After suspending the NGAD 6th generation fighter program, will the US Air Force embark on a Copernican revolution in the way it designs and pilots its combat aircraft programs, and more generally, future air combat systems?
This is essentially what can be understood from recent statements made by General James Slife, vice chief of staff of the US Air Force, and Andrew Hunter, vice secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions, on the occasion of the Defense News Conference, which was held on September 4 in Arlington, Virginia.
Indeed, not only did the two men confirm the suspension of the NGAD program, partly for budgetary reasons, but they also indicated that the US Air Force was deeply questioning the objectives defined in 2015 for this program, judging them now obsolete.
This measure, as spectacular as it is unexpected, should allow us to rethink the objectives of the program, and therefore the way to achieve them, but also to take into consideration the evolution, now very rapid, of defense technologies, American, allied and adversary, no longer allowing the development of programs on extended schedules, as previously.
So what are these new paradigms for piloting major industrial programs concerning the air combat of the future, which are emerging from this American awareness? And to what extent will this looming revolution affect the two SCAF and GCAP programs, which were intended to be the European counterparts of the NGAD?
In this section:
US Air Force wants to start from scratch to imagine NGAD program
Launched in 2015, the NGAD program, for Next Generation Air Dominance, aims to design a system of systems intended to guarantee the US Air Force's air supremacy, from 2030. While it is made up of many systems, ranging from a combat cloud to Loyal Wingmen-type drones, NGAD is above all centered around a new 6th generation combat aircraft, presented by the US Air Force as the successor to the F-22 Raptor.
In June 2024, everyone was waiting for the US Air Force to announce the name(s) of the manufacturers who would be in charge of designing the main demonstrator for this program, intended to prepare the design of the prototypes, then of the combat aircraft themselves, knowing that the schedule remained fixed on an entry into service in 2030, at the latest.
The surprise was therefore total when in mid-June, the chief of staff of the US Air Force, General David Allvin suggested that the program was now in doubt., mainly due to budgetary slippages for certain key programs, such as the LGM-35 Sentinel ICBM missile, whose budget envelope had almost doubled, going from $77,7 billion in 2020 to $140 billion in May 2024.
Soon, however, a second explanation emerged, explaining the reservations expressed about NGAD. Indeed, the US Air Force seemed to question the very foundations of the program, its objectives, its technological trade-offs and their consequences on the planned price of the aircraft, estimated at around $250 million, by highlighting the now central role of combat drones in modern air combat.
Anyway, at the end of July, General Allvin announced that NGAD was suspended, and that the US Air Force would use the additional time it would be given to study the relevance of the paradigms that structure this program.
Apparently, the initial reservations expressed in July were reinforced during the following month. Indeed, on the occasion of the Defense News Conference, held Sept. 4 in Arlington, Va., the No. 2 Air Force commander, Gen. Slife, and acquisition czar Andrew Hunter painted a picture of the program that is radically different from what it was just three months ago.
« It may involve a sixth-generation manned fighter platform, but we've gone back, sort of, and we're looking, you know, from the beginning. " said General Slife. In other words, the US Air Force will start from scratch to design its NGAD program.
Technology has evolved too quickly to keep NGAD on a relevant trajectory
While budgetary constraints most likely played a role in the initial decision to suspend the program, it is above all the very rapid evolution of defense technologies, and their potential use in air warfare, which are now structuring this reboot.
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