After the rumours about a possible cancellation of the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) programme for the air combat system of the future based on the Sixth Generation fighter, the USAF Deputy Chief of Staff, Gen. James Slife, has announced a radical change and revision of requirements.

No further details are available at the moment, but USAF's goal is to refocus its initiative on the overall combat system and how it can perform as a whole, with all its components, to accomplish the required missions.

The (unspoken) core issue is very simple: the sustainability and cost of the core platform at the heart of the whole system. After the withdrawal of Nortrhop Grumman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are continuing to work on the NGAD manned fighter, with demonstrators that have been flying in great secrecy for some time now.

To date, the cost of the fighter jet is estimated at $250 million per aircraft. A cost that is not sustainable even for the very wealthy USAF, taking into account three elements: the concomitance of other programmes (B-21 RAIDER, F-35, ICBM SENTINEL), the non-exportability, and the future life-cycle costs that, given the technologies and the complexity of the equipment, risk being equally exorbitant.

So, the USAF is backtracking in its search for a more sustainable balance between performance and cost, and between all NGAD components. The core platform could be less ambitious, to be moreover also exportable, with less emphasis on costly low observability and, instead, a greater focus on data analysis and coordination capabilities. It is no coincidence that the USAF has accelerated on the CCA (Collaborative Combat Aicraft), i.e. on the gregarious/adjuncts intended to operate with the NGAD and also with the F-35 fighter aircraft.

Anduril and General Atomics are developing Increment 1 of the CCAs and the USAF is expected to make its choice between the 2 companies in 2026. At the same time, work is being done on CCA Increment 2 requirements. In short, even the highly sophisticated US Air Force seems to be definitely looking for the right mix of hyper-sophistication and mass/redundancy to best cope with peer and near-peer scenarios.

Ukraine, but also the war in the Middle East, (re)teach us: quantity is a quality of its own. This is a lesson that in Europe should also heed. Developing a €200+ million GCAP and SCAF core paltform is unthinkable. Or rather, it can be done, but it would go straight against a wall.

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