X-Plane NGAD – a secret US program, the details of which were revealed only after 9 years
The contract for the development and organization of production of its next-generation fighter aircraft under the NGAD program is to be signed in 2014
At the POLITICO Defense Summit on November 14, US Secretary of the Air Force Fran Kendall revealed details about the secret interagency X-Plane program to analyze future fighter aircraft, which eventually became the impetus for the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
Although the U.S. Air Force has previously stated at the official level that it had prototypes that had already flown before the NGAD program was launched, this is the first time that specific details of the program have been revealed, Air and Space Forces Magazine reports.
For example, back in 2014 (Kendall himself was then Deputy Defense Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics), The Dominance Initiative study was commissioned, with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as the project manager.
The study lasted for a year, and it was based on its results that the fifth-generation F-22 should be replaced by a “family of systems” – that is, a single combat aviation system that combines a sixth-generation aircraft and “faithful guided” drones, new weapons and external sensors.
The following year, in 2015, the Next Generation Air Dominance X-plane program was finally launched, where the latter means researching new technologies on platforms, while the Y-plane is a specific prototype that will be put into production after improvements.
Funding for this program amounted to about $1 billion, which was equally divided between DARPA itself, as well as the US Air Force and Navy (recall that the Air Force and Navy now have separate NGAD programs).
It is known that several prototypes were created within the NGAD X-plane program (their exact number is not specified) and that these prototypes “successfully demonstrated the technologies we need”.
At the same time, this year it became known that in 2024 the US Air Force is to sign a contract to develop and organize the production of its next-generation fighter aircraft under the NGAD program, and there may be two versions of the aircraft at once – for operations in different theaters of war, European and Pacific.
The cost of the aircraft under the NGAD program will be hundreds of millions of dollars, with a total of 200 such aircraft planned to be built, with the AIM-260 missile being considered as a weapon.
