Why America's new stealth fighters might cost $300 MILLION each

[Music] America's Next stealth fighter is going to be expensive with some estimates now reaching as high as 300 million dollars per jet but while that figure is sure to give plenty of us a serious case of sticker shock the truth is even at that high a price this fighter may still be a bargain let's talk about the Next Generation air dominance fighter and how much it costs to Own the Sky I'm Alex Hollings and this is air power foreign there is no denying that Uncle Sam has a thing for expensive military platforms I mean today's F-35 lightning II effort currently holds the title for most expensive military program in history with an estimated 1.7 trillion dollar cost over the Jets service life and with the f-35as per unit price now floating at around 80 million dollars a piece forking over 300 million for a new stealth fighter does sound a bit shocking but it's really important to remember that the f-35's price has come down dramatically thanks to the fact that there are now a whopping 17 Nations placing orders for these Advanced Fighters and there have been more than 1 000 f-35s already delivered to customers around the world in other words despite a really high operating cost the F-35 has been become one of the most widely operated fighters on the planet and high volume has a way of bringing costs down but on the other side of that coin the Air Force intends to purchase just 200 or so fighters from the Next Generation air dominance program with these next Generation Jets expected to fly alongside another 300 Advanced new block 4 f-35s and at least a thousand artificial intelligence enabled drone wingmen this relatively short production run will place the ngad fighter on pretty equal footing in terms of total numbers with the very fighter it's expected to replace the F-22 Raptor and the truth is when you compare the ngad's projected costs to Fighters like the Raptor or even the venerable F-14 Tomcat that's sticker shock soon gives way to a sense that ngad may actually be a pretty good deal even at 300 million dollars per airframe now I know that sounds nuts but I promise I'll explain but first let's talk about what we know about the ngad fighter and what it's expected to cost so far now we've talked about the ngad program on this channel a bunch of times now so I'm gonna try not to go over too many things that we've already covered and focus on some elements of this developmental effort that we haven't had a chance to discuss yet the Next Generation air dominance or ngad program for short started back in 2015 within the secret of confines of the defense Advanced research projects agency better known as DARPA and this may surprise you but the program was not originally aimed at fielding an operational fighter Instead This darpa-led effort was all about advancing Technologies in four very specific categories those categories were propulsion uncruise systems materials and sensors now according to the Congressional research service DARPA and the dod itself spent about 4.2 billion dollars on the ngad development program between 2015 and 2022 but that's a bit misleading because also in 2022 the Air Force awarded nearly 5 billion dollars in contracts for their NGA P program which stood for Next Generation adaptive propulsion program this is the effort to field Next Generation adaptive cycle engines for this new ngad fighter which means that by the end of 2022 we were already really looking at about 10 billion dollars invested into developing the Technologies for this new fighter now we've discussed this in the past but it's worth noting that of that nearly 5 billion dollars doled out for Next Generation adaptive cycle engines only about 2 billion went to America's leading turbofan engine manufacturers General Electric and Pratt and Whitney both of which have been hard at work on their new adaptive cycle engines for the Next Generation air dominance program known as the xa100 and xa-101 respectively the other three billion dollars all went to Boeing Lockheed Martin in Northrop Grumman which suggests this money may have been going towards incorporating these Advanced adaptive cycle engine designs into their respective Next Generation air dominance fighter designs so that covers propulsion what about technology category number two uncrewed systems the ngad fighter will fly alongside a constellation of AI enabled drone wingmen which will help extend sensor reach and increase combat capacity and will likely increase survivability as well now we don't know a ton about the drones that will fly oh alongside this new fighter in big park because they haven't been selected yet but we do know that they're likely to be pricey as well now there's been lots of discussion about what drones will ultimately be flying alongside this new ngad fighter and the Air Force has certainly been exploring its options it seems very likely that eventually this manned unmanned teaming system will incorporate a wide variety of different types of drones ranging in price and capability for instance the Air Force has definitely been exploring the use of the Kratos xq58a Valkyrie which is a high subsonic low observable ucav that is very cost effective depending on trim these drones can ring in as cheap as a tomahawk cruise missile despite being a fully reusable aircraft now they can only carry payloads of around 600 pounds which would allow them to each carry two small diameter bombs or potentially some electronic warfare or Intel Legends surveillance and reconnaissance packages and while these aircraft don't offer a ton of payload they can make up for that and volume thanks to their low cost and the fact that you can launch them from stationary rocket launchers if you don't have a Runway available but then there are also other far more expensive and capable options out there like the mq-28 ghostbat Boeing May no longer be a part of the Air Force's skyborg program but they've made no secret about believing their australian-led loyal wingman programs mq-28 ghostbat may be a good fit for the Air Force's drone future now we honestly don't know a ton about what the ghostbat is capable of we know it stretches about nine feet longer than the valkyrie at 38 feet then it's expected to offer a range of about 2 300 miles and that Boeing claims it can offer quote fighter-like performance as well as the payload capacity to carry Advanced avionics on board like its own aesa radar that could be invaluable for future air-to-air and air-to-ground operations we also don't know what the ghost bat is likely to cost but we do know that Australia paid about 454 million Australian last May to purchase an additional 7 mq-28s which shakes out to around 44 million dollars U.S per drone but of course these costs could certainly drop significantly in high volume production and that's interesting because past statements from Air Force secretary Frank Kendall have suggested that the Air Force expects that the drones that will fly alongside this new ngad fighter May each cost as much as half as the ngad fighter itself which at a 300 million dollar price point would mean 150 million per drone but I think what's very likely to happen is that we'll eventually see a variety of different drones with different capability sets and price points being fielded alongside these Advanced new Fighters now some of these drones will be designed to fly alongside new Fighters for the duration of their lifespan potentially offering fighter-like capabilities at fighter-like costs while cheaper platforms like the xq58 valkyrie will offer reduced capability but it practically throw away costs and then even cheaper systems like the ADM 160 mauled or miniature air launched decoy will continue to mature to the point where they're practically drones themselves and all of these systems at varying levels of cost and capability will coalesce into a massive American Air power apparatus with sufficient volume to blot out the sun like a wave of Persian arrows over Thermopylae but everything about this concept pivots on that ngad Fighter the manned or crude fighter at the center of this drone constellation giving commands and making kill decisions for a whole Bevy of uncrewed systems at their disposal and as you might imagine being that important has a way of making a program expensive but now let's move on to technology category number three which is materials advances in Material Science are often among the most secretive elements of a stealth aircraft's design and today's radar absorbent materials are rated to absorb as much as 80 percent of inbound electromagnetic energy that make up radar waves but they also limit fighter performance due to their fragility improved Ram could reduce maintenance costs improve stealth and allow for greater performance and every indicator is that this ngad fighter as well as the B-21 Raider program has placed a massive emphasis on developing Material Science that has largely remained behind the tale of classification today's polymer based Ram starts to break down at temperatures of just about 480 degrees Fahrenheit or around 250 degrees Celsius and that's a huge problem for high performance Fighters that fly at supersonic speeds and perform aerobatic Maneuvers because all of the friction and pressure of the air pushing against the leading edges of the Wings and portions of the tail surface all create temperatures that can exceed this limit as a result Ram has to be frequently repaired or replaced and that accounts for a huge part of the cost of operating stealth aircraft but recent years have seen promising breakthroughs in things like ceramic based radar absorbent materials made by folks Like A team out of North Carolina State University led by Cheryl Zoo according to their findings published in 2020 their ceramic based Ram could absorb upwards of 90 percent of inbound on radar waves while also withstanding temperatures in excess of 3200 degrees which would be enough to sustain not just supersonic flight but Hypersonic flight as well and in 2021 the same Cheryl zoo and her team announced that they had successfully created a spray-on carbon fiber reinforced polymer-based radar absorbent coating that could offer similar performance and it probably won't come as much of a surprise to you but in May of 2021 the Air Force's office of scientific research announced that they were now funding Cheryl Zoo's work and finally we have the fourth technology category which is sensors the ngad program leans even further into the f-35s air combat methodology of detecting and targeting enemy aircraft from greater ranges than ever before allowing this fighter to engage with and Destroy enemy Jets without them ever even knowing it was in the neighborhood now these systems are all but certain to build off of advancements being made right now with the f-35s tech refresh 3 and forthcoming block 4 upgrades which include a Next Generation distributed aperture system which is expected to offer a big leap in infrared search and track capabilities over today's top of the line systems now this will give the block 4 F-35 as well as almost certainly the ngad the ability to identify and even Target stealth aircraft at ranges well in excess of today's irst systems which tend to top out at around 30 miles and while the F-35 is currently flying with the most powerful radar ever affixed to a tactical aircraft it's also getting a huge upgrade in what's being called the an APG 85 active electronically scanned array radar now the going rumor is that this new radar being developed by Grumman will leverage gallium nitride transmit and receiver modules now gallium nitride is a semiconductor material that's got a high breakdown voltage and high electron Mobility which among a number of benefits allows for much higher power output in a much smaller package and all this is to say that this new radar will allow the block for F-35 as well as almost certainly the ngad that follows to spot smaller targets than ever before at greater ranges than ever before even allowing for engaging stealth aircraft under the right circumstances now since 2015 a lot of the ngad effort has been siled into these technology categories but as these systems matured the focus of this ngad program transitioned towards combining these Technologies into a single new airframe culminating in a classified contract solicitation the Air Force released just last month for final design proposals the Air Force now intends to choose a winning design next year with aggressive plans to begin Fielding operational Jets by the end of this decade so now that we know about all the new technologies and system responsibilities the Air Force is cramming under the radar absorbent skin of this single new fighter well a pretty high cost of Entry starts to make a bit more sense which is certainly why Air Force secretary Frank Kendall has already warned the American people that these new Fighters will cost in the quote hundreds of millions of dollars and some estimates now place them at around 300 million per airframe but if that number still seems like a shock to you let me shock you a bit more because that 300 million dollar figure is based in 2023 dollars and if we look back in time at some of America's previous top tier Fighters you might be shocked at how much they cost in 2023 dollars as well let's start with the F35 because we've already discussed how affordable it's become but back when the F-35 began its production run in 2007 it was a lot more expensive right about 221.1 million dollars per airframe in its first production lot now when adjusted to 2023's inflation that comes out to about 331.5 million dollars per fighter of course it is important to note that the f-35s per unit cost dropped dramatically in its first years of production with Lot 2 that came later that same year already cutting it down to 161.7 million per jet which shakes out to around 242.3 million today but what about just restarting F-22 production instead of developing an entirely new stealth fighter after all the F20 22 may be the oldest stealth fighter in service today but it is still widely considered to be the most dominant air superiority fighter ever to fly and that is the job ngad is being designed to fill well the Air Force thought of that back in 2017 the branch commissioned a secret study into just how much we're starting F-22 production would cost and the report's conclusions were bad news for Raptor fans like me because much of the f-22's production line was cannibalized for F-35 production after the Raptor was canceled restarting that production line would mean establishing new production infrastructure practically from scratch now as a result with all the startup costs included they determined that a batch of 194 new f-22s would cost about 50.3 billion dollars which adjusted to today's inflation skyrockets up to about 62.5 5 billion and that means that the average per unit cost of new build F-22 Raptors today would be about 330 million dollars and while the Raptor is undoubtedly an incredible performer this is the legit that started flying 10 years before the first iPhone was released a lot of the Raptor's design was finalized in the early 1990s in other words it would cost about the same to build new old Raptors as it would to build entirely new 21st century design in fact even before F-22 production was halted back in 2010 the Congressional research service reported that the U.S was paying about 186 million dollars per aircraft if you don't roll r d costs into the per unit price just as we aren't with ngad if you did include r d in the Raptor it would have ballooned up to 369.5 million per fighter in 2010 dollars but even still that 2010 price point of 186 million dollars adjusts to about 260.4 million today and that means that even if we could magically pick up F-22 production where we left off new Raptors would still probably be creeping up on that 300 million dollars per airframe Mark with a good chunk of the difference being eaten up by having to go back and make changes to the design by adding things like infrared search and track capabilities or helmet cued targeting systems that were omitted from the original Raptor as a cost-saving measure but are now seen as all but essential today what about the world's first stealth aircraft lockheed's game-changing F-117 Nighthawk now nailing down the exact per unit price of the F-117 is a bit tough in no small park because it was developed tested produced and operated entirely in secret until it was unveiled in 1988 and once the Air Force did release a per unit price in 1990 they called it 42.6 million dollars or about 101.4 million today the government accountability office immediately called them out saying it was actually more like 100 million per airframe or about 238 million today these days you'll find most Outlets citing figures reported about eight years later when the Air Force called it about 122 million per airframe or about 230 million in today's currency now 230 million is still a bargain compared to maybe 300 million for an ngad fighter but it's important to note that the F-117 was a fighter in prefix alone we're really talking about a subsonic attack aircraft with no onboard radar engines pulled out of the fa-18 Hornet and avionics that were mostly yanked out of the F-16 and even the B-52 this was not a multi-role fighter this was a very sneaky attack plane that could deliver just two two thousand pound bombs and not much else but we all know that stealth is expensive what about a non-stealth performer like the fan favorite F-14 Tomcat in 1973 the US was purchasing Maverick's ride for just 38 million dollars a piece now compared to the numbers we've been throwing around so far that sounds like a bargain but inflation can be tricky like that and a lot of people tend to forget that while the US may be spending more in terms of a Top Line dollar figure on defense than ever in terms of percent of the nation's gross domestic product or GDP America was largely investing twice and sometimes even more than three times as much into defense throughout the Cold War in 1973 when those F-14 prices were from the U.S invested 5.89 of its GDP into defense now these days U.S defense budgets tend to float around three to three and a half percent of GDP but if we were to match that 1973 posture that these F-14 prices come from America's 2022 defense budget would jump from 839 million dollars up to about 1.5 trillion and now that you know that it'll probably be no surprise that when you adjust that f-14a's price tag of 38 million to 2023 inflation it comes out to an astonishing 270 million dollars per Tomcat that's right we paid about the same for Mavericks ride and its day as we did for the F-22 Raptor and now that we know all the new technology that's going into this new ngad fighter all the new capabilities it's bringing to bear and we're aware of the fact that the F-14 cost 270 million dollars a piece the f17 17 cost 230 million the F-35 started at 330 million and new f-22s would cost 330 million as well well an estimated 300 million dollars per ngad doesn't sound that unreasonable now of course the Air Force has its work cut out for it managing these contracts so as not to produce another acquisition boondoggle the likes of which we saw with the F-35 but at the end of the day a great deal of America's Warfare Doctrine is built upon the premise of owning the skies and that is some very expensive real estate and just as with any real estate prices inflation can be a real killer and on that ends yet another edition of air power from sandbox news I'm Alex Hollings make sure to swing by sandboxnews.com today and every day for all the latest in news entertainment and motivation from all around the force if you got anything out of today's video make sure to click like And subscribe down below and leave me a comment so I know what I should cover next and of course don't forget to tap on that Bell icon so you never miss a drop from sandbox news

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 229,701

Keywords: ngad, 6th gen, 6th generation, sixth gen, sixth generation, stealth, stealth fighter, air force, usaf, next generation, air dominance

Id: aOUZvj-ml2E

Length: 24min 12sec (1452 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 16 2023