An F-35A Lightning II Fighting flies past the Wasatch Mountains by Hill Air Force Base on Dec 7, 2016. The F-35A is a single-seat, single engine, fifth generation, multirole fighter that’s able to perform ground attack, reconnaissance and air defense missions with stealth capability. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

F-35A

WASHINGTON: DoD has not one, not two, not three but at least six studies on tactical aircraft needs underway. They are looking at everything from affordability/capability trade-offs to Combatant Commander concepts for deployment in future conflict to acquisition strategies.

“The results of these efforts will inform the National Defense Strategy, and decisions to be captured in the President’s fiscal year 2023 budget submission and associated future year’s defense program,” Joseph Nogueira, acting director of DoD’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE), told lawmakers yesterday.

“There are a number of separate, but closely related, analytical efforts underway across the department to determine the appropriate balance of sixth-, fifth- and fourth-generation capabilities,” he explained to the House Armed Services tactical aircraft (TacAir) subcommittee. “CAPE is leading analysis focused on TacAir affordability, and the key trade offs between capability and capacity. The Joint Staff, in coordination with the Combatant Commands is leading the department’s thinking on how TacAir should be employed in a future conflict. Finally, the Air Force and Navy are conducting TacAir studies focused on assessing both near- and long-term requirements.”

CAPE is working closely with the Joint Staff, “taking a look at a variety of strategic and operational concepts, trying to set up the models themselves, so we can do a number of different analytic looks to support the National Defense Strategy review that’s underway right now,” he said.

President Joe Biden tasked the Pentagon to finalize the new top-level defense strategy by next year to replace the current document issued by the Trump administration in 2018. Deputy Secretary Kathleen Hicks is running the review.

That work should be wrapped up in the September-October timeframe, Nogueira said.

Digital Century Series

CAPE is immersed in two more analyses, mandated in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act: one looking at “service acquisition strategies for sixth-generation aircraft; and another “non-advocate review” of the Air Force Digital Century Series “business case,” he said.

The Digital Century Series strategy, which the Air Force is now calling the “e-Series” effort. Under this, the service would buy small numbers of incrementally upgraded aircraft over short periods of time to allow constant improvement in capabilities. The Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program is the first to be based on that new strategy, crafted by former Air Force acquisition czar Will Roper. NGAD is aimed at developing not just a sixth-generation manned fighter, but also drones to team with them.

“The Digital Century Series business case review should be completed in August, and I expect to send it to you shortly thereafter,” he added.

Future Air Force Fleet: F-35 at the hub

Lt. Gen. David Nahom, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, told the HASC subcommittee that the service’s own TacAir study is nearly complete.

“We’re just finishing it up now,” he said. “I’ve seen some preliminary results on it. We’re doing some final analysis, we’re hoping to have that available for for conversation by the end of the summer, and right now we’re just working through the final approvals.”

Nahom reiterated the service’s current plans to move from seven different types of aircraft to a “four-plus-one” construct that Chief of Staff Gen. CQ Brown revealed in May: the F-35A fifth-gen fighter; NGAD as the air dominance aircraft eventually replacing the F-22; the F-15EX; the F-16 followed by a replacement that straddles fourth- and fifth-generation capabilities; and, for the short term, the A-10.

Because of the F-35’s high operations and maintenance costs, the Air Force now sees the F-35 as dedicated to the high-end fight — with an emphasis on its role in gathering and distributing information as part of Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2). Nahom stressed to lawmakers that despite the program’s litany of woes, the Lockheed Martin-built F-35 remains at the center of its future fleet.

Noguiere, too, made clear that DoD at the highest levels continues to support the F-35. Indeed, the need for the stealth fighter in any future fight with peer competitors China and/or Russia is becoming more and more evident as DoD moves to implement its new Joint Warfigthing Concept designed to implement All Domain Operations.

“We are starting to see the need even more so for the F 35 and its full Block 4 capabilities,” he said. “That is critical to being able to execute the emerging operational concepts that we see coming out of all the services and emerging from the Joint Staff itself.”

Speaking to the Mitchell Institute today, Nahom also stressed that, when looking at what fighters DoD and the Air Force can actually afford to buy, neither the CAPE nor the serve sees a trade-off between the F-35 and NGAD.

“We need the F 35. We need what the F 35 brings,” he said.  “We’re very focused on the F-35 capability right now, getting the F-35 to that Block 4, TR-3 — Tech Refresh 3 — capability.  Because what that brings is what we’ve done in the past with F-16s and A10s, but now we can do those things in contested environments. ‘Break. Break.’ NGAD is about assuring air superiority air dominance, for the future. Right now the dominant platform in the world today is the F-22, and we think it’ll be that dominant platform for the next couple of years. We’re going to continue to upgrade it, make sure it stays dominant, but there comes a time when we’ve got to move to the next platform, and that’s what NGAD’s gonna offer us.”

He added: “And if you if you see where the money is specifically, you’re seeing no money move between NGAD and F-35. We are pursuing both programs very vigorously.”