The U.S. Air Force is re-examining the very core of its requirements for a new sixth-generation stealth combat jet as part of its ongoing review of th

Air Force “Starting At The Beginning” With NGAD 6th Gen Fighter Requirements Review

submited by

Style Pass

2024-09-04 23:30:03

The U.S. Air Force is re-examining the very core of its requirements for a new sixth-generation stealth combat jet as part of its ongoing review of that element of the larger Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) initiative. The service also says the reassessment touches on broader questions about the full mix of capabilities it expects to use to achieve air superiority in the future.

Air Force Vice Chief of Staff Gen. James Slife and Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics, talked about the NGAD combat jet and related issues during a live-streamed talk at the 2024 Defense News Conference earlier today. The Air Force confirmed in July that it put its sixth-generation tactical aircraft plans on hold amid budgetary pressures and questions about the underlying requirements. The service has insisted that it is still planning on eventually pushing forward with this effort in some form, though what the aircraft might look like in the end, including whether or not it will ultimately require a pilot, has already been increasingly uncertain.

“So, from a requirements perspective, what I would say is we’re going back and starting at the beginning with what is the thing we’re trying to do,” Gen. Slife explained. “And so you kind of get two different answers if you frame the question as ‘how do we conduct – how do we achieve air superiority in a contested environment?’ That would be one way to frame the question. A different way to frame the question would be, how do we build a sixth-gen manned fighter platform? I mean, those are not necessarily the same question, right?”