Next Generation Fighter Critical To Future Air Superiority Key USAF Study Concluded

A deep review of the U.S. Air Force’s paused plans to acquire a new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jet came to the unambiguous conclusion that the service needs such an aircraft to be best positioned to achieve air superiority in future high-end fights. The same analyses further reinforced the view that establishing air superiority will remain central to winning those same conflicts.

A panel of senior U.S. Air Force officers discussed what is commonly called the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet, as well as the future of air superiority operations more broadly, at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2025 Warfare Symposium earlier today.

“Many of you know, we put a pause on NGAD, and we put a pause on NGAD to reflect, and we did a study on it,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Joseph Kunkel said early on in the panel. Kunkel is currently director of Force Design, Integration, and Wargaming within the office of the deputy chief of staff for Air Force Futures at the service’s top headquarters at the Pentagon.

A rendering of a notional sixth-generation crewed stealth combat jet. Collins Aerospace

“With that study, we asked ourselves some hard questions,” he continued. “Is air superiority dead? What does air superiority look like in the future? Does the joint force need air superiority? And what we found is, not only in the past, not only the present, but in the future, air superiority matters.”

“We tried a whole bunch of different options, and there was no more vital option than NGAD to achieve air superiority in this highly contested environment,” Kunkel added.

This is fully in line with comments that Maj. Gen. Kunkel made at a separate event that the Hudson Institute think tank hosted last week, which TWZ covered at the time.

Envisioned ostensibly as a successor to the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, the NGAD combat jet requirements, at least as existed prior to the review, are understood to call for a relatively large, high-performance, and long-range design. The NGAD aircraft has also long been expected to feature a very high level of broadband low-observability (stealthiness) together with an array of advanced sensor, networking, electronic warfare, and other capabilities. All of that has been expected to come at considerable cost, with former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall saying in January that it would take at least approximately $20 billion to finish the developmental stage of the program. Serial production of the jets, which cost upwards of $300 million apiece, would add tens of billions more to the overall price tag.

A pair of F-22 Raptors. USAF

The alternatives to the NGAD combat jet that the Air Force is known to have explored include a truncated, lower-cost aircraft intended primarily to serve as an airborne drone controller. The service also considered a force-wide shift in focus away from air superiority to longer-range, standoff strike capabilities like those the B-21 Raider stealth bomber will provide.

Kunkel and the other Air Force officers on today’s panel stressed that NGAD is just one part of the bigger and more critical matter of how to effectively provide air superiority in future major conflicts, such as one in the Pacific against China.

“The entire joint force counts on air superiority. So, anything else you want to do in the battle space, if you don’t have air superiority, it becomes much more difficult, if not impossible,” Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach, head of Air Combat Command (ACC), another one of the panelists, said. “So, if we want to collect intelligence, if we want to do casualty evacuation, if we want to drop some bombs, if you want to sail some ships around, or if you want to have some ground maneuver, if you don’t have air and space superiority, you will not be able to or you will have a very difficult time achieving any of those other objectives.”

“There’s been some talk in the public about [how] the age of air superiority is over,” Wilsbach continued. “I categorically reject that and maintain that it’s the first building block of any other military operation.”

Wilsbach cited the emergence of two previously unseen Chinese stealth combat jets this past December as further evidence that air superiority is not dead and that America’s chief competitor believes it to be similarly critical for success in future conflicts.

The two Chinese stealth aircraft “we believe are for air superiority,” Wilsbach said. “As we observe what China has produced, and we can presume we know what that’s for, for air superiority, what are we going to do about it? And I don’t believe that nothing is an option.”

A view of the larger of the two Chinese stealth combat jet designs, commonly referred to currently as the J-36, which emerged in December 2024. Chinese internet

The panelists did also make clear that they do not see the NGAD combat jet as a silver bullet solution to future air superiority challenges by itself.

“We’re making this transition from a platform-centric Air Force to a system-centric Air Force,” Gen. Kunkel said. “And as kill chains get longer and longer,… we need to think about how are we trying to do that whole system.”

Chief of Staff of the Air Force Gen. David Allvin made similar remarks during a keynote speech at the AFA Warfare Symposium yesterday evening.

“We’re looking at different ways to execute the same mission. We’re going beyond just single platforms equal single things,” Allvin said. “Maybe there’s different ways to provide combat effects, understanding what that is, embracing and leaning into human machine teaming, understanding what autonomy can actually do for us, knowing that’s going to be a part of our future.”

Allvin then announced new ‘fighter drone’ designations for the designs that General Atomics and Anduril are currently developing in the first phase, or Increment 1, of the Collaborative Aircraft (CCA) program. CCA is part of the larger NGAD initiative that also includes the planned sixth-generation stealth combat jet. The NGAD aircraft has always been envisioned as serving, in part, as a forward drone controller and otherwise operating closely together with CCAs.

A composite rendering of the CCA designs that General Atomics, at top, and Anduril, at bottom, are currently developing, along with their new formal designations. General Atomics/Anduril/TWZ

The panelists today were also definitive in their belief that piloted combat aircraft will continue to have a role for the foreseeable future.

“We’ve been doing quite a bit of simulator work with incorporating manned and unmanned teaming, and we believe that there’s some value to that as we go into the future,” Gen. Wilsbach said. “[However,] in 2025 we don’t have the artificial intelligence [AI] that we can pluck pilots out of aircraft and plunk AI in them to the degree that the AI can replace a human brain. Someday we will have that, I trust, but right now we don’t.”

“We’re in this place where we’re improving the artificial intelligence aspects, the human-machine team, all those areas are growth areas, but we have to iterate to the outcome,” Lt. Gen. Dale White, currently the Military Deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, added during the panel discussion today. “And I think that’s … the path that we’re on.”

“As we walk down this warfighting path, we’re going to have to iterate to the outcome, and it’s going to take some time,” he continued. “I know this Air Force is up to the task. I think CCA is going to put us on that path.”

“The reality is, this is where the threat is taking this because our adversaries are doing very similar things,” White also said during the panel discussion in regard to AI and advances in autonomy more generally. “We can’t sit back and just watch.”

“I don’t see us fully stepping away from, you now, manned aircraft ever,” Gen. Kunkel added.

A final decision on what course of action to take in regard to the NGAD combat jet, and what that aircraft might look like in the end, has yet to be made. There are also lingering budgetary questions. Concerns about the affordability of the new sixth-generation aircraft were an important factor in prompting last year’s review of the program to begin with.

The Air Force has a number of modernization priorities it needs to balance funding for, including the CCA program and work on new stealthy aerial refueling tankers. Aviation Week just recently reported that service might be considering axing Next-Generation Air-Refueling System (NGAS), or at least the stealth tanker component, to help preserve funds for the NGAD aircraft. There is also the matter of the ballooning costs of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and an ongoing debate about the optimal size of the future B-21 Raider stealth bomber fleet.

A rendering of a notional stealth aerial refueling tanker. Lockheed Martin Skunk Works

On top of this, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered a complete review of spending plans for the upcoming 2026 Fiscal Year. The goal is to cut tens of billions of dollars from existing programs to help fund new priorities under President Donald Trump, including the Golden Dome missile defense initiative. Dysfunction in Congress raises additional concerns about when any major new defense spending might get approved.

“Fiscal constraints don’t change what it takes to win,” Gen. Kunkel said. “We know what it takes to win. It takes all of the Air Force. It takes air superiority. And if America wants to make those investments to win, then we’ll do so. If America doesn’t want to make those investments, then we’ll take more risk.”

“I’m not so foolish to think that this is like a black and white decision on, you know, win versus loss. There’s a degree of risk involved,” he added. “But if we fund more force, we decrease operational risk. We decrease the risk for our policy makers.”

“And it is true that our adversaries are moving quickly. They are,” he continued. “Fiscal choices should be driven by what it takes to win.”

Another rendering of notional sixth-generation combat jets. Lockheed Martin

Gen. Kunkel has been and remains particularly bullish on the Air Force ultimately coming out of the current budget uncertainty with an increase in funding rather than a decrease. He did also acknowledge at the Hudson Institute event last week that cuts to existing programs could still be painful.

Many questions remain to be answered about the NGAD aircraft’s future. However, it is now clear that the Air Force has concluded that the path forward that offers the best option for achieving critical air superiority in future high-end fights with the lowest amount of risk includes buying a fleet of new crewed sixth-generation stealth combat jets.

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