In a Shocking Twist, the Air Force's Secret New Fighter Jet Might Be Dead. Really. (2024)

For years, the Air Force has consistently affirmed that its secrecy-shrouded program to develop a Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) sixth-generation jet fighter would ensure the service could continue to dominate the skies into the mid-21^st century and replace the already impressive (but digitally dated) F-22 Raptor stealth fighters.

The service maintained that NGAD, projected to cost $16 billion, was being developed with unprecedented speed. In 2020, the Air Force revealed at least one full-scale NGAD demonstrator had begun flight testing—and would remain the service’s top priority. Indeed, the Air Force was expected to award a contract this year to either Boeing or Lockheed-Martin to build at least 200 NGAD fighters, each of which was projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

So, it came as a bit of a “big-time Lucy-and-the-football move” (as aviation journalist Bill Sweetman put it) when on June 14, the Air Force chief of staff Daniel Allvin got very cagey about NGAD’s future.

“The deliberations are still underway, there’s been no decision made,” he said in a roundtable. “We’re looking at a lot of very difficult options that we have to consider.”

Adding to the ominous management-about-to-announce-layoffs vibes, he suggested the service had found “a different way for developing capabilities” without necessarily requiring a manned sixth-generation fighter: by “leaning into” the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) drone jet fighter originally intended to accompany NGAD into battle.

It’s possible that the Air Force’s suddenly funereal tone regarding NGAD may be a political ploy aimed at provoking Congress into granting additional funding. Indeed, the services sometimes present unappealing outcomes in the hopes of inciting such money-laden interventions. (There are also instance of congressional interventions to save programs or vehicles the services genuinely did want to retire, including the A-10 Thunderbolt and Littoral Combat Ship.)

But it’s not inconceivable that a real budgetary squeeze—combined with shifts in how the Air Force is evaluating the usefulness, cost, and longevity of introducing a sixth-generation stealth fighter—could end up dooming NGAD.

Notably, the Navy also recently revealed that it was indefinitely delaying NGAD’s sister program (also named NGAD), aimed at developing a carrier-based sixth-generation jet fighter called F/A-XX (also dubbed Project2937 or Link Plummeria in some budget documents). This would replace the Navy’s non-stealth FA-18E/F Super Hornet jets, which will cease production in 2025.

Though expected to award an FA-XX contract to the big three (Northrup Grumman, Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing) this year, in March, the service announced that it would delay two-thirds of the program’s $1.5 billion annual budget so it could focus on improving readiness rates of operational squadrons.

What was NGAD supposed to do?

The Air Force currently operates two stealth fighters: about 180 (set to shrink to roughly 150) F-22A Raptor stealth fighters that are optimized for air-to-air combat, and a burgeoning force of roughly 260 F-35A Lightning multi-role fighters that are more oriented towards strike missions. Over 1,000 more F-35A Lightnings are expected to follow.

Unfortunately, the awesomely maneuverable Raptors are burdened by outdated 1990s electronics and costly stealth coatings, and major upgrades would be impractically expensive, as the F-22 is no longer in production.

So, the Air Force was counting on NGAD to replace the F-22 and complement its F-35s as a fully 21^st-century-tech air superiority fighter, complete with greater thrust generated by a next-generation adaptive cycle engines, more cost-efficient stealth materials to reduce operating costs, integrated AI and drone control capabilities, and advanced sensor and fire control networking capabilities. These traits are intended to help maintain an edge over China and Russia’s new stealth aircraft and ground-based integrated air defense systems.

Did land-based nukes kill the Air Force’s new stealth fighter?

A senior Air Force official posting under the social media handle ‘Mike Black’ wrote that the service’s investments in conventional warfare are undermined by having to simultaneously modernize the land- and air-launched nukes it would rather never use in a fight.

Through unfortunate timing, the service is carrying out three major modernizations that are simultaneously affecting its ground-based LGM-30G Minuteman III inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), B-2 stealth bombers, and B-52-launched AGM-86 cruise missiles. Their respective replacements will be Northrup Grumman’s LGM-35 Sentinel ICBM, Northrup Grumman’s B-21 Raider stealth bomber, and Raytheon’s AGM-181 LRSO cruise missile. Sentinel’s price, in particular, has already run 37% over budget to $125 billion.

“The current DAF topline can’t afford B-21, NGAD, and Sentinel. Period,” Black wrote. “Do not pass go, do not make tradeoffs, it is just an absolute nonstarter.” He notes this was predictable a decade earlier, but it only became a “‘rubber meets the road’ situation budgetarily” in the 2026 budget because the “budget bomb everyone knew was coming on Sentinel exploded.”

He argued that the service would much prefer NGAD fighters, but is inflexibly committed by politically driven expectations into sinking tens of billions into refurbishing/rebuilding nuclear missile silos.

Did F-35s eat NGAD’s budget?

Another theory advanced by aviation journalist Bill Sweetman argues that F-35 operating cost overruns and the floundering Block 4 effort may cut into the budgetary margins needed to fund NGAD.

The F-35 stealth fighter was notoriously burdened by a torturous and over-budget development process, but has been a commercial success in the 2020s (export orders continue to grow) and so far appears to be perform satisfactorily in the air.

But two stubborn problems remain: its operating costs per flight hour remain high and continue to rise (currently, for the Air Force, they run around $6.6 million annually per F-35A), which has prompted the services to fly the aircraft less frequently as operational availability rate has steadily declined over five years.

Meanwhile, the program to upgrade F-35s to a new Block 4 standard is so many years behind schedule and has gone so far over budget that, in April, the Air Force announced it was substantially truncating the upgrade by trimming away numerous capabilities planned for its ‘Tech Refresh 3’ update.

Could Collaborative Combat Aircraft drones substitute for NGAD?

The Air Force appears to see a path wherein the NGAD’s separately developed CCA drones team up with F-35s (and perhaps even non-stealth F-15EXs and F-16s). Armed with new long-range air-to-air missiles (AIM-260 and possibly oversized LREWs), the service seems to think they could theoretically maintain air superiority without NGAD.

To be sure, NGAD’s CCA drone is already intended to fly alongside the services’ 5^th generation F-35 stealth fighters, and will likely be adapted eventually for use with other combat aircraft.

One potential tactical concept, then, is to rely on CCA drones to man the high-risk ‘frontline’ in an air-to-air engagement, while a “standoff force” of manned fighters remains dozens of miles further back—each controlling multiple drones simultaneously while also contributing long-range missile shots.

It’s worth noting that Air Force requirements are shaping the CCA drone to be a relatively capable and expensive non-expendable aircraft—though, one that costs one-third the price of a manned stealth fighter rather than the one-tenth originally conceived for ‘loyal wingman’ drones. That cost does have major downsides, but it might mean that the CCA’s premium features could better compensate for older hardware on accompanying 5^th- or 4^th-generation fighters.

Furthermore, drones can be evolved or replaced in response to new technologies more cheaply and easily than manned aircraft, which entail very long commitments to sustain, upgrade, and train operators.

However, Black argued that while the Air Force could try to “cram” NGAD’s role and capabilities into an F-35 “…you’re going to be losing inherent capabilities you’ll get from the NGAD airframe (low-observability performance, range/kinematic performance, and payload [...]).”

Particularly as China expands its fleet of J-20 stealth fighters and deploys new types (like the J-35 and, eventually, its own sixth-generation air superiority jet), it may be harder to keep threats from closing within effective attack range of friendly manned aircraft.

In such scenarios, a stealth jet with the thrust and maneuverability to sustainably perform aggressive air combat maneuvers would be a desirable complement to the F-35. Furthermore, NGAD is likely be engineered for greater range than the F-22 and F-35, making it both a better fit for the expansive Pacific theater and capable of escorting B-21 stealth bombers far deeper into hostile airspace while relying only on internal fuel.

Perhaps the Air Force simply isn’t confident that any highly expensive stealth fighter it cooks up today will remain effective long enough to justify the billions in sustainment costs that will be incurred over multiple decades.

Officials have implied that the service might prefer to avoid long-term commitments to a manned design (which could rapidly become obsolete) in favor of a sort of serial monogamy—picking up and discarding less expensive drones in response to technological developments.

Only time will tell, as the Air Force’s seeming change of heart regarding NGAD (feigned or not) is sure to provoke controversy and debate in Congress, and the military-industrial sector more broadly.