As many as 1,000 collaborative combat aircraft will be developed as part of the NGAD program.
While the Air Force’s upcoming Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program may technically be paused, the service’s first two prototype aircraft have been designated. Manufacturers General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and Anduril have proposed models to uncrewed compete for the collaborative combat aircraft (CCAs) project, labeled YFQ-42A and YFQ-44A, respectively. “For the first time in our history, we have a fighter designation in the YFQ-42 Alpha and YFQ-44 Alpha,” Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said. “It may just be symbolic, but we are telling the world we are leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare.” As part of the service’s sixth-generation fighter project, CCAs are expected to fly alongside the jets as autonomous drone wingmen. Perhaps until NGAD is more finalized, these CCAs could fly alongside the fifth-generation F-35 Lightning platform. While no other military fields such technology to date, China is racing to develop its own sixth-generation fighter and fleet of accompanying combat drones simultaneously.
An overview of NGAD
The United States once held fighter jet supremacy in the skies, when it fielded the world’s first-ever fifth-generation platform, the F-22 Raptor. However, in addition to the Raptor and the subsequent Joint Strike Fighter platforms, American adversaries Russia and China now fly their own modern fighters. The Russian Sukhoi Su-57 and Chinese Chengdu J-20 qualify as fifth-generation platforms, and both countries are working to produce next-generation prototypes as quickly as possible. Even before Beijing and Moscow developed the J-20 and Su-57, respectively, U.S. officials were already eyeing emerging aerial technologies. Back in 2014, Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) studies culminated in new air superiority concepts for both the Air Force and Navy. By 2018, NGAD was conceptualized to represent a “family of systems,” or a suite of next-generation capabilities.
Although many details surrounding the NGAD’s specs and capabilities remain highly classified, officials have disclosed that the next-generation project will harness new technologies when it comes to propulsion, advanced weapons, and of course, stealth. Most recently, GE Aerospace and RTX’s Pratt & Whitney have been selected to move forward in the construction of respective engine-type demonstrations after finalizing their design reviews for the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion program (NGAP).
In addition to progress being made on NGAD’s engine, the unmanned component of the upcoming fighter series is also making strides. The inclusion of CCAs will play a significant role in NGAD. The service has previously revealed that a fleet of at least 1,000 of these CCAs will be developed as part of NGAD. The Air Force secretary detailed that “The expectation is that these (unmanned) aircraft can be designed to be less survivable and less capable, but still bring an awful lot to the fight in a mixture that the enemy has a very hard time sorting out and dealing with.” He added, “You can even intentionally sacrifice some of them to draw fire, if you will, to make the enemy expose himself.”
The designation of two CCA prototypes indicates progress is being made for NGAD as a whole.
About the Author: Maya Carlin
Maya Carlin, National Security Writer with The National Interest, 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. Carlin has over 1,000 articles published over the last several years on various defense issues.
Image: DVIDS.
