The American NGAD and its CCA drones pose a central question: how to maintain air superiority without bankrupting the armed forces?
Summary
The American NGAD program and its loyal wingmen drones place the US Air Force before a strategic dilemma. The United States wants to prepare for the post-F-22 era with the F-47, a sixth-generation fighter entrusted to Boeing. They also want to deploy Collaborative Combat Aircraft—autonomous combat drones capable of accompanying manned jets. The concept makes operational sense against China: combining a highly capable aircraft with a mass of more affordable drones. However, the financial model is fragile. The F-47 could cost several hundred million dollars per aircraft. The target price for CCAs is around 25 to 30 million dollars apiece, but their price tag could rise if technical requirements pile up. The debate is thus becoming brutal: should the military buy a few highly sophisticated platforms, or a large number of cheaper drones? The answer will shape American air power, its exports, and the global military balance.
The NGAD program faces its budgetary paradox
The Next Generation Air Dominance program was meant to address a strategic certainty. The F-22 Raptor, which entered service in 2005, remains a formidable aircraft. However, its fleet is small, its modernization is expensive, and its numbers are insufficient to cover a major conflict in the Indo-Pacific alone. The US Air Force therefore launched the F-47, the manned fighter of the NGAD program, to retain air dominance against next-generation Chinese systems.
On March 21, 2025, the US Air Force awarded Boeing the engineering and manufacturing development contract for the F-47. The platform is presented as the first American sixth-generation fighter. It is intended to integrate advanced stealth, extended range, data fusion, evolved sensors, electronic warfare, open software architecture, and uncrewed teaming. It is an aircraft designed to penetrate airspace saturated by radars, long-range surface-to-air missiles, jammers, and space-based sensors.
The problem is simple. The more an aircraft is designed to survive in an extreme environment, the more expensive it becomes. Even before the final decision, former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall had acknowledged that the projected unit cost of the NGAD could exceed 300 million dollars. This represents roughly three times the price of an F-35A. While this figure does not always cover the same parameters depending on the source, it provides an order of magnitude. The NGAD is not an aircraft that can be purchased by the hundreds without constraint.
This reality explains the strategic pause decided in 2024. The US Air Force wanted to verify whether it had the right concept. The question was not whether the United States needed a sixth-generation fighter, but whether this fighter, in this configuration, could be procured in sufficient numbers.
Collaborative Combat Aircraft as a response to Chinese mass
Collaborative Combat Aircraft are intended to rectify the problem of mass. The idea is to no longer send a manned aircraft into a danger zone alone. The manned fighter becomes a flying command node. Around it, semi-autonomous drones handle reconnaissance, jamming, strikes, target designation, or missile carriage.
The US Air Force designated two prototypes in March 2025: General Atomics’ YFQ-42A and Anduril’s YFQ-44A. The “Y” denotes a prototype, the “F” indicates a combat mission, and the “Q” designates an uncrewed platform. This administrative detail carries political weight. Washington is no longer talking merely about support drones; it is talking about uncrewed combat aircraft.
The target price is the core of the concept. Frank Kendall mentioned a target of around 25 to 30 million dollars per CCA. This would represent roughly one-third the price of an F-35A. At this level, a loyal wingman can be used more aggressively than a manned jet. It is not disposable in the strictest sense, as it remains too expensive to be wasted, but it can be exposed to a much higher risk than an F-47 with a pilot on board.
The operational logic is clear. In the Pacific, distances are immense. China possesses radars, missiles, fighters, drones, and long-range strike capabilities. Forward American bases can be attacked, and aerial refuelers can be threatened. In this context, mass matters. A small number of highly advanced aircraft is insufficient if the adversary can saturate defenses, absorb losses, and continue deploying platforms.
CCAs must therefore give depth to the US Air Force. They can increase the number of sensors, complicate enemy calculations, and offer additional firing options. They can also safeguard human pilots during the most dangerous missions.
The sophistication trap applied to drones
The risk is that CCAs will also become too expensive. This is the classic trap of American procurement programs: it begins with an affordable drone concept, and then requirements pile up. The platform needs more range, more stealth, more sensors, more autonomy, more cybersecurity, more resistance to jamming, and more compatibility with the F-35, the F-47, refuelers, satellites, forward bases, and allied systems.
Ultimately, the so-called affordable platform becomes a complex aircraft. Its price climbs, its maintenance grows heavy, its production slows, and its attrition becomes politically less acceptable. The promise of affordable mass weakens.
This danger is already visible in the history of military drones. Early MALE drones were presented as less costly alternatives to manned aircraft. Modern systems, however, require sophisticated sensors, secure data links, control stations, analysts, satellites, and a complete supply chain. A drone is not free simply because there is no pilot on board.
The CCA will have to avoid this drift. If it costs 25 to 30 million dollars, it can change military calculations. If it approaches 60 or 80 million dollars, it becomes a small uncrewed fighter, losing its central advantage. The US Air Force will therefore have to accept trade-offs. Not all CCAs can be stealthy, highly endurant, very fast, heavily armed, and cheap. It will be necessary to choose specialized variants rather than a single drone expected to do everything.
The debate between quantity and quality takes center stage
The American debate is no longer just about an aircraft; it is about the very structure of the air force. During the Cold War, the United States could purchase large fleets of F-15s, F-16s, A-10s, B-52s, and refuelers. Today, each new platform arrives with a much higher acquisition, software, and maintenance cost.
This inflation is an old phenomenon. Norman Augustine formulated a now-famous law: the unit cost of new combat aircraft increases by an order of magnitude roughly every twenty years. The CSIS recalled this logic in 2024. The phenomenon is not a budgetary joke; it describes a structural trend. Aircraft become more capable, but also far fewer in number.
The dilemma is thus brutal. A highly expensive F-47 may be necessary to penetrate Chinese defenses and command a combat network. But if it is purchased in numbers too small, it cannot endure in a protracted conflict. Conversely, a massive fleet of CCAs can saturate airspace, but it remains dependent on a manned aircraft, data links, reliable software, and a doctrine that is still being built.
The right answer is probably neither “all drones” nor “all manned fighters.” It lies in a combination. However, this combination must remain financially sustainable. The F-47 must be numerous enough to carry weight, and CCAs must remain simple enough to be produced quickly. The F-35, F-15EX, B-21, refuelers, missiles, and satellites must also be funded. No program exists in isolation.
The American budget can keep up, but not without trade-offs
The United States possesses the highest military budget in the world. This gives them a margin that their allies lack. Yet even Washington cannot endlessly fund the F-47, CCAs, the B-21, the Sentinel ballistic missile, munitions, missile defense, satellites, the navy, the army, and nuclear modernization simultaneously.
The requested budget for the Department of the Air Force in 2027 reaches 338.8 billion dollars. The Air Force’s share accounts for 267.7 billion dollars, and the Space Force’s share stands at 71.1 billion. This increase is massive, reflecting the desire to fund both operational readiness and modernization. The same budget provides 7 billion dollars for the B-21, 7.4 billion dollars for 38 F-35s, 3.9 billion dollars for 15 KC-46As, as well as a significant effort toward the F-47 and CCAs.
The figures show that the Pentagon is attempting to buy the future without abandoning the present. The F-47 receives additional billions, and CCAs are also ramping up. The budget includes nearly one billion dollars to begin purchasing the first CCAs in 2027, with 996.5 million dollars in procurement and 150 million dollars in advance procurement for 2028. These amounts indicate that the program is transitioning from concept to acquisition.
However, the balance remains fragile. The real question is one of volume. If the F-47 is too expensive, the fleet will be scaled back. If CCAs cost more than anticipated, their numbers will drop. If both programs consume too many funds, other areas will be squeezed: flight hours, spare parts, munitions, operations and maintenance, training, or the modernization of existing aircraft.
The readiness crisis limits modernization
The US Air Force is not starting from a comfortable position. Operational readiness is already under pressure. Aircraft are aging, parts are missing, maintenance depots are backlogged, and specialized maintainers are difficult to recruit and retain. This reality makes the debate over NGAD even more severe.
In 2025, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, General David Allvin, presented a stark assessment. The average age of American aircraft rose from roughly 17 years in 1994 to nearly 32 years in 2024. Over the same period, mission-capable rates fell from 73% to 54%. This is not a mere accounting problem; it means fewer aircraft are available for training, deployments, and alerts.
The Government Accountability Office also highlighted in 2026 the worsening delays in Air Force maintenance depots since 2019. The report notably criticized how certain timelines are measured. If targets are revised after unplanned work is discovered, the true severity of the backlogs can be masked.
The F-35 illustrates this issue. The Congressional Budget Office indicated that the F-35 fleet’s availability rate has hovered between 50% and 60% since 2022, below the 65% target. The aircraft is highly capable, but its maintenance remains intensive. This serves as a warning for the F-47. A highly advanced aircraft that does not fly enough does not produce military power; it produces an expensive promise.
Will allied states be able to keep up with this technological race?
The question extends beyond the United States. If the F-47 costs several hundred million dollars per aircraft, few allies will be able to afford it. Even if Washington agreed to export it, the export variant would likely be restricted. The most sensitive technologies—particularly stealth, sensors, software, electronic warfare, and specific data links—would be protected.
The outcome could be paradoxical. The United States would dominate technologically but export very little of its most advanced system. The F-35 would then remain the primary aircraft for allies, serving as the backbone of NATO and Indo-Pacific partners for decades. The F-47 would remain reserved for the US Air Force, much like the F-22 was before it.
CCAs open a different path. Loyal wingmen could be more exportable than the F-47, especially in downgraded or specialized configurations. Reuters has already reported that the US Air Force is considering international partnerships and Foreign Military Sales for CCAs. This makes sense: an ally unable to purchase a sixth-generation fighter could buy drones compatible with its F-35 fleet.
However, these exports will raise sensitive challenges. CCAs rely on autonomy, artificial intelligence, secure communications, and manned-unmanned teaming. Exporting these systems means sharing a portion of the American combat architecture. Washington will have to arbitrate between geopolitical influence and technology protection.
Geopolitical consequences vis-à-vis China
China is the silent driver of this entire debate. Beijing is developing advanced fighters, long-range missiles, surface-to-air systems, drones, space assets, and electronic warfare capabilities. It seeks to complicate American access to the Western Pacific, aiming to make any intervention around Taiwan, the South China Sea, or the first island chain highly costly.
In this context, NGAD and CCAs are not prestige programs. They are designed to preserve American air superiority in an arena where that superiority is no longer guaranteed. The F-47 must enable forces to survive at long ranges, observe, command, and strike. CCAs must multiply sensors and effectors, missiles must provide reach, refuelers must stay at a safe distance, and satellites must link everything together.
The strategic risk is falling behind. If the F-47 arrives too late or in numbers too small, China can close the gap. If CCAs are too expensive or too complex, they will not provide the anticipated mass. If American readiness continues to decline, new programs will arrive on a weakened foundation.
The geopolitical consequence would be severe. Asian allies could doubt the American capacity to sustain a prolonged conflict. Japan, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines assess American credibility on a daily basis. A US Air Force that is technologically brilliant but numerically inadequate would send a dangerous signal.
Effects on exports and the defense industry
The NGAD/F-47 will likely see limited exports. It is too sensitive a platform, its role is too central to American strategy, and its cost will be too prohibitive for most customers. It could therefore function as a national program, intended to guarantee an American lead rather than dominate the global market.
CCAs could follow a different path, potentially expanding into a global market. Countries operating the F-35 may want to add compatible combat drones, and nations lacking access to the F-47 may seek autonomous effectors. The export of CCAs could thus create a new dependence on American software, data links, and command architectures.
This will strengthen the US defense industry. Anduril and General Atomics could become the leading players in an immense market. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman will remain present, even if they were not selected for the first funded prototype phase. The major defense groups will have to adapt to a world where combat aviation is no longer limited to a crewed airframe.
For Europe, the message is stark. The Anglo-Italian-Japanese GCAP and the former Franco-German-Spanish FCAS will have to address the same problem as the Americans: how to fund a sixth-generation fighter without sacrificing volume? If the United States itself hesitates before the cost, Europeans must face reality. A program that is too expensive, too slow, and too fragmented can become militarily useless.
Cost becomes a strategic weapon
The NGAD/CCA debate shows that military superiority no longer depends on technology alone. It depends on the capacity to produce, maintain, and replace. A perfect but rare aircraft can lose to an adversary that enforces a war of attrition. A cheap but fragile drone can be useless if it does not survive long enough to reach its target. Military value lies between these two extremes.
The United States is therefore seeking an unstable formula: a highly advanced F-47, but one that is not too rare; numerous CCAs, but ones that are not too simple; a modernized F-35 fleet, but one that is not too costly to maintain; and rising budgets, but ones that are not swallowed up by a few giant programs. This is a difficult equation, even for Washington.
The most candid assessment is perhaps this: the United States can still fund this race, but they can no longer do so without consequences. Every billion put into the F-47 is money that does not go elsewhere. Every over-sophisticated CCA reduces the promised mass. Every maintenance delay reduces actual availability. Every cost increase forces a reduction in volume or the deferral of other investments.
The future of American air warfare will therefore be decided less by a simple opposition between manned aircraft and drones, and more by industrial discipline. If CCAs remain affordable, they can transform the balance against China. If the F-47 remains under control, it can become the center of a new combat architecture. But if both programs follow the classic cost spiral, the US Air Force risks building an admirable force on PowerPoint that is too expensive to be present in numbers the day it is truly needed.
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