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U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall speaks in July.
The U.S. Air Force has largely finished its analysis of where it should go with its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) crewed fighter, but service Secretary Frank Kendall says the actual decision on what to do needs to be made by the next presidential administration so they “own it.”
Kendall announced in July that the service had paused NGAD ahead of an imminent contract award, based largely on limited budgets and a greater understanding of threats the aircraft may face. Speaking Dec. 19, Kendall said the election happened in the middle of the analysis and “I don’t want to make a decision that’s going to be disrupted.”
The service formally announced earlier this month that the program’s fate would be pushed to the incoming Trump administration and that the Air Force had extended Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction contracts for the Boeing and Lockheed Martin teams. This was to allow them to keep working while NGAD’s fate was being determined.
Kendall, speaking at a Mitchell Institute event, said the decision would likely be pushed back even longer as the incoming administration would likely want to conduct its own analysis on how to proceed. But it would need to “move fast,” as the fiscal 2026 budget request needs to be submitted in the spring.
The biggest factor on NGAD’s fate will be the overall defense budget and how much of it is allocated to the Air Force. The original expected cost of the NGAD Penetrating Counter Air fighter was to be about $300 million per aircraft.
The Air Force has combined its NGAD planning with its analysis of alternatives for the Next Generation Aerial Refueling System and the next increment of the Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA).
Two nontraditional companies, Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc., have been awarded contracts for the CCA Increment 1, with first flights expected next year. Kendall said the expectation is to move quickly with a “couple hundred” of the CCAs by the end of the five-year Future Years Defense Plan.
As artificial intelligence (AI) for CCAs evolves, Kendall says the Air Force is not ready to abandon crewed aircraft “any time soon.” It will be a manner of decades before AI is ready enough to take on the missions handled by crewed fighters, he says.
“We’re learning how to do this. It’s going to mature. It’s going to evolve,” he says.
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