By Maya Carlin, Warrior Contributor, Weapons
Details surrounding the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD, have been kept largely under wraps. But that hasn’t stopped aviation buffs and industry experts from speculating about this future fighter program.
We learned in May that the Air Force has already begun to solicit proposals for its sixth-generation fighter.
The service will reportedly award a contract for the airframe in 2024. While the number of participating manufacturers remains unclear, the industry’s giants, including Lockheed, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman will certainly be involved.
The manned NGAD aircraft is being designed to ensure American air superiority as adversaries race to produce their own next-generation airframes. The NGAD is expected to replace the formidable F-22 Raptor, which became the world’s first fifth-generation fighter when it entered service with the Air Force. While the Raptor is considered the world’s best fighter jet, Russia and China have produced comparable fifth-generation fighters over the last decade. The U.S. military is hoping the NGAD program will ensure America’s interests as tensions build in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.
What We Know About the NGAD Program
Manufacturer Lockheed Martin published concept art for the next-generation airframe in March last year. The depictions show a sleek and tailless airframe with refueling drawn from the LMXT tanker concept. Tailless designs have become more typical. They allow for greater stealth via low observability, greater internal volume for fuel and weapons, and a higher degree of efficiency.
The NGAD’s family of systems concept will incorporate unmanned aerial vehicles to fly alongside piloted fighter jets in an arrangement dubbed Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The Air Force will rely on industry to create this concept and build lower-cost, sophisticated drones that can carry out surveillance, test enemy air defenses, and extend command and control through human direction. In the NGAD concept, the sixth-generation fighter will serve as the quarterback for its accompanying drones and munitions.
For this dynamic to be seamless, the extra line-of-sight offered to the new fighter’s communications systems at greater altitudes will be essential. As The Drive explains, “If an NGAD fighter is operating at 60,000 feet and a high-flying communications node is flying at 80,000 feet, they can stay connected at nearly 750 miles from each other.”
Optimizing the NGAD
While maneuverability is a leading attribute of the F-22, the sixth-generation fighter should be optimized for stealth, range, and payload. As detailed by The Drive, “’Spectral warfare’ is also a key component of its overall design — among other cutting-edge technologies — which will likely be in the heavy fighter/interceptor size class or larger.” The F-22 Raptor can operate at altitudes in excess of 60,000 feet and at speeds nearing Mach-2.0. While the exact specs of the NGAD and its accompanying drones remain highly classified, analysts predict that the new fighter will be able to hit many if not all of the same benchmarks as the Raptor.
Maya Carlin, a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, is an analyst with the Center for Security Policy and a former Anna Sobol Levy Fellow at IDC Herzliya in Israel. She has by-lines in many publications, including The National Interest, Jerusalem Post, and Times of Israel. You can follow her on Twitter: @MayaCarlin.
