2025-12-23T13:19:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T11:19:00","slug":"ngad-why-the-air-force-paused-next-generation-air-dominance-combat-jet-program-and-whats-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/?p=1429","title":{"rendered":"NGAD: Why the Air Force Paused Next-Generation Air Dominance Combat Jet Program – And What\u2019s Next"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet\u2014the centerpiece of the Air Force\u2019s future air superiority plans\u2014faces a crucial design review.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What kind of aircraft the Air Force needs, what it can afford, and how long it will be before that aircraft is available all hang in the balance. The threat NGAD must defeat is evolving faster than predicted, its unit cost is extremely high\u2014though classified, estimates near $300 million a copy\u2014and new technologies make other approaches possible. Those factors drove Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall to \u201cpause\u201d the program over the summer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Time is short and the stakes are very high. Seeking a clear decision in less than three months, Kendall assembled a high-level panel of experts to help with the decision:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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NGAD had been gliding toward a contractor selection in September when Kendall pressed pause. The surprise decision triggered anxious speculation: Was the Air Force abandoning the air superiority mission? Would the crewed NGAD give way to uncrewed alternatives? Kendall strenuously declared that no such fundamental changes are in play.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe are not walking away from the core United States Air Force function of providing air superiority,\u201d he said, repeating himself\u00a0 for emphasis.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The design concepts and requirements for NGAD are already \u201cseveral years old,\u201d Kendall explained, and new threats are evolving so quickly that those design requirements may now be outdated. NGAD was meant to replace the F-22 and intended \u201cvery much for a specific mission under a specific set of circumstances,\u201d he noted, but the changing security landscape has not held steady, changing the calculus.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Because of \u201cthreat changes; because of financial constraints; because of the development of technology, including the introduction of CCAs [autonomous Collaborative Combat Aircraft],\u201d he said, it would be imprudent to commit to a single design before reconsidering all available options.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Finances may pose the greatest hurdle. The Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2024 capped defense spending at a time when inflation had already taken a bite out of military buying power. The Air Force\u2019s other modernization priorities\u2014the B-21<\/a>\u00a0bomber, the T-7 trainer, and the E-7 early warning aircraft\u2014are all demanding growing budget shares. On top of that, USAF must find about $40 billion in the last half of this decade to cover mounting cost overruns on the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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All of that argues for a less-costly answer to air superiority than one coming in at what Kendall has characterized as \u201cmultiple hundreds of millions\u201d of dollars per copy. In engagements over the course of the week, Kendall offered a thought experiment: \u201cGiven $200 million, what would you buy: one NGAD, or one F-35 and four CCAs?\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The point was less about the specifics of the choice than an illustration of the problem: A zero-sum game in which the Air Force has to balance capability vs. affordability. What Kendall really wants is NGAD capability at a much lower cost, he told reporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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How much lower? \u201cWe haven\u2019t set a number or threshold,\u201d he said, but the F-35\u2019s $80 million-plus cost \u201ckind of represents, to me, the upper bounds of what we\u2019d like to pay.\u201d Then he added, \u201cI\u2019d like to go lower, though.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Cost-cutting options include building a smaller aircraft, reducing the powerplant from one engine to two, off-loading some functions to other platforms, and reducing range and payload. A smaller aircraft, though, necessitates developing a stealthy aerial tanker to escort it into contested airspace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Functions that could be off-loaded onto CCAs that would escort the NGAD into battle include radar, weapons carriage, and electronic warfare.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The centerpiece element of the NGAD \u201cfamily of systems\u201d\u2014a crewed fighter\u2014could potentially be replaced with an autonomous, uncrewed aircraft. That wasn\u2019t plausible when the prototyping phase began a decade ago, but it may be plausible now, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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While Kendall was clearly leaving all his options on the table, he did for the first time clearly link NGAD, the Next Generation Air-refueling System, or NGAS, and CCAs in his speech, saying the three collectively constitute the highest priority for the combat air forces.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The assessments now underway may find that NGAD must go forward as it has been structured all along, top Air Force officials acknowledged. But a senior industry official said Kendall\u2019s talk of a jet with an F-35-like price tag \u201copened the door to a two-thirds cut in the cost of NGAD\u2014I don\u2019t see how he can walk that back.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Whether such a price point is achievable is another question, however. The NGAD family of systems was to comprise a stealthy crewed airplane\u2014sometimes known as the Penetrating Combat Aircraft, or PCA\u2014along with uncrewed, autonomous CCAs and a network of airborne and space-based sensors for unprecedented situational awareness.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A full-scale model of Anduril\u2019s \u201cFury,\u201d one of two competitors in the Air Force\u2019s Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, was on display at AFA\u2019s Air, Space & Cyber Conference.\u00a0H. Darr Beiser\/Air & Space Forces Association<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The CCAs are so entwined with NGAD that they share a budget line item. The Air Force has spent $4 billion on NGAD systems, including CCAs, since fiscal 2024; $3.6 billion of it on the crewed aircraft alone, not counting earlier research and development and prototyping efforts in partnership with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. According to its fiscal 2025 budget request, the Air Force plans to spend $19.6 billion on NGAD and $8.9 billion on CCAs through the end of the decade.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Though highly classified, a few things are known about the program. Kendall has said he launched a technology demonstration effort for what would become NGAD while he was undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics during the Obama administration. Those \u201cX-plane\u201d demonstrators have flown, most likely developed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said\u00a0 that her company wasn\u2019t bidding on NGAD, though she indicated Northrop would compete for the Navy\u2019s next-generation fighter, dubbed FXX. That platform has a similar mission.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti told reporters in October that her service is \u201cactually in source selection right now\u201d for its version of NGAD, the F\/A-XX. Boeing, Lockheed, and Northrop are all competing for that program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Describing the crewed NGAD options the Air Force developed, Kendall remained cagey. \u201cIt\u2019s a fairly mature design concept,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s classified, but it\u2019s an F-22 replacement. You can make some inferences from that.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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CCAs Under \u2018Tight Control\u2019<\/strong>
\nAnduril Industries and General Atomics Aeronautics stole the technology show at AFA\u2019s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, as each displayed a full-scale model of its entry for Increment 1 of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft. General Atomics went a step further, also displaying its XQ-67A demonstrator\u2014a real \u201cX-plane,\u201d which flew in June, and is a close cousin to the company\u2019s Increment 1 offering.
\nAutonomous CCAs could be game changers in air combat, providing added complexity to adversaries and greater flexibility and far greater numbers to USAF.
\nWhile the Air Force initially seemed to envision each crewed fighter directing three-to-five CCAs, that picture has now changed, said Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re talking about bigger numbers than that, now,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re moving toward greater reliance on uncrewed aircraft working with crewed platforms to achieve air superiority and to do other missions.\u201d
\nIf CCAs are \u201carmed and lethal \u2026 they must be under tight control,\u201d he said, indicating they would operate within line-of-sight communications of the crewed fighters that control them.
\n\u201cI think that that\u2019s an important thing to have in the mix: secure, reliable, line-of-sight communications,\u201d he said. Once communications with a CCA are lost they must return to base, \u201cwhich takes them out of the fight.\u201d
\nInsisting on line-of-sight contact with a CCA limits how far apart a fighter and CCA could operate. But at 25,000 feet\u2014the notional operating altitude for a CCA\u2014that range is still significant at nearly 200 miles.
\nBut what aircraft will control CCAs is still a \u201cquestion mark,\u201d Kendall said. The Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter might not necessarily control CCAs, he added, heightening speculation that one option is that the entire NGAD family will be uncrewed. That would suggest F-35s would take on control of CCAs.
\nCCA Increment 2 is also a question mark. USAF officials are still deciding whether it will be a less-sophisticated version\u2014an \u201cattritable\u201d platform whose cost is low enough that losing one is acceptable\u2014or a more exquisite version, with extremely low observability and advanced mission systems. Senior officials glibly referred to a later \u201cIncrement 3\u201d but offered no characteristics or timetable. Some have previously said that phase could involve close allies.
\nJohn Clark, head of Lockheed Martin\u2019s Skunk Works Advanced Development Programs division, said his company\u2019s Increment I concept aimed too high. Lockheed offered a \u201cgold-plated\u201d CCA with a high degree of stealth, a stark contrast from the nonstealthy designs from Anduril and General Atomics that feature large tail fins for stability.
\nFor Increment 2, \u201csomething that has more expendable characteristics, and is at a much, much lower cost point seems to be a good place to go explore,\u201d Clark said at a press conference. \u201cAnd so that\u2019s where we\u2019re exploring and putting time and energy in.\u201d Lockheed is still waiting to see \u201chow the Air Force is going to go with their requirements,\u201d he added, but that \u201cis where we think it\u2019s going.\u201d
\nHowever, the question is an open one, because without stealth, most CCAs \u201cAren\u2019t going to make it home,\u201d Clark said. He sees room for multiple approaches, to include survivable aircraft that \u201cmake it home every time.\u201d
\nGen. Duke Richardson, head of Air Force Materiel Command, said all of his operating centers except the Nuclear Weapons Center will have input into the development and fielding of CCAs. They include Air Force Research Labs, and the Air Force Test Center and Sustainment Center, among others. For now, the program is being managed by the Program Executive Officer for fighters and advanced aircraft, Maj. Gen. Jason Voorheis. However, with the introduction of the new Integrated Capabilities Command and the Integrated Capabilities Office, it\u2019s still to be determined where the program will land, Richardson said.
\nThe work of deciding what NGAD will be and the full role of CCAs is \u201call kind of coming together,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to have, hopefully, decisions on what that package of capability is going to look like\u201d in the near future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The purpose of CCAs is \u201cair superiority first and foremost,\u201d he said. That means electronic warfare, detecting air-to-air targets and carrying air-to-air munitions.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cAs we go forward, I expect there\u2019ll be a strike aspect of CCAs as well, but initially, we\u2019re focused on air superiority and how to use the CCAs in conjunction with the crewed aircraft to achieve air superiority,\u201d Kendall said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Getting a much lower price on NGAD depends on success with CCAs, Kendall said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cOnce you start integrating CCAs and transferring some mission equipment and capabilities [and] functions to the CCAs, then you can talk about a different concept\u201d for NGAD, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Industry officials pointed out, though, that at roughly $27 million or more per CCA\u2014and, notionally, five or six of them in the NGAD formation\u2014coupled with an $80 million crewed fighter, the overall cost for a unit of action is in the range of the crewed fighter alone. Add a stealthy tanker to the mix and the costs rise higher, with increased sustainment and personnel costs. Greater redundancy might also be necessary to ensure the mission doesn\u2019t fail if a critical element is shot down.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Andrew Hunter, assistant secretary for acquisition and sustainment, said a lower price might be achievable if the NGAD \u201cdesign concept\u201d is revisited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThings that drive cost on an airplane [are] size, complexity, mission systems, [and] propulsion, which [are] related to size and complexity,\u201d Hunter said. The combination of these factors determines overall cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe want to get that right, and we\u2019re looking for an affordable design concept,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Hunter steered clear of defining the price target, but did say the Air Force needs an aircraft it can field in volume. NGAD must be \u201csomething we can field in sufficient numbers to meet the need,\u201d he said, suited for a \u201chigh intensity peer conflict, involving a substantial element of pace and scale and over long ranges. So that\u2019s the puzzle we\u2019ve got to solve. And, I grant you, it is a very challenging puzzle to solve.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He noted the Pareto analysis\u2014a chart which typically shows that just a few factors are responsible for most of the cost\u2014does not settle on an obvious solution for NGAD.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThere are multiple points on that curve,\u201d he said. It\u2019s too soon to say whether finding a solution that costs even less than an F-35 is possible, \u201cbut we\u2019ve got to do the work. We\u2019ve got to do the analysis\u201d and find out \u201cwhat would be most advantageous,\u201d Hunter said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Does that mean NGAD is, in effect, starting over?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt depends on what the answer is,\u201d Hunter said. \u201cThere are different possible points of optimization. If those points are very close to where we already are, there may not need to be a huge change to our approach. If they are not close, there will have to be a significant change.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James C. Slife, in a panel discussion, said the traditional ways of designing a fighter have to be set aside in view of what is now possible, particularly with regard to autonomous aircraft.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Until recently, he said, designing a fighter meant building its characteristics \u201caround the platform\u2014around the size of the radar you need, the range of the aircraft, how many G\u2019s you wanted to pull. \u2026 You optimize for all of those things inside of a platform.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But modern technology is changing that picture. \u201cWe\u2019ve 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,\u201d Slife said. The radar, he said, may be on one aircraft, while the munitions \u201cmay be in another location.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If successful, that could yield \u201can enduring source of competitive advantage for the United States military. \u2026 A step change in American military capability.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A decade ago, when Kendall launched what would become the\u00a0 GAD X-planes, there was \u201clengthy discussion\u201d about whether a crewed aircraft was needed at all.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cMy judgment at the time was that we weren\u2019t quite ready to do that,\u201d he said. He\u2019s still not sure that time has come. \u201cWe\u2019re probably going to do one more version, at least, of crewed, more traditional aircraft,\u201d Kendall speculated. \u201cI don\u2019t know exactly what that aircraft will look like yet,\u201d and \u201cwhether there\u2019ll be variants that might be crewed or uncrewed is another question mark.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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That\u2019s where Kendall\u2019s blue-ribbon panel of experts comes into play. The group of former Air Force Chiefs and executives will be chaired by Maj. Gen. Luke Cropsey, who Kendall has also assigned to oversee and integrate the vast enterprise of its C3 Battle Management.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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All the panelists have a close personal connection to stealth. Kaminski was the Pentagon\u2019s director of low-observables technology in the 1980s when the F-117 and B-2 were being developed; Ralston was Kaminski\u2019s military deputy and later headed the Joint Requirements Oversight Council as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jumper oversaw the introduction of the F-22 and learned to fly the stealth jet late in his tenure; Schwartz was involved in the force planning that led to the B-21 and NGAD; and Goldfein led the Air Force as it focused on China\u2019s growing peer threat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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General Atomics\u2019 XQ-67A, shown here on display at AFA\u2019s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, has already completed successful flight tests. The underlying aircraft is closely related to GA\u2019s offering in the Collaborative Combat Aircraft competition.\u00a0Mike Tsukamto\/staff<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Today\u2019s Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. David W. Allvin, said the group\u2019s role is to \u201creally assess our assessments, look at the evaluations we\u2019re doing, making sure we\u2019re really not missing anything in our analysis, in how we understand the threat and how we understand the capabilities that are going to be required of our Air Force to meet that threat.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Their job is not to tell the Air Force what to do, but to \u201cgive us feedback and insights \u2026 that will help us do this analysis that we have to do in fairly short order.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The group will make recommendations to Kendall and Allvin, who \u201cget the final say on what will be proposed\u201d to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and, ultimately, Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kendall said that if the NGAD as already structured turns out to be \u201cthe most cost-effective operational answer\u201d\u2014which he said is \u201cstill a possibility\u201d\u2014then, \u201cthat\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But that option will deliver \u201csmall numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe more the airplane costs, the \u2026 fewer you\u2019re going to have,\u201d he added. \u201cNumbers do matter. So, it\u2019s a trade-off.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So the countdown to the decision is on. \u201cWe\u2019ve got industry waiting for a decision. We\u2019ve got the Congress waiting for feedback on what we expect to be done with the \u201925 budget that they\u2019re considering now, and we\u2019re building the \u201926 [Program Objective Memoranda] \u2026 for the next administration,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cSo we\u2019re going to move pretty quickly on this. We\u2019ve organized that work. It\u2019s proceeding, but it\u2019s too early to speculate about how it\u2019s going to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This much is clear, however: Whatever the solution, it will be expensive. \u201cHow we\u2019re going to pay for it,\u201d Kendall said, \u201cat the end of the day, [may] be our biggest problem.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet\u2014the centerpiece of the Air Force\u2019s future air superiority plans\u2014faces a crucial design review. What kind of aircraft the Air Force needs, what it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,37],"tags":[262,92],"class_list":["post-1429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-air","category-opinions","tag-ngad","tag-us-air-force"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/NGAD.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1429"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2094,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1429\/revisions\/2094"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedefencenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}