Should the Air Force move to buy NGAD in the near term, it will be adding a challenger to the F-35 and F-15EX programs, potentially putting those programs at risk.Īnd because the advanced manufacturing techniques that are critical for building NGAD were pioneered by the commercial sector, the program could open the door for new prime contractors for the aircraft to emerge - and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor. The program itself has the potential to radically shake up the defense industry.
Eglin Air Force Base in Florida is preparing to receive the first two F-15EXs next year, and will begin about a year and a half of testing to iron out any problems. The Air Force awarded a nearly $1.2 billion contract to Boeing for its first lot of eight F-15EX fighter aircraft on July 13, 2020.
And he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design - its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics. He wouldn’t say when or where the first flight occurred. Roper declined to comment on how many prototype aircraft have been flown or which defense contractors manufactured them. “We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”Īlmost every detail about the aircraft itself will remain a mystery due to the classification of the Next Generation Air Dominance program, the Air Force’s effort for fielding a family of connected air warfare systems that could include fighters, drones and other networked platforms in space or the cyber realm. “We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference.
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