A Look At The U.S. Air Force's Strategy To Dominate The Skies In The Coming Decades

Image: Wikimedia/Boeing

Dave Majumdar, National Interest: The U.S. Military's 6th Generation Fighter: 5 Ways To Dominate the Sky

The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor and the Boeing F/A-18E/F are both aging platforms and will need to be replaced in the mid-2030s. Moreover, for the U.S. Air Force, it needs to replace the venerable F-15C Eagle—which was supposed to have been replaced by the Raptor until that program was prematurely terminated.

The two services are set to start a joint analysis of alternatives next year. The Navy and the Air Force are still working to determine what kind of capability gaps the new F/A-XX and Next Gen Air Dominance (NGAD)—formerly known as the F-X—will need to address. But it is already becoming apparent that the Pentagon has learnt from the $400 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter debacle—the F/A-XX and the NGAD are likely to be separate programs that share common technologies.

WNU Editor: Someone is dreaming if they think this is going to happen in today's age of budget cutbacks coupled with the inability of the U.S. Air Force to even deliver the F-35 on time (and on budget).