{"id":67916,"date":"2024-10-04T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-04T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/10\/04\/can-the-air-force-make-its-next-gen-fighter-jet-cheaper-than-the-f-35\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:03:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:03:50","slug":"can-the-air-force-make-its-next-gen-fighter-jet-cheaper-than-the-f-35","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2024\/10\/04\/can-the-air-force-make-its-next-gen-fighter-jet-cheaper-than-the-f-35\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Air Force make its next-gen fighter jet cheaper than the F-35?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter\u2019s inception, the Defense Department and industry have struggled to wrestle down its price tag to roughly $80 million or $100 million per jet, depending on the model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been a grueling battle involving inflation, supply chain crunches, evolving requirements and developmental problems, and remains ongoing to this day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, looming over the horizon, Air Force leaders <\/b>face an even harder challenge: Developing a sixth-generation fighter<\/a>, a successor to the F-22, that can be produced at or below the cost of an F-35.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an ambitious goal, and one being increasingly floated by Air Force leadership, even as the service continues to sort out what its next-generation platform will entail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But outside experts caution that cutting costs on an advanced platform could sacrifice capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall first suggested the F-35\u2032s price tag as a cost goal for the future fighter program, known as the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, platform<\/a> in a June interview with Defense News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall has said he wants to see the service’s next-generation fighter jet come in cheaper per unit than the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But outside experts warn that costs cuts could sacrifice capability. (U.S. Air Force)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the Air and Space Forces Association\u2019s Air Space Cyber conference in September, Kendall doubled down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe F-35 kind of represents, to me, the upper bounds of what we\u2019d like to pay for an individual [NGAD] aircraft,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThe F-15EX and the F-35 are roughly in the same cost category. I\u2019d like to go lower, though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How the Air Force can rein in that cost remains unclear. The price tag for NGAD\u2019s original concept was coming in at about three times the price of an F-35, Kendall said in June. That sticker shock prompted the Air Force to pause its NGAD contract effort \u2014 which had been set to be awarded this year \u2014 and rethink its plans for a future air dominance platform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, some aerospace experts worry that the Air Force is setting an unachievable pricing goal for NGAD \u2014 one that might require the fighter to be so watered down that it becomes an irrelevant asset for war and leads to the program\u2019s demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it would be extremely challenging, if not unrealistic, to get the kind of capability and performance that they need in NGAD [for] less than the cost of an F-35,\u201d Heather Penney, a retired F-16 pilot and senior resident fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, told Defense News. \u201cI\u2019m concerned at the way that Secretary Kendall and the senior leadership have been talking about NGAD, because it feels a lot like they\u2019re boiling the frog, that they\u2019re getting people ready for a program cancellation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force is consulting with airpower experts, including former chiefs of staff Norton Schwartz, John Jumper, and Dave Goldfein, to help it figure out how it will dominate the skies for decades to come, Kendall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the A-team on this, and we\u2019re moving pretty quickly \u2026 to get to some answers,\u201d Kendall said. \u201cThen, by the way, we\u2019ve got to figure out how we\u2019re going to pay for it. Which I think may, at the end of the day, be our biggest problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloudy skies ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Air Force wants NGAD to replace the F-22 Raptor fleet sometime in the 2030s. For years, Air Force leaders emphasized how vital NGAD would be to win future wars and it sought to retire older air frames to free up money to develop the system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But NGAD\u2019s cost has become its Achilles\u2019 heel, and rumors began to spread earlier this year that the program was in trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kendall told Defense News in June that the service was still planning to build a next-generation fighter, but that it needed a redesign to bring its price tag down and allow the Air Force to buy it in significant numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are looking at the NGAD platform design concept to see if it\u2019s the right concept or not,\u201d Kendall said in June. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at whether we can do something that\u2019s less expensive and do some trade-offs there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t