Defense & Aerospace Air Power Podcast [Mar 27, 25] Season 3 E12- The Secret History.mp3
[00:00:01] Andrew Hunter: NGAD was envisioned as a different way of solving the problem. Right from the moment that Secretary Kendall initiated the effort, he wasn't necessarily looking for something or wasn't presupposing that the answer was something that would look like a traditional fighter.
[00:00:13] J.J. Gertler: From the Defense and Aerospace Report, this is the Air Power podcast powered by GE aerospace. I'm JJ Gurtler.
[00:00:19] Vago Muradian: And I'm Vago Muradian. The big news of the week, the month, and perhaps the decade so far is the award of the manned fighter element of the US Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance program to Boeing over Lockheed Martin. That was widely expected to land the contract. We get into the secret history of the program today with two men who made the F-47 program possible. Former Air Force secretary Frank Kendall and former Air Force acquisition chief Andrew Hunter. Plus, we'll have this week's other headlines in air power.
[00:00:52] J.J. Gertler: And it's all powered by GE. From America's first jet engine to revolutionary hypersonic technologies, GE aerospace has been delivering firsts in propulsion for more than 100 years. Learn about the latest innovation at GE aerospace.
[00:01:07] Vago Muradian: And the Defense and Aerospace Report and its family of publications are also brought to you by H-ii. General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Clarion Defense, the host of the DSI trade show, and the upcoming Apex Innovation Conference in National Harbor, April 23rd and 24. Bell, Leonardo DRS American Rheinmetall and Elbit America JJ what's in the news this week on All Things Considered?
[00:01:33] J.J. Gertler: It's a short list so we can get to the biggest news of the week with our guests. While the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance program was the big news this week, the Brown Shoe may be getting ready to drop. Numerous reports suggest that the Navy f, a next generation fighter contract will be awarded within the next couple of days. Boeing and Northrop Grumman are the finalists. Reports say that the Republic of Korea Army has decided to cancel its order of 36 ah 64 Apache helicopters in favor of unmanned systems. Now, I want to be a little careful with this, because there's been no official word yet from Korea since they started studying this issue back in October. And most of the sources I see on this story point back the same way, but a through line in our reporting the last couple of years has been the question about how helicopters are supposed to survive on the modern battlefield. Various military services are asking that same question. And two Alpha jets of the Patrouille de France demonstration team collided during rehearsals on Tuesday. Both pilots and a passenger ejected safely. If I were a passenger for a demonstration team flight, that would be reward enough. I would not need the free tie that Martin-Baker sends you for successfully ejecting with one of their seats. Vago.
[00:02:46] Vago Muradian: First, we're very happy to hear that despite what was an awful accident, especially if you were watching it over the Sun Air Base in northeast France. We're very glad that there were no fatalities, either on the ground or in the air. As everybody knows, the Patrouille de France really is one of the world's great aerobatic teams. And, you know, prides itself on being able to put on amazing displays everywhere in the world and also do them safely. So we're glad that there was no loss of life on that front. Very interesting in the ROC decision. How much of this is worries about the United States, how much of this is just being very practical and pragmatic, that unmanned systems might be able to pick up some of the load here.
[00:03:27] J.J. Gertler: They had been studying it for months, well before any issues with the US as a reliable ally or supplier. So it really does look like if they are going ahead with this cancellation, that it's because they have decided that the future of the battlefield, at least in the low and slow battlefield, belongs to systems without people on them.
[00:03:48] Vago Muradian: And it was very interesting that while we were at the Air and Space Forces Association's annual warfare symposium in Denver just a couple of weeks ago, Breaking defense broke the story, if I recall correctly, that Lockheed Martin had been dropped from the F/A-XX program. If you were a betting man, where would you be putting your money right about now?
[00:04:09] J.J. Gertler: You know, it's really hard to call this one because yes, Boeing just won NGAD or at least the penetrating counter air portion of NGAD. So to a certain extent, you think maybe it gets spread around and Northrop Grumman wins this one. Then again, Boeing has been leaning forward on this technology. And they do have a long term relationship with the Navy. So it's very tough to call.
[00:04:33] Vago Muradian: It is very tough to call because they're two of the Navy's favorite contractors right. Mcdonnell from Saint Louis, which was sort of the Navy fighter company, and of course, Grumman in the form of iron works, although their presence in Long Island and in Bethpage is now relatively minor. So it's definitely going to be interesting to see how this plays out. And obviously, we discussed that a little bit with Frank and Andrew as well, seeing as how all of these programs were conjoined in a sense, when Frank launched some of these efforts many years ago, I would be remiss, even though the main event is going to be talking about NGAD, the history of NGAD, how it was formed, and how we got to Boeing winning that program. You and I have been discussing this on and off, and actually broke quite a lot of news over the last many years on this program. Obviously, last Friday, the president of the United States from the Oval Office announced that Boeing had beat Lockheed Martin for this. I have been saying for some time that even though the consensus is Lockheed was going to win it, that the folks were telling me, hey, you know, Boeing brought a fresh approach, really put a lot of investment in and developed a lot of capability. And the customers seem to like what they were seeing from the company. From your standpoint, what was interesting about the announcement.
[00:05:42] J.J. Gertler: That it came out of the white House and the president is announcing it, as opposed to coming out of the Pentagon, which is what we're used to with previous programs, that it's not a big national thing. Of course, there's also the question that the Air Force does not have a secretary right now. It does not have a vice chief of staff. It does not have an undersecretary who made this call. We don't know the answer to that yet.
[00:06:05] Vago Muradian: It is interesting indeed, even though they did make it. And obviously Lockheed Martin has a little bit of time to protest the decision. We've been talking about the list of 17 priorities, right. We've heard from the president as well as Elon Musk criticizing the F-35, saying that manned programs are going to get the scrub. Any broader message here that they're pressing ahead, not just with the penetrating counter-air element of NGAD, but also that F/A-XXs is about to drop.
[00:06:33] J.J. Gertler: I think it's fascinating, given all the talk about getting away from inhabited aircraft, that their first program decision was to go with an inhabited aircraft program. On the other hand, it would be easy to make the argument that NGAD, as it is conceived, makes the rest of the uninhabited ecosystem possible by being that central controller that's guiding all the rest. So this is the manned program that you buy to make unmanned possible. Just a theory.
[00:07:01] Vago Muradian: It is an interesting theory. It is at that JJ and I know we're going to talk about this with Frank and Andrew, but what's your sense about what is ahead for the F-35 in terms of your estimates. Right. I mean, was there a drug deal, as is often said in budgetary terms, in order to, hey, look, we'll take some money out of F-35, we'll shift it into next generation air dominance. Right? I mean, we saw the United Kingdom basically underwrite the Tempest program with future acquisitions, right? I mean, they haven't bought more than 78 airplanes, and it's unlikely they will buy the full 138. And it looks like the Italians also are redirecting some of that F-35 investment and indeed maybe possible the Japanese are doing the same thing. What's your sense on what's the outlook for F-35 at this point?
[00:07:48] J.J. Gertler: I have recently reduced my F-35 35. Forecast. When I'm wearing the hat of being Teal Group's forecaster for a variety of reasons, but this is certainly one of them. It's the lack of commitment from the United States. It's the budget problems, frankly, that the Air Force is having because you have F-47 coming on. You have B-21 moving from development money into the same procurement budget as F-35. You have CCAs getting developed, and you have the overruns on Sentinel and a number of other programs. F-35 becomes the malleable part of all that. Now, normally they would have just said, fine, we'll reduce the number of jets per year and build international jets instead. Well, you've got Canada looking at walking away from the program. The Portuguese took a look at it and decided not to go with it. Right now the diplomatic atmosphere is against F-35, so I've become much more bearish on it than previously.
[00:08:45] Vago Muradian: It's unfortunate because obviously this next generation writing the block four version of the jet that lies in our near future really is. And I'm sure we're going to hear about that from Frank. And Andrew is really the kind of key capability that you want as the backbone of the force, right? I mean, however important the NGAD is, you know, it is the high end of the capability as opposed to the sort of backbone of the combat aviation force, because we're going to need, you know, jets that are able to do the mission. This is a highly relevant capability now, much less waiting for the Boeing F-47 to debut.
[00:09:24] J.J. Gertler: Of course. But at the same time, that F-47 is going to cost you 2 to 3 F-35s apiece. And that's just more pressure on that budget.
[00:09:32] Vago Muradian: Indeed, an estimated cost of about $300 million. And indeed, I'm told you may need, you know, a couple of dozen what's referred to as boilerplate versions for aircrews to fly around that don't have really the exotic sensors and capabilities so that they can you can fly them around the flagpole with a little bit less drama. Anything else we need to discuss before we go to the main event?
[00:09:54] J.J. Gertler: I've been looking forward to this conversation since that program was in compartments. And don't miss the other award winning weekly podcasts on the Defense and Aerospace Report Network, hosted by naval savants Chris Cavas and Chris Cervello and sponsored by GE and GE aerospace, who clear the fog on naval and maritime matters. The downlink, where space guru Laura Winter takes a thoughtful look at all things out in the black and our technology report covering the ones and zeros of cyber, AI networks and more. It's hosted by Vago Muradian.
[00:10:28] Vago Muradian: And it's my honor and pleasure to welcome back to the program, former Air Force secretary Frank Kendall and Andrew Hunter, the former assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, Technology and Logistics. Frank and Andrew, thanks again for joining us, especially since it was only a couple of weeks ago that you guys joined us. But then again, a couple of weeks ago, we had no idea that the president of the United States was going to announce Boeing as the winner of the penetrating counter air element of the Next Generation Air Dominance program. So welcome back to the show.
[00:10:57] Frank Kendall: Good to be with you. Thank you.
[00:10:59] Andrew Hunter: Great to be with you.
[00:11:00] Vago Muradian: All right. So I want to start Frank with you because you were present at the creation of this program. In fact, you created it when you were the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. So let's start with the big picture. How does the F-47, as it was awarded compare to how you had originally you and the team had originally envisioned what that penetrating counter air component of NGAD would look like.
[00:11:25] Frank Kendall: Avago when I started the program, it was called the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, and it was designed to mature technologies for a sixth generation tactical aircraft. We hadn't finalized the configuration. There were certain desirable characteristics we were after, but I basically got $1 billion put into the five year plan, into the budget, split evenly between the Navy, the Air Force and DARPA to do a technology maturation program that would include what we call x-planes experimental aircraft that were designed to prove out the more risky and important technologies we were, we were after. So we had that on contract before I left the Pentagon in 2017. I was not involved when I was out of office, but when I came back and became secretary of the Air Force at that point, the X-planes have been built, they've been successful, and the Air Force had started down the path towards what is now known as the F-47.
[00:12:19] J.J. Gertler: Now, along that path, there were a number of significant developments, two significant ones from 2019. And we're going to be hopscotching the history a little bit here. One of those two developments in 2019 was that Andrew, your predecessor, Will Roper, announced that a demonstrator aircraft for NGAD had flown. What was that demonstrator? Was that one of the two companies prototypes, or what were you proving with that demonstrator Administrator. And how much later did the actual competitive prototypes come along?
[00:12:49] Andrew Hunter: Jj, it's hard for me to speak to exactly what Doctor Roper had in mind when he made his announcement, but I can certainly speak to the demonstrators that were part of the program. And really, their intent was to prove out the characteristics of a platform of the nature of a sixth generation air dominance platform. So there, you know, can't get too much into the details, but, you know, specific characteristics that demonstrated that it could meet the fairly rigorous requirements that the program had established for its fighter like capabilities, as well as range and other other aspects you would expect with an aircraft.
[00:13:24] Frank Kendall: Let me add to that, that you need to be clear that the prototypes that explains that were built were not production prototypes, they were experimental vehicles. Test articles focused entirely on the key technologies we were trying to prove could be done. So they were not tactical designs. They did not include many of the requirements we would have on a tactical aircraft that came afterwards and that was initiated based on Air Force requirements during the first Trump administration.
[00:13:50] J.J. Gertler: And were those demonstrators all built by the same company or were they built by different companies?
[00:13:56] Frank Kendall: We can tell you that they were not all built by the same company. They were competitive. But we can't say much beyond that.
[00:14:02] J.J. Gertler: Also in 2019, the Air Force stood up a program Executive Office for Advanced Aviation. Now the B-21 was developed inside the existing rapid capability system. Why was there a need for a different office for NGAD? And did that have an effect in accelerating the program? And by the way, what else is that office working on?
[00:14:22] Frank Kendall: Yeah, I wasn't part of that. I don't think Andrew was either. When Bill and I did do the B-21 program when I was Atnl, although it was led by the Rapid Capabilities Office, we brought in the corporate Air Force, if you will, Air Force Materiel Command, to expand the capabilities of the RCO to handle a program of that size is the B-21. I'm guessing at this, but I would say that part of the reason the new office was set up was that the RCO was basically a capacity, and so it was done through a new office directly under Air Force Materiel Command.
[00:14:54] Andrew Hunter: Yeah. And I would say that that innovation, that creation was pretty critical. And I think part of the reason to create a new office for advanced aircraft was NGAD was envisioned as a different way of solving the problem. Right, right. From the moment that Secretary Kendall initiated the effort, he wasn't necessarily looking for something or wasn't presupposing that the answer was something that would look like a traditional fighter. And in order to make sure that the team did a fully comprehensive look at different ways to solve the problem. I think that's one of the reasons they moved towards creating a new office, to really make sure that there was fresh insight, and ultimately that has led us to today, the Agile Development Office, which leads NGAD and also, as you know, as part of that, does the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program. And that has in fact proven to be a wise decision because it is a very innovative organization, and the way that they have been pursuing this problem was one of the things that helped us conceive of some of the changes we made as part of the re-optimization of the Air Force effort that Secretary Kendall led.
[00:15:54] Frank Kendall: Let me make another point about that. And I think getting a little more of what Andrew was trying to say. The new office is an office in which the Air Force is well, we were not in government, but the Air Force did some really groundbreaking engineering practices and management practices of integrating the design team and using a shared database, a shared digital database. So there's a fad at the time called digital engineering and model based system engineering that started, and this was a way to implement that approach. And it's been very successful. The government engineers and the contractors, engineers basically work simultaneously on the same digital database. So the infrastructure had to be put in place to do that. And that's become a model for how programs are going to be done in the future.
[00:16:41] Vago Muradian: I've got a couple of questions to ask, but I want to start and pull on Andrew. What you said and Frank, what you said and and draw off of something that John Jumper told us a couple of weeks ago. He said, you know, when people think about this plane, it is not an F-22 replacement and don't think about it as an F-22 replacement. Think about it as, you know, a penetrating quarterback to control battle space forward, even if the airplane has potent other capabilities, right? I mean, Frank, I mean, how would you best define or describe the airplane for folks who are looking at this as kind of the super fighter and the next generation F-22, when it seems like what all three of you are saying is, don't think of it as a one for one F-22 replacement. It is kind of a different platform, and if so, what makes it different?
[00:17:26] Frank Kendall: I would think of it as both. Okay. Although the quarterback role came during my tenure as secretary of the Air Force with the introduction of the idea of uncrewed combat aircraft, the original requirements were essentially for an F-22 replacement, and that's essentially the design we have. But the aircraft like the F-35, like fourth generation aircraft like the F-15 or the F-16, will be capable of controlling uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft, loyal wingmen, and operating the way that John Jumper suggested. So while the aircraft configuration itself is going to be pretty direct descendant of F-22, more recently that role has been expanded so that it can do other things, particularly control as well.
[00:18:10] Andrew Hunter: I would add to that that the conception of the architecture for the program, and I know architecture is a word that can sometimes make people go to sleep. But bear with me for a second. You know, the architecture for the program, the Advanced Mission Systems, government reference architecture is that not only the sensors on NGAD platforms can talk to each other, similar in many respects to the way that F-35s can talk to each other. But that same architecture supports sensors on other platforms. And so it's kind of starting with a network first approach, vice of a, you know, alone and unafraid fighter, kind of an approach.
[00:18:47] Frank Kendall: It's also an example of what Bill Plante was coined as. Government owning the technical baseline and having control over the interfaces between subsystems on the airplane so that we're not a prisoner of a prime, basically for upgrades and for competing for modular components that can be added to replace other components as the life of the aircraft goes on.
[00:19:08] Vago Muradian: I was going to joke that if anywhere there was an architectural safe space, this is certainly it. I want to come back to you, Frank, because, I mean, you've talked about the need and why you paused the program, but I think at this point you might be able to share maybe a little bit more light on why you paused the program. Right. I mean, for those people who have been paying attention, you pause the program and then you asked an illustrious panel of retired general officers John Jumper, Joe Ralston, Fingers Goldfein, and General Schwartz, as well as Paul Kaminsky and Natalie Crawford to take a look at the program. Why is it you paused it? Right, because some people saw this as a budget decision. You had talked about it. As you know, there were financial elements, but also threat elements that led to its pausing, which for some was kind of a controversial decision, right? I mean, some people feared that this program wouldn't have been reconstituted in this administration, given its sort of criticism of manned platforms. Why did you pause the program?
[00:20:02] Frank Kendall: Well, there were a combination of reasons, and I'll mention three briefly. The one that led to the pause initially was we just didn't have enough money that with the planning figures we had, we did not see a way to affording NGAD or the F-47. We were going to need over $20 billion in the five year plan for the program, and that was almost entirely research and development money, and we just didn't have it. Now, we could have gotten a bigger number. And ultimately, before we left office, we did have a bigger number. So that was what initially caused us to take a look at it. We just couldn't do it unless we were going to be given more money and there was no place to trade off left within the Air Force to to fund it. We had other bills we needed to play that were probably higher priority than the end get, so affordability was a big factor. The other thing was, as we mentioned earlier, the introduction in the last couple of years of the idea of CCAs and having the manned fighter, the crewed fighter, have a fundamental mission of controlling uncrewed aircraft and use them as the tactical aircraft to get most put at risk, as opposed to the the crewed fighter.
[00:21:06] Frank Kendall: So there was a question originally that came up through our operational community about, is this really the right airplane? Is the penetrating counter air mission that was the basis for the f 22 decision years ago. Really the right thing to focus our design on and tailor an aircraft fundamentally to do that job of going into a dense, highly protected airspace and being able to penetrate and being able to establish your air superiority, at least temporarily, within over enemy territory. So there was a question of whether we had the right airplane. And then the third thing on the list, which I think is quite important and hasn't gotten enough attention, is the opportunity cost. Even if we could find a way to afford it, would that mean we were not going to be buying things that we really needed that were strategic priorities? And I had a list of several strategic priorities that I could not fund. The NGAD was at the time I left, uh, we put together our initial budget anyway, wasn't in, and it was not a higher priority than the other things on my list. And I'll give you a couple of examples. One was counter space. Remember, I was responsible for both air and space forces. So counter space was a critical capability for the joint force.
[00:22:17] Frank Kendall: We need to move forward aggressively with counter space. The Chinese are fielding tens or hundreds of satellites designed to target the joint force and enable long range fires against the joint force. So we had to respond to that, and I thought that was an important national priority, as well as allowing us to defend our forces but also our allies. Another thing on the list, which might or might not have been, probably was not an Air Force responsibility was defence of our air bases. Our forward air bases are are fixed. Uh, we're using agile combat employment to increase the numbers which we have the potential to operate from. But the Chinese have fielded literally thousands of weapons to attack those bases cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and hypersonics. So having an effective, cost effective ability to defend them is very important. A patriot in that type of systems are not going to get you there. Uh, it's just the economics just don't work. So we need something more cost effective than those. And that was not in the budget. So we've gone ahead. You know, the Trump administration's gone ahead with the F 47. I don't know. We won't know until we see the FY 26 budget what they've done about those other priorities.
[00:23:29] Vago Muradian: Did the expert panel merely validate the requirement as was written, or did they recommend changes to better address the evolving threat? And I guess the follow on question to that is, was the airplane that was announced last week to the original requirement or to a tweaked requirement?
[00:23:50] Frank Kendall: I don't know what's happened since I left. It's been a couple of months, but the way we came out was that there was a agreement that there were higher strategic priorities that needed to be funded, the ones that I mentioned in particular, but that the aircraft showed value in our modeling and so on, and would have been a positive addition to the force. I think there were some hesitancy, and there always is, to abandon a current design and go back and try to do something different. There isn't a readiness at this point, confidence in the uncrewed aircraft to bet entirely on them. Right. And I tend to share that that view. So I think it was a sort of a contingent support for the Ngad platform for F-47, assuming that the other priorities would be met and that F-47 itself would be affordable.
[00:24:44] Andrew Hunter: I would add just one thing to that, which is we did during the period of the pause, preserve the ability to award the contract, which obviously has been an opportunity that's been taken advantage of. And so I would just based on the structure of how the system works, I think there'd be minimal, if any changes because they're essentially warding off the existing source selection.
[00:25:08] Frank Kendall: Yeah, I think I'd second that. I think Andrew is correct about that. They haven't been asked to go back and propose changes to the design as far as I know, and there hasn't been time to do that or evaluate it. Uh, what there has been time to do is to have them update their pricing based on any impacts of the passage of time since we paused.
[00:25:26] J.J. Gertler: But during that pause, did anything change that surprised you when the announcement was made? Did you have, for example, a preferred candidate and they chose one or.
[00:25:40] Frank Kendall: No, not to my knowledge. Nothing. Nothing significant changed. Andrew, do you agree?
[00:25:45] Andrew Hunter: The only thing that was new to me was the nomenclature of f47.
[00:25:49] Frank Kendall: Right?
[00:25:50] J.J. Gertler: So in retrospect, what was gained by the pause.
[00:25:54] Frank Kendall: It gave the new administration and our administration, if we had stayed a chance to assess the affordability of the aircraft and decide whether what priority it had relative to other things, we don't have a national security or defense strategy from the new administration. You know, the design features, again, an F-22 like long range air superiority focused aircraft is designed for power projection, and it's designed to go against the most pressing threats that we have. So if that's still a priority, and apparently it is it's hard to hard to hard to argue against going ahead. But again, it comes back to, you know, how did how does this fit in? And are other strategic priorities like the ones I mentioned going to be adequately funded if we if we leave the joint force vulnerable to targeting from space by the Chinese. And if we leave our bases vulnerable to attack the F-22s, the F-35s and the F-47s will never get off the ground.
[00:26:52] Andrew Hunter: And I would add to that, JJ, that, you know, the analysis that was done during the pause period was enormously valuable. And I think it will be a valuable not only to the Air Force broadly, because it illustrated a lot of important trade offs that Secretary has kind of touched on, but also for the program itself, because that interaction between this platform and the other platforms that are in the existing fleet and that we expect to field, and then we expect potential adversaries to field that analysis will help the program work towards a better solution than I think would have been the case prior to that analysis being done.
[00:27:49] Frank Kendall: The emphasis was on getting the much capabilities we could into the platform. That's what has led to the very high price that the F-47 will have. I would be very surprised if our or any of our partners were prepared to pay that unit cost for a new aircraft. And I've heard some stories that suggest that they would have bought F-22 if we'd been willing to share the technology. I'm not sure that that's true. But another another factor right now, of course, is that the attitude we've taken towards our allies is driving a lot of them to rethink their degree of cooperation and commitment and reliance on US sources for equipment. I think going forward, there are a number of things that will make it problematic for international sales of the F-47. One of them is going to be the statement that was made about lowering capability. You know, we basically have very close allies traditionally, and we share some of the best of our capabilities with them because we have a lot of trust in them. Uh, this administration doesn't seem to be taking that point of view.
[00:28:52] Andrew Hunter: The one point that I would make that I've made in the past is our most successful acquisition programs. Almost always, I would say, always, uh, have export sales associated with them. So that may or may not be the case with the F-47, but a truly successful acquisition program does eventually get to an FMS period. And I do think that it one of the things that hurt the F-22 and kept it expensive and keeps it expensive to this day, to own and operate, is the fact that it was not exported.
[00:29:20] Frank Kendall: And the small inventory to the production line went down some time ago, and the inventory objective for that 47 is relatively modest. So if we're going to build at a reasonable rate, we're going to we're going to build out that production line after, you know, just several years.
[00:29:35] Vago Muradian: I want to just follow up on something that both of you said, right. You know, that, uh, you know, you weren't surprised in the final decision. And indeed, some of us who've been trying to cover this very closely were hearing that Boeing really had stepped up, going all the way back to one of the early demonstrators where Boeing had beat Lockheed and, you know, sort of sent a message to Lockheed saying, hey, wait a minute. You know what happened? We're really the fighter enterprise, right? And then it was a bit of a bit of a surprise. And, you know, there was this universal sense that Lockheed was in the lead on this program among some. Although then again, there were those who made the industrial base argument and said, hey, look, I mean, Lockheed is building the F-16 that will remain in US inventory for a while. They built the F-22, they built the F-35. It's unlikely the US Air Force is going to give them the entire fighter portfolio, with the exception of some F-15s in the portfolio. What can you tell us about what Boeing was doing in the course of this competition that differentiated itself from Lockheed and indeed from Northrop? Right. I mean, you guys went from three airplanes to two airplanes down to one.
[00:30:43] Frank Kendall: Well, again, there's not a lot we can say about this. I can give you a couple of generalities, right. One is it was a viable competition. Both of the bidders had viable alternatives for us, and I think it could have gone either way. One of them moved faster to demonstrate the key technologies, but the other one did get there and demonstrate them as well. The designs are quite different from the different competitors. It's interesting how when you give people the same problem, you can get engineers to come back with very different solutions. But I think we had a valid competition and I don't know, Andrew may have been briefed on this. I didn't see the details of the price versus performance kind of characteristics and so on. Industrial base considerations had a lot to do with me starting the Aerospace Innovation Initiative. I wanted to reintroduce competition for tactical aircraft with F-22 and F-35. Lockheed had gotten into a very powerful market position. But, you know, Lockheed could definitely have won this. It was a valid, viable competition. And I think Andrew can confirm this. I think that the source selection was not based on industrial based factors. Andrew, do you want to add to that?
[00:31:53] Andrew Hunter: That's correct. It was not based on it was a competition based on this aircraft and its capabilities. And, you know, I think there is a point to be made that what you see sometimes in these things is the incumbent is a little more risk averse than the the company that doesn't have the installed base or at risk. And so sometimes it can be a little more innovative or risk a little more in their proposal because it doesn't, you know, the company doesn't feel like they're betting the company in the way that the company that has more to lose has. What was interesting to me about this competition is I think actually both designs were quite creative. Right. And of.
[00:32:28] Frank Kendall: Course.
[00:32:28] Andrew Hunter: Part of that was the the nature of the requirement, which, you know, you couldn't just get there from, you know, taking something and modifying it modestly. Right. You really needed something new. And so I think both sides really came to it with a lot of creativity. And the one other comment I wanted to make on that is the program is structured in a way to encourage that creativity, right. So we we've talked about this six gen platform as increment one of NGAD. Right. With the concept being that there will be future increments. And so it was designed not to be this all or nothing. Hey, if you don't win this you're out for the next three decades. Competition. It was designed to be something that, you know, if you win, you have an order for, you know, 100 roughly aircraft, but there'll be other orders coming down the pike. And so you stay in the game and you continue to compete. And obviously future will tell. Time will tell how many increments ever get built. But I do think the nature of the approach here encouraged the competitors to be a little more creative than maybe they sometimes are. And I think there's benefit in that.
[00:33:32] Frank Kendall: Yeah, I think I'd add to that that, you know, incentives may have been stronger for Boeing in some ways. They needed to win this one more than Lockheed did. The F-35 is going to stay in production for quite a long time. Lockheed is in a pretty good position there, and we're doing F-15 X now. But nevertheless, Boeing, I think if it was going to stay a viable fighter builder going forward, had to win this competition.
[00:33:57] Vago Muradian: There are, though, two words that for some people or three words that are potentially worrying for people risk averse and Boeing. Right. I mean, there's KC 46, T7, MQ 25 are all behind schedule and over budget. Boeing is eating the cost on most of these. It is fair to say that ye who is free of past performance. Sin cast the first stone here because Lockheed Martin was late and you know an extremely right. I mean, I think to the tune of about $17 billion on block four, which was a cost that the Air Force also was eating as well. Right. As opposed to just leaving Boeing to wrangle with that. How much of a factor was past performance on this? Because there is a lot of concern that, however fresh or risk taking Boeing's approach was, and I'm not being critical, I know how hard Ted Colbert and the entire Boeing team, right. His predecessors, his successors have been working on this problem, on trying to, you know, a get the company back on track and particularly win NGAD understanding how important it was. But there are also those who say, look, I mean, whatever you wanted to say about Lockheed, their jet actually works and works pretty well, as opposed to another company that just has not done this degree of stealth work, low observable work in the manner that Lockheed has done. How do you guys respond to the past performance question on this?
[00:35:20] Frank Kendall: Well, I'll go. First of all, I can talk to you about a lot of years of struggling to get F-35 fielded and get the design to where it needed to be, right. And we're still struggling with block four, so nobody's got a clean record in terms of past performance here, right?
[00:35:36] Andrew Hunter: Yeah, I guess I would add, you know, past performance is usually a criteria in these kinds of competitions and was but it rarely is a differentiator. And I guess my judgment would be not the critical differentiator here. But many of the things you cited can be are definitely things that are contemplated in the competition. We don't just take a company at their word. If they say, yeah, our design meets your criteria for observability, right? That is something that gets rigorously validated through the source selection process and with very substantial engineering reviews and and the world's highest quality experts on this work for the United States Air Force. So, you know, I think many of the features of will the airplane do what it says it will do that is rigorously validated, separate and apart from a past performance evaluation is a huge, uh, a huge part of the judgment.
[00:36:29] Frank Kendall: I would add that there's risk with anybody we picked at this point. These are new designs, there are aggressive designs. They've got a lot of new technologies. They're going to be integrated together. Uh, that's always very challenging. So I expect that there will be issues and risks that arise that have to be dealt with no matter who won this.
[00:36:49] J.J. Gertler: Now, going back in time a bit, when I was warming Andrew's eventual chair at the House Armed Services Committee, we were in the throes of the Joint Strike Fighter program. And with that program, we can say this now. It's 20 years ago. Word was passed to the Hill a year before the downselect that one of the competitors was not technically qualified, and that the rest of the program all the way to the announcement was going through the motions. It wasn't a race. What I'm hearing from you is that that was not the case here. This was a close competition. Can you characterize whether it was performance that mainly differentiated the contenders, whether it was price or just the philosophy of the aircraft that made the decision?
[00:37:34] Frank Kendall: Yeah. I can't speak to the F-35 decision. I was not aware of what you had just said. And I do not believe that was the case in this competition. Andrew, do you want to amplify on that? I don't think there's a lot we can say about it.
[00:37:45] Andrew Hunter: You're right. It was a viable competition. I don't want to get too much into the source selection criteria unless we switch to signal.
[00:37:54] Vago Muradian: Well played, Hunter. Well played, I can confirm. By the way, aside from the fact that JJ was the guy that they told that to, I can tell you that as a reporter who was covering it, the story the day of the downselect was that there was no way that Boeing could have won the competition, and that DoD had stretched it out to try to make sure to get the best value on the program ultimately, which I thought was interesting. And if I understand what both of you guys are saying is that that was not the case in this competition. Did Northrop back out or did Northrop not make the cut to the final two?
[00:38:27] Andrew Hunter: It was more of the latter that they were a competitor in the early round, but did not make it to the finals.
[00:38:35] Vago Muradian: Understood. I just want to ask you guys sort of a budgeting question, right? I mean, as you mentioned, Frank. Right? I mean, we'll know more about what this administration's budget is going to look like in May. Obviously, Secretary Hegseth has directed a massive cut drill. You're both familiar with budget drills, right? Redirecting 8% a year over the next coming years to shift to new priorities. Indeed, this administration was very critical of F-35. We heard it both from the president as well as Elon Musk being critical of the F-35 and then manned aircraft as well in that guidance. Right. So that's the reason why some people were very surprised that the announcement last week was made to press ahead with the penetrating demand element of next generation air dominance. There is a question that some are asking, though, whether the service right. I mean, if it has more money, then it'll press ahead with all of its manned aircraft programs, as well as press ahead with Sentinel unchanged. Or it had to make trade offs. Right. And so, you know, is there maybe a dialing back of F-35 in order to make f 47 a reality? What are the potential drawbacks of the US Air Force not pressing ahead, for example, with the block four jet? Right. I mean, can you have f 47 without block four F-35s? Right. What are the puts and takes, and what are the other elements of the portfolio that constitutes NGAD, aside from collaborative combat aircraft that you need to bear in mind if you're going to execute this sort of next generation of penetrating air power?
[00:40:07] Frank Kendall: I know you have to look at the overall Were all situation of the Air Force's budget. A couple of very important facts. The average age of the airplanes in the United States Air Force is almost 30 years. We have a very old fleet and recapitalizing. That fleet with more modern designs is an important thing to continue to do. Ideally, we'd like to build 72 airplanes a year. We rarely get to that. To maintain the current age, not to get older, the availability of those airplanes across the fleet is below 60%, so a large fraction. And that's largely because of the age and the cost to maintain older airplanes. So the overall health of the fleet is really important here. And the recapitalization for the fighter part of the fleet, which is the largest, was mostly F-35s and an additional F-15ex, which have a price point which is roughly the same as the F-35. You bring in an airplane like the F 47, which will have a price point that is more than twice the cost of the F-35. Then you're not going to be able to afford to recapitalize at the same rate. So you don't have a lot of room to maneuver there. Um, that'll have to be managed again. It's about affordability, and it's about, you know, strategic priorities that the Air Force will have to sort out.
[00:41:24] Andrew Hunter: Yeah. And I would add to that, you know, you raised the F-35 and block four. And I think sometimes people miss the fact that block four isn't just something that comes on new F-35s. It's also a upgrade intended to be retrofit to the Air Force's existing F-35s, of which the Air Force already owns hundreds. And so my view of the world would be that that block four is not optional, right? It's a necessary thing because those F-35s we've already invested in, if they're really going to be the warfighting assets that we need in the future, they're going to need that block four upgrade. So whatever path forward you take on F-35 and I'm going to say there are multiple options. There's not an option that says you just stop full stop. You're going to be making an investment there, and that's a fleet that you're going to want to mature and keep updated over time.
[00:42:11] Vago Muradian: But the question is, in the event that block four is stopped for domestic acquisition, right. Which is what some have been suggesting, right? International partners will buy it. So it's very much an F-16 model to be honest, right. I mean, our allies have better versions of F-16 than we do. Would that be problematic?
[00:42:31] Frank Kendall: Oh, absolutely. We need the block four. No question about it. It's about to make the point earlier that we're in a race for technological superiority against a formidable opponent, and we cannot stand still. And 1 or 200 f-47s that we're not going to get for several years is not going to keep us competitive. We've got to do more than that. And that has to include, I think, the block four, as well as the CaaS and the increment two of the CaaS. All of this is going to require more funding. But we're at a point now where fourth gen aircraft, even the most advanced, are equipped with upgrades, are just not competitive against the kinds of threats we're going to say that is not a fight you want to be in. You really need to get to the next generations of capabilities as quickly as possible.
[00:43:14] J.J. Gertler: Our questions are, of course, somewhat limited by what the public has been able to see. Were there interesting things that happened in the program that you can talk about that shed some light either on what this aircraft is, what the concept is, or how hard it was to bring to fruition.
[00:43:33] Frank Kendall: I'm just going to compliment the original program management that came out of DARPA. You know, I have the idea to do this, got it funded, gave DARPA the lead on it with the services and the the team. Harry Berman, in particular, the original program manager for the program, really put together a good, successful technology maturation program that reduced the risk of going ahead with the f 47 designs substantially and proved out some really important technologies. So I would give the team that's done that a lot of credit. I would also give the team that when I came into the Air Force job, Dale white was leading. And the job that they have done, those young engineers working in the same environment, the same digital environment, in collaboration with the two industry teams, have done a fantastic job of maturing this design. So I want to give those those young, young engineers and that whole program office a lot of credit for what they've done.
[00:44:29] Andrew Hunter: And I'll take that just one step further. You know, one of the fundamental innovations of our NGAD approach has been the relation to the subtier suppliers. So I think sensors and comms packages and even propulsion. So having a truly direct at the development stage relationship between the government and those suppliers of those subsystems is a game changer. It's a it's a way to enable the modular open systems approach, which, as the Secretary said, has historically been a bit of a buzzword, but they've really turned it into practical implementation in this NGAD program in a way that's never been done before. So that is a fundamental innovation. And it's a linchpin, I think, for how the Air Force is going to innovate going forward.
[00:45:12] Vago Muradian: What are some other elements of this program that remain that you guys can discuss? Right. I mean, now we have the penetrating counter-air element of it. We've got the collaborative combat element of it. What are some of the other elements in this family of systems? Right. So it was revelatory that this is not a one and done right. So whoever it is who builds up to 100 of these airplanes, right, the next tranche gets competed. Right. Because presumably we will need a lot more than just 100 of these airplanes. Ultimately, uh, although it is very expensive, there is an engine, a next generation advanced propulsion, the Ngap that's ongoing. What are some of the other elements of this that folks have to be thinking about as they think about what NGAD is?
[00:45:58] Frank Kendall: Uh, the way we've characterized this going back quite a long time is a family of systems approach. When I did the Operational Imperatives, I talked about the NGAD family of systems. Right. And the study that DARPA led for me, even before the Aerospace Innovation Initiative was started, about what the next generation of air dominance would be, came back with a family of systems approach. And that's what we've done. So when you think about this, it's not just about an airplane going out and fighting another airplane. It's the things you mentioned. Now it's going to include the uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft. It's going to include connectivity between that formation, the ability to control the battle management to control the formation, advanced weapons and other things that can be carried on board aircraft, and also connectivity to things like space based sensors and space based communication systems that can reach back and then can share and provide digital information into the cockpit of the F-47. So it's going to be an integrated network set of capabilities that has a lot more power and a lot more combat capability than just the aircraft alone. That family of systems approach is central to how we're going to fight in the future.
[00:47:06] Andrew Hunter: 100% agree with that. And the extra wrinkle I would throw in is the connection to the Navy program. So even though we didn't do a joint program here like F-35 multi-service, but the approach to the architecture means that at the architecture level, you've got compatibility with the Navy program. And so to the Secretary's point about all the additional assets outside the airplane, that it can interrelate with that. One huge advantage here is the connection to the Navy's fleet and to be able to seamlessly integrate with that as well.
[00:47:37] Vago Muradian: On facts, though, Andrew, as you're discussing it, there's a concern that, as Frank explained, right? I mean, if you're a fourth generation airplane, you're going to be in trouble. F/A-XX obviously is going to be a stealthy aircraft, but the Navy is trying to sort of split the difference between the kind of level of low observability the Air Force is shooting for, with something that's more compatible for a carrier deck. A more capable, you know. Right. A Redux to a bomb dropping F-14. Right. Something that has the attributes of a fleet interceptor, but also has an ability to carry payload and to do penetration with more payload and range. Is that splitting the difference a successful model? Ultimately.
[00:48:19] Andrew Hunter: I very much believe that there is a path to success in this approach of not buying necessarily a common platform, but buying a platform that leverages common sensors, common comms and those things. But where the flight characteristics of the platform, which can be very different in a Navy versus an Air Force application, and I would say certainly is different in this case. I think there's definitely a path to success in that approach. Success is never guaranteed. So I'm not going to make that prediction here today. But I definitely think there is an opportunity to do it and do it right. And my heart is certainly with the Navy on their program.
[00:48:58] Vago Muradian: And, Frank, do you think Lockheed can remain plenty competitive? Right. Because there's a sense that now that Boeing has next generation air dominance, Northrop has likely got F/A-XX. That's where they were going to put some of their investment after leaving NGAD. Frank, do you think that Lockheed has enough work to remain competitive for that next generation?
[00:49:18] Frank Kendall: First blush I do. The thing you haven't mentioned is additional CCAs. And we're the uncrewed. Future's going to lie. I think there's enormous potential for growth there. And I think, you know, the major primes didn't win the first round. And Royal and General Atomics did. But they're going to be other rounds. And I think they got a wake up call out of that. So I'm delighted to see more competition coming into the defense aerospace world than we've had for the last decade or two.
[00:49:43] Vago Muradian: And last question, Frank. You're a veteran of the Strategic Defense Initiative program. During the Reagan administration, you were involved in all sorts of very, very neat things, including fractional orbital bombardment, which appears, our Russian friends appear to have thought was a clever idea. One of the president's top priorities, and indeed, this budget drill of redirection is to put money toward Golden Dome from your standpoint and based on what you know, I mean, obviously, we're in the early phases of getting this underway as one of the president's priorities. But drawing on your experience from back then, what's the best way to sort of execute this system? Because it includes many of the same elements that existed from Sdio.
[00:50:25] Frank Kendall: I spent over a decade, I guess, working missile defense. Strategic missile defense. I was an SDI started under President Reagan. I was the lead systems analyst, systems engineer for the Army, for the program. And then in a few years later, I moved into the Pentagon and had responsibility for the entire program. It was an aspirational vision that President Reagan had at the time. In many ways, it was unrealistic and probably unaffordable. I don't know if that's changed. What we have not heard from this This administration is exactly what they want to defend against. What threats? And I think until you have that, it's very hard to understand, you know, what's reasonable and what's not. We pursued space based systems of various types for a long time, and could never find one that was going to be cost effective. Terminal defenses could be built, but they were only going to defend, you know, some limited parts of the of the country. Today you have hypersonics in the mix. You have the potential for space based weapons. The threat has gotten worse. And that makes the defense problem a lot harder. One of my conclusions, after working the defense side of the strategic equation for a decade or so, was that I'd rather be on the offensive side. It was a much easier problem. So I don't know. It also can soak up an awful lot of money. You can spend an enormous amount of money chasing things that may not turn out to be cost effective or even viable. So I think until we know no more, it's too early to pass judgment on this. I was surprised by the announcement. But, um, I think there's a lot of scrambling going on right now by various institutions and government industry to to sort out what might make some sense to fit in. But I don't think that there's been a clear articulation from the administration of exactly what the strategy is and what they're trying to accomplish with Golden Dome. So we'll see. I'm a little concerned that they may be chasing an aspirational goal, which is not realistic again. And they may waste a lot of resources doing that.
[00:52:20] J.J. Gertler: Frank Kendall, the father of NGAD. Andrew Hunter. Is it fair to call him the midwife? They've got a bouncing baby jet. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us on the Air Power podcast.
[00:52:31] Frank Kendall: Thank you guys. Good to be with you.
[00:52:33] Andrew Hunter: Thank you very much. Glad to join you.
[00:52:35] J.J. Gertler: Thanks so much for listening to the Air Power podcast. And if you liked what you heard, hey, please do tell a friend, especially if you want them to get promoted. Thanks also to GE aerospace for powering the entire flight. We'll be back next week.
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