US Air Force Shares Insightful Update On NGAD & CCA

At a Sightline Media Group Defense News September 4 conference, two senior US Air Force leaders spoke about the future of Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) as pictured by the above Boeing concept plus Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) – the next great design for

fighter jets

in the US Air Force. Both General James Slife, USAF, Vice Chief of Staff, United States Air Force, plus Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, US Department of the Air Force, helped explain the future of both NGAD and CCA as a review of NGAD is underway.

US Air Force General Slife: “What is it we’re trying to do up front?”

In the conference, US Air Force General James Slife made clear that the NGAD review was intended to answer one key question and why:

“What is it we’re trying to do up front? And I don’t know exactly how we are going to achieve air superiority in a contested environment. It may involve a manned sixth gen fighter platform. But we’re kind of going back and looking… when we did the initial analysis of alternatives for NGAD [as] frankly, our technology base has advanced in ways faster than we anticipated.”

For the US Air Force, the NGAD reevaluation is looking at adding new capabilities and continuing to have a “family of systems approach” with “The very, very effective work that’s been done with CCAs.” As Simple Flying has covered this July, “a hard look at NGAD” is currently underway.

But that review will have to recognize that NGAD has so far introduced new technologies that are so secret that they’re cutting-edge and considered “an exemplar of good things.”

“Meets the mission need… and is affordable at the same time”

However, Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, United States Department of the Air Force did say about the work NGAD has done so far that…

Photo: Collins Aerospace | Simple Flying

Assistant Secretary Hunter would go on to explain that, “A lot of the things that we invested in through NGAD are the right things” that give flexibility. But the goal of the analysis is to,

“Sum it up, into a package that delivers air superiority, it actually meets the mission need as best we are able to do it and is affordable at the same time.”

Hunter then said no “individual platform that’s going to deliver air superiority” adding that the US Air Force will retain

F-22 Raptor

s,

F-35s

and also have

F-15EXs

on hand. However, the NGAD contract award is on hold until the analysis is completed.

CCA will come from a “next generation acquisition model”

Fair question, as the

Collaborative Combat Aircraft

(CCA) was intended to complement NGAD and fifth-generation weapons platforms. One can read a March 17 profile of the CCA program.

Assistant Secretary Hunter clarified that he wanted to steer the US Air Force into a next-generation acquisition model. The goal of a next-generation acquisition model, as Assistant Secretary Hunter explained, was,

“How do we get that continuous competition that I’ve talked about that’s going to drive innovation? How do we make sure we have the long-term capability development happening, and it’s through these large vendor pools.”

Assistant Secretary Hunter plans to have many vendors for the drones and then buy a small batch of CCA drones as requirements dictate. Two contractors – Anduril and General Atomics – have already been chosen to build the first prototypes of CCAs. Additionally, a second increment of CCA is being requested that may address “an entirely different set of missions,” as Assistant Secretary Hunter explained.

Photo: General Atomics

Ultimately, NGAD is under review to create the best sixth-generation crewed fighter jet with the best technology. Meanwhile, CCA, a program to produce high-end combat drones for the US Air Force, is underway.