Secretary Frank Kendall also said a revamped Next Generation Air Dominance fighter platform could end up with a less complex, smaller engine than originally intended to try to hold down its price.

“The family of systems concept of Next Generation Air Dominance is alive and well,” Kendall said June 28. “I can tell you that we are looking at the NGAD platform design concept to see if it’s the right concept or not. … We’re looking at whether we can do something that’s less expensive and do some trade-offs there.”

NGAD is intended to replace the F-22 Raptor fighter fleet in the 2030s. It 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.

Top Air Force officials have repeatedly stressed such a network, including aircraft beyond the capabilities of fifth-generation F-35 jets, will be necessary to win wars.

“It is crystal clear to us that in order to get into the early to mid-[20]30s with a force that can win, we have to get to a sixth-gen fighter, and that’s NGAD,” retiring Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, who was the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said in April 2023.

But the price tag for such a system has long been a looming stumbling block, and rumors have swirled in recent weeks that NGAD might be endangered as the cash-strapped Air Force draws up its fiscal 2026 budget. The Air Force is now in the process of modernizing two expensive legs of its nuclear triad, even as it faces rising personnel costs and deals with the fallout from the Fiscal Responsibility Act’s budget caps for FY25.

At an Air and Space Forces Association event in June, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin hedged when asked whether the service can proceed with NGAD given its tight budgets. He later told reporters the service is still considering which way to go with the program.

Kendall also told Aviation Week that the service is having to reconsider its spending plans for FY26 as competing priorities mount up, and that it must identify the mix of systems necessary to provide dominant air power.

In his interview with Defense News at the Pentagon, Kendall said NGAD is now expected to cost roughly three times as much as an individual F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. 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.”

When asked what target cost he wants for NGAD, Kendall said the Air Force isn’t far enough along to set such a goal — but added with a chuckle: “Ideally, I’d like to get it down to less than an F-35, or at least in the ballpark of an F-35. F-35s, as you know, are not cheap airplanes.”

Kendall reiterated that the Air Force will build a next-generation crewed fighter platform, and said he believes it will be based on the technologies developed for the Aerospace Innovation Initiative. That initiative was a strategy — which Kendall kicked off in his previous role as the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency initially led alongside the Air Force and Navy — to develop prototype X-planes and a next-generation engine that ultimately led to the current NGAD effort.

However, Kendall said, “the design concept that came out of that [initiative] is a very expensive concept. Scale matters, numbers matter, and so does time. We want to get something there quickly.”

Along with looking for ways to bring down costs, Kendall said the Air Force wants to ensure NGAD can take full advantage of CCAs as it is redesigned. He noted the CCA concept came along after the service had begun working to develop NGAD.

“Having something that’s optimized to work with CCAs is another consideration as we look at NGAD,” Kendall said.

A smaller, cheaper engine?

The Air Force is also looking at NGAD’s cutting-edge propulsion system — a so-called adaptive engine — as it reconsiders its future fighter concept, Kendall said.

Clint Hinote, a retired three-star general and former deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements in the Air Force, told Defense News on June 21 that the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion program was quite expensive and could be driving up NGAD’s overall costs.

“The last numbers I saw on NGAP [Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion] were pretty high,” said Hinote, who was previously in charge of the Air Force Futures organization. “I do think that’s a factor. I don’t know if that’s the only factor, or the factor that’s really contributing to this decision. But it is true that the NGAP program, the development of an adaptive engine for the NGAD, was very costly.”

When asked if the propulsion system’s cost is making it harder for the Air Force to afford NGAD, Kendall replied: “What we’re looking for there is the most cost-effective propulsion system for the platform.”

The Air Force still wants to use the engine technologies it developed to give NGAD more range and fuel efficiency, he said. But as it seeks to bring costs down for NGAD, he noted, “the way you do that is if you can reduce the complexity, but also the size of the engine.”

While the engine and other systems intended for NGAD represented a technological leap forward, Hinote said, it was not out of reach from what he saw before he retired last year.

“We were making really good headway,” Hinote said. “High-pass engines, sensors — all that was coming together, I thought, pretty well.”

The adaptive engine technology that would be the foundation of NGAP is “revolutionary,” Hinote added.

General Electric Aerospace as well as Pratt & Whitney have each developed their own versions of an adaptive engine. The engine’s ability to shift its configuration to best respond to any given situation would be a major advancement in propulsion technology, Hinote said.

“If the [airplane’s] need is efficient cruise at high altitude, then [the adaptive engine would shift to a configuration] that looks a lot like a high-bypass engine, not all that dissimilar from the engines you’re seeing on the bottom of Airbus and Boeing airliners right now,” Hinote said.

High-bypass engines on aircraft such as 737s have large inlets that allow a great deal of air to pass through, he explained, which makes them very efficient. It’s not feasible to put an engine with such a large inlet on a fighter, but Hinote said adaptive engines can produce the same performance characteristics as a high-bypass engine at cruising speeds and altitudes.

And when a pilot needs to hit the afterburner and go to supersonic speeds, he added, “then you crank the engine down, you change the geometry of the winglets, and now you have a totally different engine that adapts to the demand given by the pilot.”

But those capabilities don’t come cheap. The cost of an adaptive engine was one of the factors that thwarted the Air Force’s desire to put it in the F-35, along with its incompatibility with the Marine Corps’ vertical-landing version and possibly the Navy’s carrier-based variant.

When asked about the potentially high cost for NGAP, Pratt & Whitney told Defense News it is working with the Air Force to use a collaborative digital design to drive down costs.

“We have already seen improved efficiency and effectiveness, resulting in cost and time saving thanks to digital collaborative work environments,” Peter Sommerkorn, the company’s executive director of sixth-generation programs, said in the statement.

Sommerkorn added that upgrades to the firm’s ceramic matrix composites facility in Carlsbad, California, as well as its turbine airfoil factory in Asheville, North Carolina, will save money on current and future propulsion programs.

GE Aerospace referred Defense News’ inquiries to the Air Force.

Kendall highlighted an op-ed one of his predecessors as secretary, Deborah Lee James, published in Defense News arguing NGAD is too important to kill for budgetary reasons, and said he is in almost total agreement with her.

In the op-ed, James wrote the Air Force must “explore alternative design and acquisition strategies” to get NGAD’s costs down and speed up its delivery. She said Congress and the Pentagon need to provide the Air Force enough funds for all of its major programs, and that the service should look to “innovative design and acquisition strategies” such as building less expensive fighters that can be more quickly made and regularly updated.

The Air Force hopes to spend more than $2.7 billion on research and development for NGAD in FY25, with another $557 million slated for CCAs. The service projects its R&D spending on NGAD to steadily rise in the years to come, reaching more than $8.8 billion in FY29, alongside $3.1 billion in CCA spending.

The Air Force has repeatedly sought to retire about 32 older Block 20 F-22A Raptor fighters — which the service says would cost too much to make combat-capable — to free up billions of dollars for NGAD. Moore said in 2023 that mothballing those F-22s would save about $2.5 billion over five years.

But Congress last year rejected the Air Force’s F-22 retirement proposal and appears poised to again stymie those plans in the FY25 budget.

The Air Force took a major step forward on NGAD in May 2023 when it sent industry a classified solicitation for the program’s engineering and manufacturing development contract. Northrop Grumman has ruled out competing for NGAD as a prime contractor, leaving Lockheed Martin and Boeing the likely two remaining contenders.

The Air Force last year said it intended to award that contract in 2024.

When asked if that contract is still coming this year, Kendall said: “I’m not ready to talk about any specific changes yet.”

Courtney Albon contributed to this report.

I strongly argue that the administration and Congress must unite to fund the Air Force to ensure the continuity of this vital program. They also need to explore alternative design and acquisition strategies to significantly reduce the cost of NGAD and expedite the delivery of this critical capability.

By way of background, the family of systems known as NGAD — which includes a manned, penetrating, counter-air platform and unmanned collaborative combat aircraft — is the result of extensive Air Force and Department of Defense research, which began in 2014. This research concluded that America’s current air dominance assets would not remain sufficiently competitive against the systems of potential adversaries (especially China) into the 2030s.

Then-acquisition chief Frank Kendall was instrumental in this analysis and program from the start. He even made it the linchpin of one of his seven operational imperatives after becoming secretary of the Air Force. With China confirming that it is working on a sixth-generation fighter system to be completed by 2035, the importance of the NGAD program for the Air Force has become all the more apparent.

Enter the Fiscal Responsibility Act and its caps on defense spending; deficit concerns; and the bow-wave effect of must-pay bills for programs like the B-21 bomber, the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and rising personnel costs; the Air Force now finds itself on the horns of a dilemma for FY26 and beyond.

There’s not enough money to pay for all of it.

Moreover, the manned portion of NGAD is predicted to be even more expensive than the F-35 fighter, which, if true, does not bode well for America’s ability to eventually procure an adequate number of fighters. If the program encounters significant delays, the U.S. may once again find itself delivering a capability that has not kept pace with where the threat has advanced.

What, then, should we do?

First, I urge Congress and the DOD to provide adequate funds to the Air Force so that all these important programs remain on track.

Second, I urge the Air Force to consider innovative design and acquisition strategies — perhaps along the lines of the “century series” approach that former Air Force acquisition chief Will Roper once spoke of. This approach would involve less-expensive and quicker-to-produce fighters with iterative designs that could change every few years if necessary. Engaging in discussions with industry on such an approach is crucial, as it represents a very different way of doing business and we need to ensure its feasibility.

It’s time for us to come together, think outside the box and find new ways to support our military’s needs.

The only thing we can say for sure is that China is ruthlessly advancing its NGAD equivalent and does not appear to be slowing down due to budgetary concerns. Moreover, China is continuing aggressive actions in the South China Sea and has stepped up military drills that simulate a blockade and possible invasion of Taiwan.

The 2030s will be upon us in an instant, so we can’t afford to delay NGAD. Doing so would mean risking loss in a future conflict.

Deborah Lee James is a former secretary of the U.S. Air Force. She serves as chair of the Defense Business Board and is affiliated with several organizations and businesses.

Taken together, these three major developments — coupled with the collaborative combat aircraft intended to accompany them — are expected to drive $70 billion in probability-weighted spending between 2024 and 2030, according to Tamarack Defense’s military aircraft market forecast.

While production deliveries by 2030 for any of the major platforms are expected to be slim, we can see substantial increases in research and development spending across the board through the period. In the U.S., sixth-gen budgets grow from $4 billion in FY24 to $12.6 billion in FY29, the last year of the Future Years Defense Program — a total of $40.7 billion. Of this amount, roughly 91% is for research, development, test and evaluation. As designs mature, spending is expected to increase commensurately.

Tamarack Defense anticipates collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, deliveries will take place earlier and in higher volumes than the larger platforms to which they are tied. In total, Tamarack Defense’s current factored production forecast across the U.S. Air Force’s and U.S. Navy’s CCA programs anticipates 255 deliveries by 2030, and 950 by 2033.

Outside the U.S., Tamarack Defense projects minimal production deliveries, but steady growth in development activity, with total contractor-available funding on the order of $2 billion to $3 billion per year for sixth-gen programs. Production deliveries for these programs remain beyond the 2030 horizon, but early prototypes are expected within the medium-term research and development plan.

Logan Slone is a co-founder of Tamarack Defense, a data analytics and advisory firm.

Perhaps the clearest admission came from a WeChat social media post by Aviation Industry Corporation of China in January 2019. In an interview discussing sixth-gen fighters, Wang Haifeng, the chief designer at AVIC subsidiary Chengdu Aerospace Corp., said preparations were underway to research a combat aircraft that would be ready to “protect the sea and sky” by 2035.

At the time, Wang mentioned elements like manned-unmanned teaming, the use of artificial intelligence, as well as improved stealth and omnidirectional sensors.

In 2022, the head of U.S. Air Combat Command said those efforts are “on track.”

“By and large, they see it [sixth-gen fighter technology] greatly the way we see it in terms of an exponential reduction in signature and exponential acceleration in processing power and sensing, and the ability to iterate in terms of open-mission systems, to be able to essentially reprogram at the speed of relevance,” Gen. Mark Kelly said.

Fast forward to the present, and Rick Joe, who has written extensively about the Chinese military, considers the sixth-gen efforts a program of record, noting that “indicators since 2019 in the semiofficial space have only increased.” Examples include AVIC artwork depicting generic next-gen fighter configurations, academic papers, and statements from military and industry officials. In addition, satellite imagery of a tailless fighter-like airframe was seen at Chengdu Aerospace facilities in October 2021.

Joe told Defense News that demonstrator testbeds, possibly subscale versions, have already flown.

For lack of an official name, he referred to the mysterious fighter as the J-XD. “I fully expect the J-XD to have some subsystems (like engines), which will be less capable than a U.S. equivalent initially, simply because there are some domains where they are still catching up, albeit with significant closing of gaps over the past few decades.”

Joe noted that sixth-gen fighters are typically expected to include aerodynamic design and control; radiofrequency materials; flight control software; sensing technologies; data-linking and combat-management systems; weapons; and the integration of collaborative combat aircraft, or complementary drones.

“I see them as playing in the general ballpark of other nations pursuing a sixth-gen capability,” Joe said.

But when Defense News asked Brendan Mulvaney, the director of the U.S. Air Force’s China Aerospace Studies Institute, whether China currently has the capability to develop these advanced fighters, the response was slightly less optimistic for Beijing.

“Today? No. Twenty years from now? Absolutely. And we’ve seen this time and time again. We’re getting better at not … underestimating what the Chinese system is capable of when it sets its mind to it,” Mulvaney said.

The official said mastering jet engines has been China’s bane, but it is getting better. “At the end of the day, that’s just science. I tell people that physics works the same in Berlin as it does in Beijing. So if you put enough time and effort … you can make a good aerospace engine, especially for the military side.”

Working with drones

Mulvaney said China has described its future fighter as unmanned, but he believes the design is more likely optionally manned, as it depends on how quickly industry can develop AI systems, alongside other requisite technologies. “You don’t have to have a man [in it] and you potentially let it go off on its own, or it could serve as a loyal wingman.”

China’s drone manufacturers are ambitious, but it’s not entirely clear where that technology stands in terms of complementing a future sixth-gen fighter. Notably, Joe said, Chinese-made combat drones and collaborative combat aircraft that have appeared at air shows are “likely not representative of actual in-development [unmanned combat aerial vehicles] intended for the [People’s Liberation Army], which are almost certainly more ambitious in scope.”

He also said it’s fair to assume various sophisticated combat drones “are in advanced development/testing or even limited trial service.”

An in terms of trialing manned-unmanned teaming, China’s existing J-20 fighter could contribute, as the country developed a twin-seat version where a backseat operator can control drones. However, this variant is currently a technology demonstrator.

If the Chengdu Aerospace chief designer’s predictions of a sixth-gen fighter being operational in 2035 hold true, Joe said a maiden flight would need to take place at least five years before then, and thus a prototype would need to be ready around 2028. He expressed confidence this is possible, although Mulvaney predicted it will probably take China “until the late 2030s, if not the early 2040s,” to reveal a meaningful design.

In a Tuesday roundtable with reporters in Dayton, Ohio, John Sneden, director of the Air Force’s propulsion directorate, outlined ways his organization is working to adapt AETP features into the future Next Generation Air Dominance platform’s engines.

That propulsion system, dubbed Next Generation Adaptive Propulsion, or NGAP, is in a preliminary design phase, Sneden said at the Air Force’s Life Cycle Industry Days event. Within the next few years, he added, NGAP should be ready to move into prototyping and testing, having learned multiple lessons from the previous work on AETP.

The Pentagon has researched adaptive engine technology through AETP since 2016 as a possible replacement for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter’s current engine. GE Aerospace as well as Pratt & Whitney — the latter makes the F-35′s current F135 engine — developed their own adaptive engines and are continuing to work on NGAP.

In its March budget request, the Pentagon announced it had instead decided to stick with the F135 engines and upgrade them to provide more power and cooling for the F-35. The Pentagon’s proposed budget requested no money for the alternative AETP option.

But some lawmakers have since moved to restore funding for AETP so the military can continue developing this technology for use in advanced fighter systems.

NGAP is fully funded in the Air Force’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget, with the department requesting $595 million — an increase of $375 million over fiscal 2023.

If AETP is not funded in FY24, Sneden said, the Air Force will shift its remaining AETP budget and activities to NGAP. Those include ongoing work developing controls for AETP’s adaptive fan, cooling technologies and advanced materials, many of which will form crucial elements of NGAD’s eventual engine.

Sneden said AETP’s adaptive element — allowing the engine to rapidly shift to the configuration that would provide the best thrust and efficiency for a certain situation — and the use of advanced composite materials, which can withstand much higher temperatures, for turbines and other components will be central to NGAP.

But it’s still undecided as to whether the NGAD’s engine will use the third stream of air that is another part of the AETP design, he said.

While the technology used in both AETP and NGAP will be largely the same, Sneden explained, the future NGAD’s engines will be sized differently from those of the F-35. That means elements of AETP would have to be resized and redesigned to be suitable for NGAD.

“We’ll be able to port that tech over,” Sneden said. “It’s not a one-for-one; you can’t just pull it off of the F-35 and move it directly over to NGAD in its current state.”

While GE Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney develop the new fighter’s engines, Sneden noted, the potential designers of the NGAD airframe are also working closely with them to ensure the engines will fit.

The Air Force last year also awarded contracts worth nearly $1 billion each to aircraft manufacturers Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman to work on prototyping NGAD engines, although Northrop in July confirmed it would not bid as a prime contractor on NGAD. The Air Force issued a solicitation for NGAD in May, and it plans to make an award in 2024.

“We are making one design that will … fit into any of the [airframe] designs” for NGAD, Sneden said. “Later on, as we downselect and figure out who the final vendor is, there could be some optimization of that system and that particular design. But they’re all designing and moving around the propulsion constraints that we’ve studied and evaluated and provided to each.”

AETP testing that already occurred has been tremendously useful for NGAP, Sneden said.

“Because of the data that we’ve received off of that, we actually understand how the adaptive engine technology works,” Sneden explained. “We understand the types of changes that we need to make, and we can incorporate that into the baseline for NGAD.”

It will be crucial for the United States to redouble its efforts toward developing new and innovative propulsion systems, Sneden noted. Since about 2015, China has made considerable advancements of its own on propulsion, and is starting to catch up.

“We are losing our propulsion lead to China, which is investing heavily and developing and producing effective propulsion technologies,” Sneden said. “We have to maintain that propulsion edge.”

But Northrop Grumman is interested in serving as a supplier to other bidders on the Air Force NGAD program as part of its mission systems portfolio, Warden told analysts in an earnings call.

The Air Force in May announced it had sent industry a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for NGAD, launching the process for selecting a company to build the advanced fighter system that will replace the F-22 Raptor.

In Thursday’s call, Warden said Northrop had previously been “quiet” about its plans for NGAD, but has now told the Air Force it does not plan to respond to the request for proposals as a prime.

“We are remaining disciplined in assessing the right programs to pursue,” Warden said. “And that’s ones where we feel we’re well positioned with mature offerings, and where the business deal reflects an appropriate balance of risk and reward for both the customer and the industrial base.”

Warden said Northrop Grumman might participate in the Navy’s separate NGAD program, which the service refers to as F/A-XX.

“We have other opportunities we are pursuing,” Warden said when asked about F/A-XX. “I won’t disclose at this point exactly what those are until a little more information comes out on other programs. But you could assume that if we feel we’re well-positioned, and the government is appropriately balancing risk and reward, that would be a program we would pursue.”

Dave Keffer, Northrop Grumman’s chief financial officer, also said testers in the second quarter successfully turned on the power for the B-21 Raider’s systems, and the stealth bomber is still on track for its first flight in 2023.

Keffer said Northrop expects the Air Force to award the first low-rate initial production contract on the B-21 after that first flight.

But Warden warned inflation and other macroeconomic factors remain a risk for the B-21. She said the Pentagon notified Northrop in the most recent quarter that it has allocated another $60 million for B-21 LRIP procurement in 2023 due to inflationary effects. The Air Force has $1.4 billion budgeted in 2023 for B-21 procurement, including advance procurement funds from the previous year.

In a previous earnings call in January, Warden warned inflation, supply chain disruptions and labor issues had raised the B-21′s cost estimates. And the company said then a loss of up to $1.2 billion on one or more of the expected five LRIP lots was “reasonably possible.”

On Thursday, Warden said the company is still not expecting to generate profit from the B-21′s LRIP.

Belgium has officially joined the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) program as an observer, the French Ministry of Defense announced June 20. Bringing Brussels onto the team in this capacity will not change the current contracts signed between France, Germany, and Spain, officials said, but rather will allow stakeholders to “imagine” how Belgian industry might eventually contribute to the FCAS program sometime in the future.

It will also accelerate the operational partnership between the four nations’ air forces, the French Armed Forces said in a Tuesday release.

“We are convinced that this collaboration will be fruitful, and will serve the interests of European defense in the context of profound shifts in technology and international security,” the ministry said.

Defense News reported June 16 that Brussels was mulling joining the trinational program, which would result in a slew of next-generation aerospace technologies delivered to the participating nations around 2040, centered around a sixth-generation fighter jet that would eventually replace the participants fleets of Eurofighter Typhoons and Dassault Rafales.

Another benefit of bringing Brussels into the fold would be to develop closer cooperation between the Belgian defense industrial base and the current FCAS suppliers, per the French ministry. Dassault Aviation, Airbus Defense and Space, and Indra Sistemas are the three prime contractors on the program, representing France, Germany, and Spain, respectively.

The role of observer status is one that’s common during the research-and-development phases of programs, Jean-Brice Dumont, Airbus’ executive vice president for military air systems, told reporters on Tuesday.

The distinction of observer means the nation and its industry are not part of the decision-making team for the program, but that “you can know enough of [the program] to prepare a further collaboration” with the current partners, he said at a briefing during the biennial Paris Air Show, held outside of the city.

What does Belgium’s entry mean for the stakeholders at this point in time? “I would say, a bit early to say,” Dumont noted. “I think we’re going to write the history as we move.”

He emphasized that the contracts for the recently launched Phase 1B of the FCAS program, as well as the future Phase 2, have already been signed with the three current partner nations. “So, we are going to execute this contract with three nations.”

Any potential increased role for Belgium in the FCAS program will first need to be defined politically between Paris, Madrid, and Berlin, before an industry contract could be signed, he added.

First established in 2017 between France and Germany, the FCAS program seeks to develop a suite of leading-edge air capabilities by 2040. Spain joined the program in 2020.

It includes seven technology pillars, to include the next-generation fighter – which will replace the participants’ fleets of Dassault Rafale and Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft – a new engine for the fighter jet, a next-generation weapon system, new drones, advanced sensors and stealth technology, and an air combat cloud network.

After nearly two years of delays due to industry workshare disputes, the FCAS prime contractors signed an agreement in December 2022 to move ahead with Phase 1B, during which industry partners will spend the next two years finalizing the program’s architecture.

Phase 1B formally launched this past April, and is scheduled to run until 2025, French Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Stéphane Mille said in a June 8 interview with Defense News. Then, Phase 2 will focus on developing the fighter jet prototype, he said, with a demonstrator flight expected in 2029 – two years later than originally planned.

Over the last few months, the Belgian defense industry has called for the government to decide which sixth-generation combat aircraft program it intends on joining and in what capacity.

Belgium has been in talks with stakeholders of the Future Combat Air System program regarding an “observer status for the time being,” rather than fully acceding to the program, a German aerospace industry source told Defense News.

The FCAS program is led by France, Germany and Spain, and heavily involves the defense companies Dassault Aviation, Airbus and Indra.

The CEO of Dassault Aviation, Éric Trappier, has made it known he’s against expanding FCAS to include other countries involved in the F-35 program, even if they are European. However, he has not ruled out the possibility of governments joining as observer nations.

“I hear about the Belgians’ [interest in FCAS]. That’s all very well,” Trappier said at a hearing session on France’s 2024-2030 Military Programming Law held last month. “I don’t really see the point in putting more F-35 countries into the program. Why would I make room in my factory, in my design office, for people who have chosen the F-35?”

“People say we could give jobs to Belgian companies straight away,” he added. “No. If it’s imposed on me, I’ll fight [it]. I don’t see why I would give jobs to Belgians today.”

In response to Trappier’s comments, Belgian Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder told Defense News that she was not surprised by such remarks.

“I heard in his words the frustration that the past may have left behind. But the stakes are much higher than the comments of a company boss,” she said. “The fighter of the future, whether it is the FCAS or the [U.K.-Italy-Japan Global Combat Air Program], will be a structuring program for our defense. It is therefore important that our companies are integrated into the one that will be chosen.”

Choosing a fighter

An observer status for Belgium should not worry Trappier, nor other FCAS industry partners, as it wouldn’t immediately involve industrial participation, the German industry source explained, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

Moreover, Belgium opted to purchase the F-35A five years ago, “and thus has no need for a new or further fighter aircraft system in the next 30-plus years,” the individual said.

Belgium placed an order for 34 F-35A aircraft in 2018 to replace its fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons. The first two aircraft are scheduled for delivery this year; two additional aircraft scheduled for 2023 were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The country is expected to receive the full order by 2030.

Alain De Neve, a researcher at the Belgium-based Royal Higher Institute for Defense think tank, agrees it is highly unlikely the participation of a European country in an American-led fighter program could justify its definitive exclusion from any European defense project like FCAS.

He noted that both Germany and Spain — two FCAS members with equal shares — have either already opted for the F-35 or have been strongly considering it as a fighter replacement. Yet, this has not generated similar protests from Dassault.

Although there has been no official word from Belgium that it is joining the FCAS program, there is at least one big player that has already signaled support for such as move. The CEO of Safran, Olivier Andriès, expressed his desire for Belgium to join FCAS, rather than the Global Combat Air Program, during an interview this week with French media.

There are little to no details known at this time on what an observer status would entail for partner countries. But there is motivation to join FCAS, according to De Neve.

“The main purpose of a country’s participation in a research program like FCAS is to offer its national industry the opportunity to contribute to the development of the envisioned system, primarily through providing niche technological solutions, like in Belgium’s case,” he said.

However, a state’s observer status may preclude it from having access to information deemed sensitive, such as proprietary data, which could hinder such goals.

It remains to be seen, should the program expand to other countries, whether further delays would ensue from new rounds of negotiations. The FCAS project was in a holding pattern for some time due to industrial infighting over workshare agreements.

Dassault did not respond to several requests for comment. Defense News has reached out to Indra for comment.

A spokesperson for Airbus declined to comment on the possibility of Belgium joining the program, stating that the addition of new members remained a political decision between the three partner nations of France, Germany and Spain.

The provision in the FY24 National Defense Authorization Act would require both the Navy and Air Force secretaries to submit alongside their annual budget requests “development and technology maturation progress reports” for the Next Generation Air Dominance program and the complementary effort for collaborative combat aircraft.

NGAD is a sixth-generation fighter program that would pair with unmanned aircraft, including the CCA acting as a so-called loyal wingman.

Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., who chairs the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, told Defense News that “the Navy needs to speed that up, so that’s why we want to report on what they’re doing.”

The Air Force is juggling several technology development efforts in parallel, including work on advanced engines and a next-generation tanker to give the NGAD fighter additional range in highly contested environments. Wittman said he wants to ensure one technology doesn’t fall behind, and potentially lead to bad decisions for other components.

If the various technology development efforts are properly aligned, “we can either deliver on time or deliver to the left,” or ahead of schedule, he explained.

One nightmare scenario, he said, is that the aircraft’s development gets ahead of engine development, and the Air Force eventually realizes it made a bad decision that would have been avoided if the engine had matured faster.

“We want to see all those things happen in a sequence where one takes advantage of the other … so we’re making maximum use of resources,” Wittman said of the annual reporting requirement.

Asked about the gap between the Navy’s and the Air Force’s progress on NGAD, Wittman said the Navy must set its requirements beyond simply seeking a carrier-based fighter.

The Air Force about five years ago realized its fifth-generation fighters were at risk from Chinese weapons within the first island chain, Wittman noted. (The first island chain runs parallel to the mainland of the Asian continent, starting in the Kuril Islands, through the Japanese Archipelago; includes Taiwan and the northwestern portion of the Philippines; and finishes in Borneo.)

The Navy, he added, at first believed it could mitigate the threat by keeping its aircraft carriers farther away and sending its fifth-generation F-35Cs in along with tankers to increase their range. But, Wittman continued, the jets and the tankers are still at risk, and so this sixth-generation NGAD program is important to the sea service.

“The Navy is behind, and I don’t want the Air Force to mark time while the Navy’s trying to catch up,” Wittman said.

“But I do think the things that the Air Force is doing will inform the Navy, and the Navy should, with that, be able to make big steps forward that they otherwise couldn’t make if they were doing this on their own. So what our expectation is, is the Navy can do a significant amount of catch-up, based upon what the Air Force is doing.”

While its fifth-generation fleet offers unsurpassed capability, it is vital that the Department of Defense correct the mistakes incurred in its development.

The NGAD is intended to replace the F-22. The F-22 was initially set to take nine years and $12.6 billion to produce, but that eventually became 19 years and $26.3 billion. The per-unit cost increased by 177%, from the initial estimate of $149 million to $412 million.

It has not proved to be a particularly reliable aircraft. The F-22 had a readiness rate of 50.81% in 2021, and just about half of the Air Force’s F-22 fleet was deemed combat effective. By the time the plug was pulled in fiscal 2010, problems with the plane and a lack of a mission led the DoD to purchase 187 F-22s, or 563 fewer than the originally intended 750.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which is the DoD’s largest procurement program, is being produced in different versions for the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy. It is also being sold to U.S. allies, with eight countries helping to share some of the costs. But like the F-22 and many other DoD procurement programs, it is over budget and behind schedule. Indeed, the Joint Strike Fighter may be the foremost example of the DoD’s broken acquisition system, and its many travails are difficult to detail succinctly.

The F-35 has been under continuous development since the contract was awarded in 2001. Total acquisition costs exceed $428 billion, nearly double the initial estimate of $233 billion, with projected lifetime operations and maintenance costs of more than $1.7 trillion.

The biggest reason for the Joint Strike Fighter’s relentless problems is the fatal decision made by the DoD to develop and procure the aircraft simultaneously. Whenever problems were identified, contractors needed to go back and make changes to planes that were already assembled, adding to overall costs.

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum on July 24, 2015, then-Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James stated: “The biggest lesson I have learned from the F-35 is never again should we be flying an aircraft while we’re building it.”

The lengthy nature of the development time frame of the Joint Strike Fighter has meant that the DoD has been required to ceaselessly update features and incorporate new technologies, resulting in an overly complex platform that also suffers from a poor readiness rate. While a marginal improvement over the F-22, the Air Force’s F-35A has sustained a lower readiness rate than older jets. In 2021, 68.8% of F-35As were mission capable on average, down from 76.07% in 2020.

In February 2014, Secretary Kendall, who was then the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, referred to the purchase of the F-35 as “acquisition malpractice.” Let’s hope Secretary Kendall remembers this experience when soliciting proposals for the NGAD.

DoD budget documents plot funding requests for the NGAD increasing from $1.9 billion in FY24 to $4.1 billion in FY28. Overall costs of the NGAD will also rise given that they are to be paired with collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA — drones that will serve alongside piloted aircraft. The Air Force anticipates acquiring 1,000 CCAs, with 400 earmarked for the NGAD and 600 for the F-35A.

The high cost, delays and underperformance of the DoD’s fifth-generation aircraft has created a readiness gap, which has forced the Air Force to rely on older generations as a substitute. The Pentagon will not have this luxury moving forward. The average Air Force fighter is approximately 28 years old, and its fleet of F-16s is on average more than 30 years old.

U.S. defense spending is already stretched thin, and the Pentagon cannot afford to miss the mark on consecutive generations of fighter aircraft. The DoD must wrap up the NGAD’s development phase as quickly as possible to avoid the snowballing effect of updates and new features that weighed down the fifth-generation aircraft.

Most crucially, it should take the advice of former Air Force Secretary James and avoid purchasing the NGAD prior to the close of the development phase.

It is vital for the DoD to learn the lessons of the F-22 and F-35, and reign in spiraling costs and slipped deadlines to produce sixth-generation aircraft that will be on budget and function as intended.

Sean Kennedy is the director of policy and research for Citizens Against Government Waste.