USAF/US NAVY 6th Generation Fighter Programs - F/A-XX, F-X, NGAD, PCA, ASFS news

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books said:
I get the feeling that Allvin may personally want to be an advocate for applying the CCA methodology to future crewed fighters, meaning digital design, short fatigue life, shorter service life, lower tech, avoiding long sustainment costs, avoiding long tech development or fielding, rapid development, etc.

A bit like C.Q. Brown came into office expressing interest in a next gen non-VLO fighter, and making the F-35 the "Sunday fighter" that generally would fly less, avoid the desert, etc, but still be available for high end conflict. I am NOT necessarily trying to link Allvin's ideas to Brown's as specific concepts, just saying that I think both of them were giving voice to personal preferences (which they have probably now talked up to the AS 2050 people) rather than speaking ex officio about finalized official Air Force conclusions.
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I can definitely see wanting to make the planes only last about 20-30 years not 40-50, because of how fast technology has advanced. FFS, F-22s have computer chips made in the early 1990s in them!

It also helps keep the different aircraft makers involved, since pretty much as soon as the contract is signed and the NGAD is in IOC, you start designing the replacement.

Plus, now the design and delivery of a new plane can be staggered. High end fighter designed, start designing low end fighter that enters service ~10 years after high end plane hits IOC. Soon as the low end fighter hits IOC, start designing new high end fighter. repeat.

Though as a side note, I'm kinda expecting the USAF to also need an actual medium-ish bomber. Something with half the range of the B21 but the same bombload. An F-15E/F-111 replacement.
 
In_A_Dream said:
I'll say it again, it's not worth designing USAF fighters around extended legs in the Pacific. If we're worried about China, the entirety of their country that is not along the SCS is wide open and available to our current fighters. Leave the Pacific to the Navy to keep the waterways open.
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Where would these mythical fighters be based out of and how many nuclear powers would they have to overfly?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Though as a side note, I'm kinda expecting the USAF to also need an actual medium-ish bomber. Something with half the range of the B21 but the same bombload. An F-15E/F-111 replacement.
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Why? What need would this fill vice more B-21s, given the dearth of bases to deploy them?
 
Josh_TN said:
Why? What need would this fill vice more B-21s, given the dearth of bases to deploy them?
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Given that I'm imagining it as being essentially a "Strike NGAD," it's got speed and more capable air to air.

Because in the case of major shooting wars kicking off, the US cannot afford to be using any of the ~100 B-21s to deliver conventional explosives in 2000lb sized chunks.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Except for having to fly over the pole and over Russian Siberia, or fly over the Himalayans from bases in India etc.

All of the cities and industrial centers are on the ocean side of the country.
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It's a smaller issue to tackle than dealing with the heavily entrenched Western Pacific where there are fewer basing options and lots of water inbetween.

There is plenty of accessible infrastructure in western China that would cripple the nation if struck. Russia isn't heavily defended in that region either.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Have you looked at how many different aircraft designs there were in the Century Series?

There's probably a lot of questions about how far and how much load the CCAs need to carry. USAF has an idea, but is aware that paper plans may not survive contact with the enemy. So they're assuming that the CCA designs may need to change. May prove to need to carry more AAMs or whatever.

But they can fly CCAs with 2x AAMs right now.



We've been flying drones for 30+ years.

We've been flying a hi-low mix of aircraft for 50+ years.
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You could also say we've been flying drones since Vietnam. But saying that, as well as flying ISR and other assets in a permissive environment, underplays the significance of Kendall's affordable mass concept. It's revolutionary and as such is very risky.

Regarding the Century Series model. Different time. Different place. Simpler technology, more hardware than software dependent. Did it really produce great fighters? Or was its value mainly an approach which developed technology and helped the Air Force determine what attributes it wanted in its fighters?

You may be emulating the broad outlines of the idea with CCAs with a similar approach. Will it work from a cost and engineering perspective? Will it provide systems which help the AF counter China without wasting a lot of money on dead ends?

In general you are also right about the hi-lo mix, but CCAs are different. Short ranged fighters are not joining long range bomber as they ingress. You are not integrating a flight of F-16s and F-15s in the same package. You are giving a manned fighter an AI wingman that is flying a dissimilar aircaraft with different performance characteristic and sensors. The "low mix" is more like a non expendable weapon that is an extension of the manned fighter than a wingman.

The challenge for the AF is they have to get this right. It is not the 1950s and 60s. There is not a lot of cash it can burn through in order to try different things.
 
B2Blain said:
You could also say we've been flying drones since Vietnam.
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Not really, post 1973 after US forces pulled out of south Vietnam the USAF had dropped Firebee drone programme (IIRC it was quite successful in North Vietnam) like hot potato within a few years (Which was a very short-sighted move IMO).
 
B2Blain said:
You could also say we've been flying drones since Vietnam. But saying that, as well as flying ISR and other assets in a permissive environment, underplays the significance of Kendall's affordable mass concept. It's revolutionary and as such is very risky.

Regarding the Century Series model. Different time. Different place. Simpler technology, more hardware than software dependent. Did it really produce great fighters? Or was its value mainly an approach which developed technology and helped the Air Force determine what attributes it wanted in its fighters?

You may be emulating the broad outlines of the idea with CCAs with a similar approach. Will it work from a cost and engineering perspective? Will it provide systems which help the AF counter China without wasting a lot of money on dead ends?
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I certainly see the value of the "Century Series model" as secondarily developing technology and primarily helping the USAF figure out what attributes it wanted in its fighters.

Examples:
  • F100s were okay supersonic fighters, but they couldn't carry as much as the USAF wanted. So there was the F-101A that could carry as much as the USAF wanted (and the F-101B made a pretty good long range interceptor that wasn't Mach 2)
  • F102s were pretty good interceptors but weren't Mach 2, so let's stick a J75 in there and presto it's the F-106.
  • F103 and F105 (edit:) and F-107 were competing for the same fighter-bomber contract, and the F-105 wound up better at low altitude where fighter-bombers would end up working.
  • F-104 was a short range interceptor with screaming performance, and was developed as one idea of "what the warfighters wanted" based on their experience in Korea. While I do see a potential CCA role for that flight profile, it's not for operations in the Pacific exactly. It's as a recoverable first stage "missile" able to cover more ground than modern anti-hypersonic SAMs, which would do better over Europe.
  • XF-108 would have made a Mach 3 interceptor and B-70 escort, and was canceled with the B-70 along with a lack of Soviet long-range bombers.
  • F-110/F-4 kinda ended up as the super evolution of the F-101, putting both fighter-bomber and interceptor into the same Mach 2 airframe at the same time.
  • F-111 was another attempt at a super interceptor and low-level interdiction fighter-bomber combination with more range than an F-110/F-4, but the interceptor part did NOT work out well. Frankly, the two mission profiles were completely incompatible in the first place.
I would be surprised if we got CCAs the size of the F-110/F-4, and I expect the NGAD to be the size of the F-111, so unless someone uses the NGAD airframe without a cockpit it's beyond unlikely that there will be any CCAs that big.




B2Blain said:
The challenge for the AF is they have to get this right. It is not the 1950s and 60s. There is not a lot of cash it can burn through in order to try different things.
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Very much agreed here, but if they buy 100ish Increment 1 CCAs and discover that the warfighters really need something a little different there's much less loss than if they buy 1,000ish Increment 1 CCAs.

With 100ish CCAs, that's enough to give 32 aircraft each a set of 3 CCAs. That's only ~2 squadrons of manned planes. Maybe 4 squadrons, since I think arming and fueling the CCAs will take enough ground crew that you'd want to run 8x NGADs and 24x CCAs per squadron. Or even more CCAs, if we're including EW/ISR and BACN node CCAs in that count, nevermind any ground attack CCAs (that the USAF has oddly not even mentioned as excluding from the list of what they want).

Frankly, Increment 1 should be seen as equivalent to the first generation Spad A-series in WW1. Just barely figuring out what will work, not what the end users really want (Spad XIIIs).

If the Increment 1 CCAs do turn out to be pretty spot-on for a subsonic 2x BRAAM long range "spear carrier" and the USAF actually wants more? Sweet, let's order more!

But I expect the USAF will want supersonic 2-4x BVRAAM long range "spear carriers" instead. The subsonic birds might get turned into EW/ISR or even BACN nodes, and assigned out at like 4-8 per squadron in that case.

So I don't expect any given CCA Increment to have more than 100 or so ordered. At least not till we get to the CCA equivalent of the F-106 or maybe F-4.

F-4 equivalent CCAs would be packing 4+4 or 6+2 BVR+WVR AAMs in general, plus possibly multirole with space for a bombload larger than the F-35 (I'm guesstimating 4x 2000lb or 4x4 SDBs or whatever, on top of all those AAMs).​
 
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Scott Kenny said:
F103 and F105 were competing for the same fighter-bomber contract, and the F-105 wound up better at low altitude where fighter-bombers would end up working.
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I think you meant the North American XF-107, the Republic XF-103 was a Mach 2.5-3.0 pure interceptor powered by a turbo-ramjet, it could be regarded as the precursor to the XF-108. While the USAF was correct to cancel the programme I think they were wrong not to implement Republic's suggestion of building the XF-103 prototypes because they would've been of great use to NACA (Later on NASA) for high-speed aircraft research.
 
NMaude said:
I think you meant the North American XF-107, the Republic XF-103 was a Mach 2.5-3.0 pure interceptor powered by a turbo-ramjet, it could be regarded as the precursor to the XF-108. While the USAF was correct to cancel the programme I think they were wrong not to implement Republic's suggestion of building the XF-103 prototypes because they would've been of great use to NACA (Later on NASA) for high-speed aircraft research.
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Oops! Thank you, fixed.
 
IIRC the reason why the F-105 one the competition and not the F-107 is that the F-105 had a bomb-bay while the F-107 carried a semi-recessed weapons-pod, which is ironic because in the Vietnam war the F-105's bomb-bay was used almost exclusively to carry an extra fuel-tank.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Given that I'm imagining it as being essentially a "Strike NGAD," it's got speed and more capable air to air.

Because in the case of major shooting wars kicking off, the US cannot afford to be using any of the ~100 B-21s to deliver conventional explosives in 2000lb sized chunks.
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A fighter bomber limited to foreign basing or Guam does not seem like a worthwhile investment. For air to air, there may well be no choice. For air to ground, there already is a long range penetration platform. Build more of them if you need to.
 
B2Blain said:
1. Regarding the Century Series model. Different time. Different place. Simpler technology, more hardware than software dependent. Did it really produce great fighters? Or was its value mainly an approach which developed technology and helped the Air Force determine what attributes it wanted in its fighters?

2. In general you are also right about the hi-lo mix, but CCAs are different. Short ranged fighters are not joining long range bomber as they ingress. You are not integrating a flight of F-16s and F-15s in the same package. You are giving a manned fighter an AI wingman that is flying a dissimilar aircaraft with different performance characteristic and sensors. The "low mix" is more like a non expendable weapon that is an extension of the manned fighter than a wingman.

3. The challenge for the AF is they have to get this right. It is not the 1950s and 60s. There is not a lot of cash it can burn through in order to try different things.
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Very well said. I selected my 3 favs.

Unless someone knows otherwise, the USAF Century Series was not a top-down, strategic vision following the Korean War. But more of a cut-and-try approach during the Eisenhower era of peace and prosperity.

Scott Kenny said:
Examples:
  • F-110/F-4 kinda ended up as the super evolution of the F-101, putting both fighter-bomber and interceptor into the same Mach 2 airframe at the same time.
  • F-111 was another attempt at a super interceptor and low-level interdiction fighter-bomber combination with more range than an F-110/F-4, but the interceptor part did NOT work out well. Frankly, the two mission profiles were completely incompatible in the first place.
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Those two weren't USAF concepts, they just continued the Century Series numbering scheme.
  • F-110/F-4 was a Navy concept that a dithering Air Force was pressured to acquire.
  • F-111 (TFX) was McNamara's dictate, and the AF and Navy saluted while mumbling f-bombs.
 
The CCA program seems fine to me. The airforce has a clear idea of what it wants for Incr 1 and one of those things is a cruise speed that will match an F-35, because that is the likely the only practical fighter pairing in 2028. It may or may not be completely successful, but it seems clear that moving forward now with at least a modest buy to gain experience is necessary. Man unmanned is going to happen; all we are debating is what the final form will take and which country will be the first to field it. Sitting still hardly seems like a more desirable outcome rather than leveraging 1-2 established UAV designs as the large scale production test case. I’ve no doubt the requirements will change over different increments but the UAV industry is a lot more flexible than the manned aircraft in that respect. Look at how much UAVs have changed in just the last two decades: pre RQ-1, they were somewhat of a novelty item.
 
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joewee said:
Unless someone knows otherwise, the USAF Century Series was not a top-down, strategic vision following the Korean War. But more of a cut-and-try approach during the Eisenhower era of peace and prosperity.
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Right, it wasn't a deliberate strategic vision, but it had the effect of both pushing technology and helping the USAF figure out what it wanted out of its fighters.

This time we can make it a deliberate strategic vision.


joewee said:
Those two weren't USAF concepts, they just continued the Century Series numbering scheme.
  • F-110/F-4 was a Navy concept that a dithering Air Force was pressured to acquire.
  • F-111 (TFX) was McNamara's dictate, and the AF and Navy saluted while mumbling f-bombs.
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They do continue Century Series concepts out to what is pretty close to their ultimate end. F-4s were a further development of the F101's "interceptor or strike in the same airframe," now with every airframe equipped to do both. F-111 was the ultimate extension of the F105 striker, because pretty much the only USN-demanded item was the side-by-side seats.
 
“I’m confident there’s going to be a sixth-generation fighter. I’m reasonably confident that it’s going to be crewed,” Kendall told Breaking Defense in an exclusive interview over the weekend.

That the Air Force is seemingly unsure whether the aircraft will need a pilot, and presumably a cockpit to house them, suggests the service may need to revisit even the most basic requirements for its Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter, even as it had originally planned to award a contract for the aircraft sometime this year. Speaking broadly of potential changes, Kendall said it would be “reasonable” to conclude the Air Force needs to go back to do a more substantive analysis on the NGAD’s design and capability requirements...
“We’re having conversations right now about what to do and how to move forward,” Kendall said, pushing back on recent comments by Air Combat Command boss Gen. Ken Wilsbach that a down select for NGAD was likely coming in 2024. “What [Wilsbach] said is not the last word on that.”

Kendall has recently raised the prospect of serious changes to NGAD, suggesting in previous interviews that the Air Force was working to ensure the service has the right concept — and for a reasonable price. Expanding on his thinking, Kendall said a key consideration is the overall price encompassing the air vehicle and engine, noting that the powerplant is “just a piece of it” and “not by itself a big driver.”
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breakingdefense.com

NGAD EXCLUSIVE: Air Force secretary cracks door for unmanned next-gen fighter - Breaking Defense

In an interview with Breaking Defense, Frank Kendall suggested the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter decision is farther off than estimated, as the service rethinks the threat landscape.
breakingdefense.com breakingdefense.com
 
Can't make a material change to the requirements stated in the RFP without a reissue of said RFP.
Can't proceed to full-scale development without a new prelimiary design phase if the requirements' change is substantial, such as proceeding with an unmanned next-gen fighter as the flagship, battlecruiser/C3 node.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until the USAF conducts PDRs with the prime contractors, at a minimum.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until RFP responses by industry are received, and a source selection is conducted.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until OSD's CAPE updates its independent cost estimate.
Can't award EMD contracts until Milestone B approval by USD-AT&L.
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Can't see any path that allows for a FY24 go-ahead. Hopefully EMD can begin another year from now. Hopefully.
 
joewee said:
Can't make a material change to the requirements stated in the RFP without a reissue of said RFP.
Can't proceed to full-scale development without a new prelimiary design phase if the requirements' change is substantial, such as proceeding with an unmanned next-gen fighter as the flagship, battlecruiser/C3 node.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until the USAF conducts PDRs with the prime contractors, at a minimum.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until RFP responses by industry are received, and a source selection is conducted.
Can't proceed to Milestone B until OSD's CAPE updates its independent cost estimate.
Can't award EMD contracts until Milestone B approval by USD-AT&L.
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Can't see any path that allows for a FY24 go-ahead. Hopefully EMD can begin another year from now. Hopefully.
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Looks like its in a mess. I agree that they can't proceed with the current plan, which should have wrapped up source selection by now, unless the review validates original requirements and permits them to move forward. Anything that suggests a fundamental change in the requirements would mean scrapping the effort altogether and starting with a new set of requirements that have to go through the regular process, and floated back to industry. There you are looking at a 2 year process min (6-12 months to draw up requirements and 1 year from RFP to source selection) in the best case though more likely a 3-4 year process if you want mature designs and "fly before you buy" approach they apparently did with the demonstrators that Frank Kendall refers to "his idea" though they seem to have been built to wrong requirements..based on his select and very tightly controlled release of information through his sources in the media..
 
bring_it_on said:
Looks like its in a mess. I agree that they can't proceed with the current plan, which should have wrapped up source selection by now, unless the review validates original requirements and permits them to move forward. Anything that suggests a fundamental change in the requirements would mean scrapping the effort altogether and starting with a new set of requirements that have to go through the regular process, and floated back to industry. There you are looking at a 2 year process min (6-12 months to draw up requirements and 1 year from RFP to source selection) in the best case though more likely a 3-4 year process if you want mature designs and "fly before you buy" approach they apparently did with the demonstrators that Frank Kendall refers to "his idea" though they seem to have been built to wrong requirements..based on his select and very tightly controlled release of information through his sources in the media..
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Most optimistic, rosy scenario is late FY25, if SECAF and AFCoS 'fast-track' things and have their folks do things in an 'incremental' manner. No one every accused me of being an optimist -- up to 4 years is more likely than 1 year.
I sympathize with the technologists who got NGAD to this point. As they said in The Right Stuff, no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
 
"For the latter, Kendall mentioned the Northrop Grumman LGM-31 Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile and other classified programs."
In my opinion there is something in the black promising , may be an unmanned fighter demonstrator... You don't change the idea like they do with out something looking promising for the decades to come, may be advanced promising propulsion too.... something like that https://www.geaerospace.com/news/pr...pace-demonstrates-hypersonic-dual-mode-ramjet a high speed ucav able to do air/air , or strike mission could be a game changer in the portfolio.
 
joewee said:
Most optimistic, rosy scenario is late FY25, if SECAF and AFCoS 'fast-track' things and have their folks do things in an 'incremental' manner. No one every accused me of being an optimist -- up to 4 years is more likely than 1 year.
I sympathize with the technologists who got NGAD to this point. As they said in The Right Stuff, no bucks, no Buck Rogers.
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In an ideal world, they would push through with this and recognize that they may need a more affordable next gen fighter that could follow 5 or more years behind and perhaps re-use some of the technologies invented and developed via NGAD-platform. A high-low air superiority mix.
dark sidius said:
In my opinion there is something in the black promising , may be an unmanned fighter demonstrator... You don't change the idea like they do with out something looking promising for the decades to come, may be advanced promising propulsion too.... something like that https://www.geaerospace.com/news/pr...pace-demonstrates-hypersonic-dual-mode-ramjet a high speed ucav able to do air/air , or strike mission could be a game changer in the portfolio.
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There's almost always something more promising sitting at lower TRL's which is why you draw the line on what is acceptable within certain cost risk and schedule parameters. Has a breakthrough in technology fundamentally changed that paradigm thus necessitating a complete scrapping of requirements for NGAD something that they've worked towards since 2015? I am not sure of that and neither Kendall nor his underlings have made that case publicly. In the absence of this, I would suggest this is more budget driven but that would still be a guess as there's nothing we know publicly on the program that could allow us to fully understand what's going on.
 
jsport said:

DARPA Eyes Hypersonic Striker As Air Force Studies Long-Term Options | Aviation Week Network

A reusable hypersonic Next-Generation Responsive Strike prototype could be commissioned by the end of the decade.
aviationweek.com aviationweek.com

Ground Tests Validate GE’s Hypersonic Propulsion Concept | Aviation Week Network

GE Aerospace now boasts a validated propulsion design that will compete for use in a future class of hypersonic missiles and reusable vehicles.
aviationweek.com aviationweek.com

paywalled
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I think the speed that the Pacific is traversed may be the really expensive option that is tripping this whole thing up. Whatever the stealth option they use, be it the F35 generation, or something newer, the RCS is going to change significantly as the temperature from high speed runs get the airframe really toasty. The F35 already had a problem with hot fuel. Are they going to have to cryo cool the NGAD fuel to soak up some of that heat?
 
bring_it_on said:
In an ideal world, they would push through with this and recognize that they may need a more affordable next gen fighter that could follow 5 or more years behind and perhaps re-use some of the technologies invented and developed via NGAD-platform. A high-low air superiority mix.

There's almost always something more promising sitting at lower TRL's which is why you draw the line on what is acceptable within certain cost risk and schedule parameters. Has a breakthrough in technology fundamentally changed that paradigm thus necessitating a complete scrapping of requirements for NGAD something that they've worked towards since 2015? I am not sure of that and neither Kendall nor his underlings have made that case publicly. In the absence of this, I would suggest this is more budget driven but that would still be a guess as there's nothing we know publicly on the program that could allow us to fully understand what's going on.
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There is something going on for sure , there is an unmanned option we don't know about. They speak more and more about an unmanned NGAD fighter......
 
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sublight_ said:
I think the speed that the Pacific is traversed may be the really expensive option that is tripping this whole thing up. Whatever the stealth option they use, be it the F35 generation, or something newer, the RCS is going to change significantly as the temperature from high speed runs get the airframe really toasty. The F35 already had a problem with hot fuel. Are they going to have to cryo cool the NGAD fuel to soak up some of that heat?
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Speed is the response for the long distance, may be more than stealth.
 
bring_it_on said:
In an ideal world, they would push through with this and recognize that they may need a more affordable next gen fighter that could follow 5 or more years behind and perhaps re-use some of the technologies invented and developed via NGAD-platform. A high-low air superiority mix.
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My understanding was that the CCAs were supposed to be the low part of the mix. Where you could give each NGAD 3x or so "spear carrier CCAs" each with 2-4x BVRAAMs, conceptually similar to having a mixed flight of 4x F-15s and 12x F-16s.

With the expensive, fast, and long ranged NGAD the high part, replacing F-22s and hopefully F-15C/Ds for a total of ~350 airframes.

F-16+F-35 totals outnumber F-15+F22 totals about 4:1 (F-16 to F-15 is about 5:1), so giving each NGAD at least 3x spear carrier CCAs would functionally grow the USAF fleet. Because the F-16s are getting replaced by F-35s, not CCAs.
 
sublight_ said:
I think the speed that the Pacific is traversed may be the really expensive option that is tripping this whole thing up.
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They should have known this and made the trades between cost, performance, and payload long ago. It's not like the Pacific Ocean has gotten larger in the last few years. Now they are just wasting time and money overanalyzing what has been known for a long time. Or has the threat changed that much? Is this another intelligence failure? Or is this another case of mismanagement?

Frank Kendall early in his tenure at DAF railed against R&D programs that continue on wasting money without producing anything. Now he says the NGAD platform might now be unmanned. Wut? Taken together with his previous statements about NGAD being in EMD, which it was not, and idea of an unmanned B-21 companion he really doesn't have a clear idea of where to go. I thought he was the most visionary of the service secretaries. At this point I am thinking that I was wrong. Where this ends no one knows.
 
dark sidius said:
There is something going on for sure , there is an unmanned option we don't know about. They speak more and more about an unmanned NGAD fighter......
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LM was given a basket of lemons in the F-35 program and did a pretty good job with making a pitcher of lemonade. But we do not have twenty year to deploy NGAD. I don't get a feeling that mitigating risk is a key consideration with the NGAD platform. They don't have time to screw around. They need something soon. That was the point of all the work it has done in the last ten years. Going straight from manned-unmanned teaming to a purely unmanned force for the PCA role seems nutty.
 
B2Blain said:
LM was given a basket of lemons in the F-35 program and did a pretty good job with making a pitcher of lemonade.
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I think the biggest mistake in the F-35 programme was the massive concurrency in the development programme where it entered the LRIP phase before testing was complete, if LM had just initially stuck to building and flying the prototype and pre-production aircraft IMO I think that a lot of issues could've been avoided when it entered the LRIP phase.
 
B2Blain said:
They should have known this and made the trades between cost, performance, and payload long ago. It's not like the Pacific Ocean has gotten larger in the last few years. Now they are just wasting time and money overanalyzing what has been known for a long time. Or has the threat changed that much? Is this another intelligence failure? Or is this another case of mismanagement?

Frank Kendall early in his tenure at DAF railed against R&D programs that continue on wasting money without producing anything. Now he says the NGAD platform might now be unmanned. Wut? Taken together with his previous statements about NGAD being in EMD, which it was not, and idea of an unmanned B-21 companion he really doesn't have a clear idea of where to go. I thought he was the most visionary of the service secretaries. At this point I am thinking that I was wrong. Where this ends no one knows.
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Maybe it was highly classified and in EMD? Then the cost estimates came for NGAD in GBSD came in and does the bureaucratic classic "well given this price, are we sure got the concept right? I think I need yet-another analysis-of-alternatives" that says the same basic options are on the same table +- some minor technical changes.

my personal bet theory on the B-21 cost estimates are coming in on target is that they cancelled two previous attempts at the same damn thing twice, and those cancelled programs were functionally the NRE cost of "teach the primes how to build a bomber" which once they learned, they could then compete and succeed at.

because the fundamental harsh truth of this industry is that new programs are a once-in-a-career moment, so nobody has any goddamn experience in learning what are the day zero fuckups that will tank your program five years later
 

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