Air Force Secretary Kendall floats possibility of ‘optionally crewed’ stealth fighter for NGAD

DAYTON, Ohio — The Air Force is still committed to fielding a manned Next Generation Air Dominance platform, but it’s possible the service could develop an unmanned or “optionally crewed” version of the new fighter jet as well, the department’s top civilian official said Tuesday.

“I’m absolutely confident we’re still going to do a sixth-generation crewed aircraft,” Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said during a keynote speech at the Air Force Life Cycle Industry Days. “There’s a chance it might be uncrewed, but I think that’s not quite ready yet. And we could always do something like an optionally crewed platform.”

Kendall added that the service is taking a “pause” on development of the NGAD aircraft over the next few months to review the platform’s design before nailing down its final requirements, confirming previous comments that the Air Force was re-evaluating the program due to a number of external factors.

The Air Force intends to “take a hard look” at the system to ensure the stealth fighter jet has the right design and that the service is on the right track to address new and emerging threats, Kendall said. China’s arsenal of advanced weapons — including cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles — and the platform’s survivability on large airfields are some of the elements officials are considering, he noted.

“We want to make sure we get the right concept,” he said. “We’re going to take a little bit of time to make sure we do before we make the major commitment — that’s the biggest commitment of any development program, which is to start design and development for the project.”

Kendall first hinted at the possibility of an unmanned NGAD aircraft last week in an interview with Breaking Defense. But his comments Tuesday suggest the Air Force isn’t entirely confident that autonomous capabilities are ready to be integrated onto the fighter jet. 

Much of the department’s effort to develop autonomy has focused on the collaborative combat aircraft (CCA) program. The drones are intended to fly alongside the service’s manned fighter fleet to augment the force with additional capacity and capabilities.

In May, Kendall flew in a F-16 Falcon modified with autonomous flight capabilities to assess the technology’s maturation in a real-world demonstration. The flight was part of the Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program, a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency effort to develop autonomous flight technology.

However, he noted that the technology wasn’t the exact operational capability the Air Force needs right now.

“That technology is maturing very quickly, and we’re going to get it into our cockpits as quickly as we can. We’re going to get it into CCAs as quickly as we can, and I think we’ll have a much more formidable integrated capability when we do that,” Kendall said.