Episode 196 - What’s Up With NGAD? Understanding The Stakes

Source:
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Episode Summary:
In episode 196 of the Aerospace Advantage, What’s Up With NGAD? Understanding The Stakes, Heather “Lucky” Penney chats with members of the Mitchell Institute team about the Air Force’s recent pause for its future air superiority program. What does this mean? Why does it matter? What possible courses of action might the Air Force might pursue?Whether talking about long-range strike, airborne ISR, electromagnetic spectrum functions, or air superiority-all of this will be impacted depending on what course the service takes on NGAD. This isn’t just an Air Force issue-it impacts the entire joint force and national security writ large. Victory demands taking the fight to the enemy on a decisive scale and scope. We can’t achieve that through standoff capabilities alone. It is crucial to fly and fight inside an enemy’s defended airspace. That requires air superiority. Join us for this crucial conversation.
Credits:
Host: Heather “Lucky” Penney, Senior Resident Fellow, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Producer: Shane Thin
Executive Producer: Douglas Birkey
Guest: Lt Gen David A. Deptula, USAF (Ret.), Dean, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Guest: Mark "Gonzo" Gunzinger, Director of Future Concepts and Capability Assessments, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Guest: J. Michael "JDAM" Dahm, Senior Resident Fellow for Aerospace and China Studies, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Guest: J.V. Venable, Senior Resident Fellow, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
Guest: Douglas Birkey, Executive Director, The Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies
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#MitchellStudies #AerospaceAdvantage #aerospace #NGAD
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[@christophmahler]

The greatest 'friction' in warfare: economic decline.
It is not just that the budget is too small for advanced technologies, trade deficits and debt service reduce the entire federal budget until taxes are raised back to Cold War levels of 50 percent of annual income...
Having been used to be the creditor of the world hasn't exactly bred a culture of frugal mass production that can be scaled up in wartime. If manufacturing is off-shored to potential peer adversaries then the industrial base for large scale military conflict has simply regressed.
That people are shocked now, after the 'Joint Strike Fighter' was supposed to modernize the entire air fleet on a budget, but then exploded in cost from 50 million USD per sample to 80 million - approximating the 100 million of the more capable F-22A before production shutdown in 2011 - means that nobody in Congress, the service branches and the media pays attention to reality.
And if that's the case, why bear arms, at all ? As if there were anything left to fight for.

[@peribe438]

Too much old men memorizing, not enough answering the headline question: Whats up with NGAD?

[@arijitdakshi820]

Second 🥈🥈🥈😊

[@Oblitus1]

Thank you, Mitchell, for another illuminating discussion on aerospace matters. Many points were raised that deserve the active attention of the public.

[@christophmahler]

47:09 the P-51 was _not_ produced 'at 400.000 USD per unit in 1940 gold standard'...
According to the Hill Aerospace Museum, Utah the P-51 Mustang was procured in 1945 for 50.000 USD per unit (10.000 USD cost over-run) - fully convertible to gold that is approximating 1 million USD in 2024 - which would buy around 100 P-51, instead of a single F-22A.
That's a large error margin in the argument of a former Air Force Commander (Colonel John Venabel)... one can only imagine if that sort of historicity and math were prevalent across Air Force service culture...
When running the numbers, it follows that a single NGAD/F/A-XX was announced at a price of up to 250 million USD - that is already more than double the advanced F-22A which had been cut short 100 samples of it's original, already low production number of 300... _due to budget concerns_ .
Suddenly buying 200 units for twice that prohibitive cost is expected to secure funding when not a single _production sample_ has been proven viable in tests - including prospective cost-overruns, possibly ballooning to almost 300 million per sample - e.g. due to fitting a not yet fully matured 'Adaptive Cycle Engines' ?
Without mass export, there is also no way that the - again, more than twice as expensive - B-21 Raider will be produced in 100 samples at 700 million USD - as with the B-2, the price _may_ cross the billion USD mark and production will be cut short around half the planned numbers, at best.
Nobody spoke about the cost of the unmanned 'Collaborative Combat Aircraft' that would make the F-22A and F-35C most effective...
These are not the unit costs that allow for 'having the numbers' in a large scale military conflict with adversaries which may favor a war of attrition.
Although an unqualified speculation, someone should have taken a look at Boeing's X-32 manufacturing process, Northrop/McDonnell Douglas' YF-23 and Lockheed Martin's X-44 design and see if these already familiar airframes could be simplified down to the 50 million USD, the F-35 was supposed to cost in 2002..
Otherwise mass producing and mass exporting the legacy airframes of the F-16Vs, QF-16s (the F-15EX costs almost as much as the F-22A) will be the only option in order *_to increase asset numbers_* , once the F/A-18E/F EA-18G tooling is stored away in 2027, anyway...
The last option - I'm sure is completely unheard of - is to let go of all aspirations of Transatlantic 'power projection' and instead just mirror Chinese and Russian defense strategies - to hunker down in hardened 'bastions' and to negotiate, pragmatically (that is to apply force where possible and to compromise where it is not).