The sixth-generation fighter being developed under the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program for the US Air Force (Air Force) is disruptive to the business models of a number of US aircraft companies, former Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson told Breaking Defense.
According to her, work within the NGAD is important, but it is not done in such a way that “Congress would feel comfortable with it.” According to the current president of the University of Texas at El Paso, “a new way of doing business can be killed in the cradle” because “there are powerful companies that are comfortable with the current business model.”
Wilson noted that the new approach to fighter aircraft development is destructive, as it involves unconventional work with finance, production and design. “And it is very threatening to the existing business models of companies with many shareholders, jobs in constituencies and armies of lobbyists,” said the former Air Force minister.
In November Breaking Defense, one of the threats that could reduce funding for the NGAD program, named F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation fighters.
In September, the US Air Force Secretary’s Procurement Assistant Will Roper declared that The Pentagon in secrecy within the framework of the NGAD program designed, built and at least once lifted into the air a prototype of an X-plane, by which is meant, a manned aircraft of a new generation, including a sixth generation fighter. According to him, the creation of the X-plane involved more than just the use of agile development methodology, open architecture and digital engineering, as was the case in the case of the US-Swedish eT-7 Red Hawk jet trainer, but something more.