{"id":69192,"date":"2024-12-23T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2024\/12\/23\/under-trump-decision-on-air-forces-ngad-will-shape-fleet-for-decades\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:06:52","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:06:52","slug":"under-trump-decision-on-air-forces-ngad-will-shape-fleet-for-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/air\/2024\/12\/23\/under-trump-decision-on-air-forces-ngad-will-shape-fleet-for-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Under Trump, decision on Air Force\u2019s NGAD will shape fleet for decades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force will <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2024\/09\/05\/air-forces-ngad-revamp-could-open-up-more-business-to-smaller-firms\/\" target=\"_blank\">set a new path for how it will fight air wars<\/a> during the first year of the next Donald Trump presidency, which will have ramifications for decades to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force struggled for much of 2024 to figure out how \u2014 and even whether \u2014 to proceed with its planned sixth-generation fighter, known as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/breaking-news\/2024\/12\/05\/air-force-defers-ngad-decision-to-trump-administration\/\" target=\"_blank\">Next Generation Air Dominance<\/a>, or NGAD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But NGAD\u2019s original anticipated cost \u2014 which came in at about three times as much as an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, or in the neighborhood of $250 million to $300 million \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2024\/07\/01\/next-gen-fighter-not-dead-but-needs-cheaper-redesign-kendall-says\/\" target=\"_blank\">derailed the Air Force\u2019s plans to proceed<\/a>. This summer, the service put the program\u2019s planned contract award on hold and launched a review of NGAD, and its air superiority strategy as a whole, to find out if there is a way to achieve its goals more affordably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force originally intended to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/air\/2024\/10\/04\/can-the-air-force-make-its-next-gen-fighter-jet-cheaper-than-the-f-35\/\" target=\"_blank\">make a decision on NGAD<\/a> by the end of 2024. But in December, after President-elect Trump\u2019s victory, the service announced it would defer that choice to the new administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The service sees the advanced fighter, which would replace the F-22 Raptor, as a critical part of the Air Force\u2019s ability to fight a future war against China in the Indo-Pacific region. It would be part of a family of systems, including autonomously driven drone wingmen known as collaborative combat aircraft, and be powered by an advanced adaptive engine that could shift to the ideal configuration for its current flight conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The technologies and capabilities both competitors for NGAD \u2014 widely expected to be Boeing and Lockheed Martin \u2014 are proposing are \u201cincredible,\u201d Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said Dec. 7. But before the service commits itself to a course, he said, it has to make sure it\u2019s moving in the right direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re about to go through a one-way door,\u201d Allvin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California. \u201cBefore you go through that one-way door, we thought it prudent that we look at the arc of the threat, how this [NGAD] platform integrates with the rest of the capabilities of the Air Force, and whether that integrated set of capabilities was going to meet the threat and be able to exceed the threat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on tactical air and land forces, said the Air Force is right to ask those \u201ctough questions\u201d before it moves too far along on NGAD, and to give the incoming administration its chance to chart a path forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That will help avoid creating an NGAD platform that isn\u2019t properly set up to tackle the threats it will face in years to come, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhat\u2019s happened in the past is, we make decisions [on platforms], and the operationalization of that capability sometimes doesn\u2019t occur for years,\u201d Wittman said. \u201cBy the time it gets operationalized, the threat\u2019s changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Air Force is also putting thought into how NGAD\u2019s platform would work with CCAs and a future tanker called NGAS, or next-generation aerial refueling system, Wittman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since the election, prominent Trump advisers Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have disparaged the idea of building more crewed fighters, and said the military should instead concentrate on drones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Crewed fighters will be necessary for the military in the near-term, Wittman said. But in the long term, he said, uncrewed platforms will take on a greater role \u2014 particularly as technology advances at a rapid pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe question will always be, how does that transition take place?\u201d Wittman said. \u201cWe are not going to go from a fleet of F-35s, B-21s, B-52s [and] F-15EXs to tomorrow, everything unmanned. \u2026 [Going] completely from crewed to uncrewed, I think, is still years in the future. But the learning curve is going to be, how do we incorporate uncrewed aircraft.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Allvin agreed drones will play a key role in future warfare, and he feels the military needs to strike a balance between crewed and uncrewed platforms such as CCAs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe future is really about the most effective human-machine teaming,\u201d Allvin said. \u201cOne can take the idea of drones or uncrewed warfare \u2026 to the extreme, and if you take the human out of this very human endeavor, which is warfare, then it becomes too easy to do. Warfare is always a human endeavor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Noah Robertson contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Air Force struggled for much of 2024 to figure out how \u2014 and even whether \u2014 to proceed with its planned sixth-generation 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