U.S. Air Force Report Features Concept Art Of NGAD Program

The U.S. Air Force has published its biennial report for acquisition last that features the concept art of NGAD program.

The concept art for the Next Generation Air Dominance can be found on page 28.

According to the U.S. Air Force report, A highly advanced dynamic threat demands a different way of doing business.

Designed to complement the F-35, F-22, joint, and partner forces in the Air Superiority role, Next Generation Air Dominance is an advanced aircraft program for the development of penetrating counter-air platforms with multi-domain situational awareness, agile resilient communications, and an integrated family of capabilities.

Next Generation Air Dominance is a family of capabilities that enable Air Superiority in the most challenging operational environments by enforcing the development pillars of digital engineering, agile software development, and open architectures.

By executing shorter technology development cycles, the program matures technology and reduces risk through prototyping and operational experimentation. This delivers enhancements in survivability, lethality, and persistence for a highly contested environment.

The program uses a non-traditional acquisition approach to avoid traditional monolithic program schedules and exorbitant life-cycle sustainment costs.

This strategy, called the Digital Century Series approach, creates a realistic business case for the industry to adopt commercial best practices for key design activities – before a part is even manufactured.

As we have reported earlier, On U.S. Air Force 73rd Birthday the Airforce posted a graphic that featured a mysterious next-generation aircraft.

The Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs published on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service an interesting graphic that features prominently, in the center and in the background, an unknown new aircraft that has not been confirmed as real or fictional.

The graphic, came just few days after the announcement by Dr. Will Roper, the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, that the Air Force has secretly designed, built and flown at least one full-scale prototype of a new generation fighter aircraft.

The image could be completely fictional or it could be a hint at the design that was chosen for the first prototype build for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.

The existence of the demonstrator was first confirmed by Dr. Roper to reporter Valerie Insinna of Defense News during the Air Force Association’s virtual Air, Space and Cyber Conference 2020:

“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it. We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”