What is the Air Force going to do to its next air-superiority plan when it is going to rely on a jet the Air Force will not be able to purchase in quantity?
The Next Generation Air Dominance program spawned the F-47, which is between ambition and arithmetic. Its idea is a manned, penetrating fighter that will take the place of the F-22 in the most contested airspace, but an anchoring node of a “systems family” of distributed sensors, secure networking, and uncrewed partners. It is a technologically sound vision. It is also a budget form that has historically generated small fleets, high sustainment load, and a long shadow on all other services have to field on a large scale.
The apparent point of pressure is cost gravity. A foreseen cost of 300 million USD per plane has been the primary criticism of the program, as the design is projected to increase as the design incorporates adaptive engines, modular internal bays, and more and more software-defined mission systems. The further the F-47 is called upon to perform, to be a sneak-thief shooter, a sensor-fusion center and a control node to uncrewed aircraft, the more it acquires the integration risk which has swelled the previous programs. That trend is significant since it is not merely the flyaway figure; it is decades of upgrades and spares and training pipelines and classified test systems and software which are supplied as vendor-specific.
The tight squeeze is even underscored by the notional procurement numbers. One of the existing planning frames is currently an intended purchase of 185 F-47s, with at least 100 B-21 bombers. Those headline numbers do not reflect the daily combat power available with aircraft tied up in maintenance, training, testing, and other standing missions, forcing those willing to argue that the suggested force approaches 300 F-47s and 200 B-21s to cut them down to a more realistic 300 F-47s and 150 B-21s (analysts arguing that the government should continue the posture of denying sanctuary). That delta is the plot: the idea requires perseverance, whereas the financial fact of life is inclined towards the production of exquisite scarcity.
Another engineering rationale that is the most powerful in the program is where the debate over affordability is going to get the sharpest: Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The Air Force has also made CCA as a strategy of increasing the effective size of the fighter force by combining the crewed platforms and jet-powered uncrewed aircraft that can either carry sensors, weapons, electronic warfare payloads, or serve as decoys. During notional planning, the service has talked about purchasing 1,000 CCAs by pairing two uncrewed aircraft with each of approximately 500 advanced crewed fighters. The idea has already been backed with real money by Congress, such as requiring $678 million in FY2025 funding to CCA development and Air Force FY2026 request of $804.4 million combined with the mandatory and discretionary amounts.
The line of funding is eye-opening. When CCAs grow to be something the Air Force can buy in bulk, train in and large virtual worlds, and update fast, the uncrewed bit of NGAD may end up being the mass that the crewed bit cannot. However, that will only work as long as the crewed “quarterback” aircraft is available in high enough numbers to roll the idea out between multiple theatres, units, and availability periods- instead of becoming a boutique fleet only available in limited situations.
In the meantime, such a sensor and networking issue is not limited to a platform any longer. The current generation of fighters already relies on AESA radars, passive infrared sensors and data fusion, to see and make a decision first; such as the AN/APG-81 on the F-35, is said to have detection ranges of over 150 kilometers on air-to-air targets as it tracks multiple contacts. The F-47 is promised to take that model further into contested airspace with greater range and survivability, and a claimed combat radius of over 1,000 nautical miles, and speeds upwards of Mach 2. Those are useful design indications of the distances and basing constraints of the Indo-Pacific, yet they suggest greater fuel fraction, greater thermal control, more intricate low-observable shaping, all of which are common motivations of cost and maintenance drag.
The argument over the F-47 is, therefore, not as much whether a sixth-generation penetrating fighter is technically feasible. It is regarding the possibility of the Air Force to escape the modern trend: an innovative airplane that comes as a thin fleet, with an extensive ecosystem of enablers surrounding it, as the pressure on affordable, replaceable airframes continues to increase.
