The US Air Force plans to spend $28.5 Billion on the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter program from 2025 to 2029. This will be for the 6th generation fighter and the companion wingman drones. The development will ramp up with production starting around 2030.
The NGAD will have next level stealth, vastly better engines and many lessons learned from problems with the F35 and F22 stealth fighter programs.
New jet engine development and weapons are separate budget items.
NGAD will have over twice the range of the F-22 Raptor.
The two main competitors for the contract are: Lockheed Martin, Boeing.
The NGAD will have:
New AESA radar systems
New tailless stealth designs
New adaptive cycle engines
An arsenal of kinetic and laser directed energy weapons
Twin engines that provide greater thrust and fuel efficiency
Minimized heat emissions
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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F22 was never what was advertised ,,never as stealthy as thought ,,,
Defeated recently by no-bodies and old tech
Both the f35 and f22 should of never been built ,,,Neither have surpassed the F15 Ex Eagle
Both the F22 and F35 fell short of delivery,,,it retired nothing as it was suppose to do -But the F15Ex Eagle retired the F22 and out classes the F35
The F15Ex Eagle is the benchmark for the 6th and 7th Generation to achieve
Below are the Eagles true performance specs,,,Anything else is a waste of time and money ,,Style over substance:::
Has to fly at Mach 3 at least
Has to deliver more than 30000 payloads
Has to fly at 100000 as the Eagle does
Has to have the Eagle range at 4000miles
As the F15 Ex Eagle has demonstrated ,,,Made stealth obsolete
Made dog-fighting even more obsolete
The F15Ex Eagle is the only King of the skies The Eagle Rules From The Heavens Above The Skies
It retired All of the entire 5th Generation fighters ,,;it is s second to no 5th Generation fighter in this Planet
Btw ,,,The plane that out tested and out performed the f22 is currently in production,,This is Lockheed worse nightmare
Japan has put into production In he Yf23 The BlackWidow with Grumman supporting that beat the f22 in all test ,,, that includes stealth application by being the better design ,,,they are already calling it supreme
Other note so you all k know Boeing makes about 48% of the f22,,,its design is from the f15 by McDonnell Douglas
The govt will award the NGAD to both Lockheed and Boeing ,,,they almost have to ,Lockheed only got the f22 f35 because they didn’t want Douglas to have all the fighters ,,yet nothing has surpassed F15ExEagle ,,,a 5.5 Generation fighter
So how many hours did you log in a F22 and how many in a F15ex ? My guess is ZERO to both… The Ex has never seen combat and a single raptor beat 5 C model Eagles at the same time… Don’t get me wrong – flying the Eagle was the dream of a lifetime! One the GREATEST experiences of my life, but EX isn’t the long term answer… PERIOD
The people who want to stop spending on this type of aircraft are short sighted and lack foresight. Look at what the Chinese are doing the Russians are modernizing at an alarming rate. This is why F22 was stopped! Really dumb politicians who want to stop that money to protect us will just spend it on stupid social programs that amount to nothing. Wake up!! History repeats itself! If we got the 750 f22s we would not be making f15s again. Navt messed up we with Faax program now scramble to get a sreZlth of their own. We need much more air defence and ships air defence with electro warfare. Stop funding anti American to colleges and programs that hurt us and fund vet programs ! Take care of our folks first. Ngad a must because of politicians who don’t see past there next election
Why are we spending so much on defense? Because of the Chinese. It’s a very simple answer. China continues to spend money on defense hand over fist, to the detriment of their own population. The communist party being above all. They want what we have, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to give world leadership up to the CCP. We can do what Reagan did to the Soviet’s, and bankrupt them.
The problem is the cost this companies are used to sell a screw in $20
Chinese are getting similar results and half the price.
If anything is showing us I. Recent wars is that VOLUME is important as technical features…a a 300 million fighter is ridiculous
I think it will end up being needed in the future. I see China being a bigger threat than Russia. Russia is painted rust right now. The J20 is near peer
I would cancel this, our 5th Gen is still the worlds best, and isn’t going to lose that title anytime soon, plus they can be upgraded to extend their lives.
We (USA) must cut spending, its gotten out of control, and that even includes our military.
The largest thing in the US budget has been DoD for many decades….but not anymore. Now the largest is INTEREST on our massive National Debt!
We keep printing more money out of thin air, creating more inflation…it must end.
We spend under 3 percent of our total GDP so 800 billions sounds crazy but its not compared to the economy and other nations, also 800 billions doesn’t go to weapons it pays our soldiers as they are a professional force and the money also maintains bases and equiptment. Yes the F35s are great but they just dont carry enough internal weapons storage to as effective as wanted. They would also need something with more range so they don’t need to overly rely on aerial refueling. 300 million a plane per NGAD sounds crazy but they aren’t buying 2 thousand they are buying 200. The NGAD will then be force multiplied with a larger force of much cheaper AI wingman. Without as much need for aerial refueling, human pilots and the risk of loss of life and less foward positioned assets it sounds worth it as long as it doesn’t become a big beaurocratic mess.
I agree. debt has become dangerous to our freedom.
It’s wonderful to know USA is far more powerful than all military worldwide,
The question might be,
Why do we need to spend $28.5 Billion dollars to stay ahead of others?????
The USA 🇺🇸 could do allot of interesting things to make the country a better place to live,
What more are these planes going to have and why can’t current planes be modified?
Spending billions may not be needed,
Dont you mean why did we spend $120billion on ukraine?
$28 billion dollars is what the State of California can’t account for for COVID federal assistance funds. Are you serious?
As an engineer who worked for Lockheed for 18 yrs and Boeing ( McDonnell F-15 E) for 10 yrs. With a TS clearance) Lockheed should be banned from this competition.
The corruption on both F-22 and F-35 programs preclude them from competing. The F-22 took 14 yrs to become operational and only resulted in 187 airplanes and the first 24-30 are not even combat capable. After $70 B?
The POS F-35 has taken 23 yrs and is not combat capable because of software screw ups ( Blk 4) a 1000 airplanes have been built but the pentagon won’t say how many are combat coded. 70+ new F-35’s are grounded in Ft Worth and not DD 250 ( contract sign off by USG) because of software problems due to the so called “ technology refresh program”…… criminal procurement
Lockheed executives should be in jail! No way will/ should they build the NGAD plane. Ask yourself why has the F-15 been in continuous production since 1972 with over 1500 built and continuously improved in 6 versions?
human piloted aircraft will soon be a thing of the past. Too many negatives. This amount of money would be better spent on Drones or unpiloted aircraft using AI. Just like chess, we could beat AI easily some years ago, now, AI always wins. So it will be with Aircraft.
Probably the best in the world, but does it really address the issues of upcoming airbourne drone swarms/ missiles that are not burdened by pilots’ frailties, ethics, and thus huge costs. At the end of the day, you’re paying for ensuring theatre dominance – it’s likely cheaper to accomplish that by 10,000x ultra-versatile/ long-duration, super-sophisticated, well coordinated air-to-air/ air-to-sea/ air-to-land drones than scores of these NGADs/ related at multiples of capital and maintenance costs/ time/ resources. The key will be to keep the ultra-high end chips/ tech to enable such drones out of competitor/ hostile hands – probably easier than one would think.
How hard will it be to reverse engineer the chips in the drones that are lost and recovered by adversaries? Even the drone dominated advantage may be short lived
What comes after that?
This will be for the 6th generation fighter and the companion wingman drones.
Real worry is AI and republics of China and N Korea that have no moral compass.
I agree 💯.. that making hundreds of thousands of drones would be smarter and cheaper than waisting billions of dollars on the greedy US. military arms manufacturers with these jets that are out dated before there made
Whatever happens, I hope the program doesn’t turn into a taxpayer boondoggle like the F-35. Mini stealth B-2s FTW !