As global tensions rise and technological advancements accelerate, the U.S. Air Force recognizes the urgent need for a next-generation fighter to maintain air superiority. Originally designed to succeed the iconic F-22A Raptor, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program has hit a critical juncture, prompting a reevaluation of its goals and technological requirements. With emerging threats from advanced Russian and Chinese aircraft, the Air Force is now tasked with defining the capabilities needed for 2030 and beyond.
PM: THE U.S. AIR FORCE IS CALLING A MULLIGAN on one of its most important future weapons, which was intended to replace the legendary F-22A Raptor. Originally conceived of in the late 1980s, the F-22A is still highly capable, but the service believes a new plane with new tech is necessary to dominate current and future Russian and Chinese fighters.
As a result, the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program, meant to create the world’s first sixth-generation fighter, is heading back to the drawing board. That’s because the service needs to figure out exactly what it wants from an air superiority combat aircraft in the 2030s and beyond—and how it can make such a weapon reality.
The NGAD program reboot is an example of how the slow, complicated development of modern warplanes is at odds with the breakneck pace of technological progress, which in turn threatens to lock out even the newest aircraft from state-of-the-art features.
Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of staff for the Air Force, said the service is pondering what it’s really trying to do with the NGAD program in the first place, which begets two more questions: how does the service achieve air superiority in a contested environment, and how does the service build a manned, sixth-generation fighter?
“I mean, those are not necessarily the same question,” Slife said earlier this month at the Defense News Conference in Arlington, Virginia.
Slife’s comments followed a July announcement in which Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall announced that the service would be putting the NGAD program on pause to review its data. Now, after years of development, the Air Force is embarking on a total revamp and change of focus to exploit new technologies that have cropped up since the aircraft was first conceived of in the mid-2010s.
As part of that process, the Air Force is consulting with the “primes” in the program—or the main defense contractors that will compete for the contract to build NGAD—to determine the best way to move the program forward. The list of “primes” not only includes aerospace companies that would build the airframe, like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, but also engine manufacturers General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
The Air Force first embarked on a journey toward replacing the F-22A in 2016, following conclusions from its own study. That report concluded that the service should procure a Raptor replacement, known as Penetrating Counter Air (PCA), by 2030. PCA became NGAD in the late 2010s. Then, in 2020, former Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Wil Roper stunned the world by announcing that a technology demonstrator aircraft had been designed, tested, and flown all in the span of just one year.
But the aircraft was never revealed to the public.
Still, information about NGAD has slowly trickled out over the years. In 2020, Roper stated the sixth-generation fighter would likely carry its own AI copilot, a software version of the R2D2 drone that accompanied Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing fighter in the Star Wars films. In 2022, Kendall testified to Congress that the plane would cost “hundreds of millions” each, a figure that was later clarified to be about $250–$300 million each. Then, in 2023, Kendall stated the Air Force wanted a minimum of 200 NGAD fighters along with 1,000 drone wingmen to accompany them into battle.
“A key to understanding NGAD is it will not be the next, more advanced ‘fighter.’ Rather, NGAD will be a family of systems that together is more effective at delivering combat effects at range in contested and highly contested environments,” explains Mark “Gonzo” Gunzinger, director of future concepts and capability assessments at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies in Arlington, Virginia. “This family of systems will be more resilient, more survivable than current-generation fighters.”
A Next Generation Air Dominance fighter “will likely have greater range, carry larger weapon payloads, [have] more advanced sensors and information fusion systems, and all-aspect, wide-band stealth needed to maintain overmatch against [China’s] increasingly sophisticated counter-air forces,” Gunzinger says.
Each NGAD plane would control between one and five high-performance drones, known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). Powered by artificial intelligence and carrying sensors, jammers, and missiles, each CCA drone will act as a force multiplier in the air, giving the manned fighter the ability to see farther, shoot farther, and engage more adversaries—all without endangering more human lives.
CCA will be part of the NGAD family of systems. “The combat potential for CCA extends beyond simply using them as loyal wingmen,” Gunzinger says. “Lower-cost CCA that have a degree of autonomy could also be employed to disrupt an adversary’s counter-air operations, create dilemmas for enemy air defenses, and compel enemy forces to react in ways that reduce risk to all U.S. operations.”
To unlock the full potential of Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the Air Force must figure out how to best take advantage of the attributes that uncrewed and crewed aircraft each bring to the fight, Gunzinger says. “CCA will complement fifth-generation crewed combat aircraft, they will not replace F-22s, F-35s, and NGAD—both crewed and uncrewed systems are needed to achieve air superiority and create other effects essential to prevailing in a peer conflict.”
As ambitious as that is, there are even more capabilities the Air Force wants to bake into NGAD. Gen. Slife said that there are new, emerging technologies that weren’t around when the Air Force set NGAD’s requirements—technologies that the Air Force now wants to incorporate into the plane from the start. The most obvious technology in the “white” world of unclassified tech would be AI, though Roper’s R2D2 remark suggests the service was definitely thinking about it relatively early on. The other new tech might well be some sort of “black” or highly classified capabilities that were not ready in 2016, such as onboard offensive and defensive lasers, new advances in stealth, and new sensors. And they might be ready now.
The Air Force’s decision illustrates an important problem with modern fighters: the rapid development of new technologies means that a jet that takes 15–20 years to develop can miss out on key tech developed after the aircraft’s parameters are set in stone. The F-35 program started in 1995, yet the first planes were not declared initial operations-capable until 2015–2019. This long development period meant the jet needed technology updates almost immediately, including processor upgrades, new internal cooling systems to deal with heat buildup, a video data link, and the ability to carry new weapons. The latest, Tech Refresh 3, is rolling out to air forces worldwide this summer.
NGAD is also being restructured due to cost. Early versions of the F-35 cost over $200 million per jet, and while the cost plummeted as Lockheed Martin built more planes, it left buyers with a bad case of sticker shock. Even a world-beating $300 million dollar jet will be a tough sell, especially as the Air Force must also afford new T-7 Red Tail jet trainers and F-35 fighters in the coming years while also developing a stealthy aerial refueling tanker and funding both the new Sentinel ICBM and the B-21 Raider. Ideally, the Air Force would reduce cost by improving efficiencies in development to manufacturing, but the service may be forced to accept a reduction of NGAD capabilities—or postpone them until a later date.
That being said, NGAD may be the most important conventional weapons program of the early 21st century. If the Air Force can get it right, a powerful force of sixth-generation fighters, backed up by armed drones, could be a powerful deterrent to America’s adversaries. If deterrence fails, it could help swiftly end a war that might otherwise wreck the world economy … or even go nuclear.
But first, before it can do any of that, the Air Force must get NGAD right this time.
As of now, the NGAD program is on hold for a comprehensive review following comments from Air Force leadership. They aim to clarify the program's objectives and incorporate new technologies that have emerged since its inception. The Air Force plans to consult with key defense contractors to redefine its path forward, ensuring any future fighter incorporates advanced systems like AI and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enhance combat effectiveness. The goal is to create a family of systems that work together seamlessly to face increasingly complex aerial threats.