The US Air Force wants to avoid the mistakes made during the development of the F-35 when building the sixth-generation fighter

The US Air Force intends to learn from its own mistakes when developing the sixth generation fighter. It will be created as part of the Next Generation Air Dominance programme and will be the replacement for the F-22 Raptor, the world's first fifth-generation fighter.

Here's What We Know

The US Air Force wants to avoid mistakes made in other programmes. For example, in the development of the F-35 Lighting II fifth-generation fighter jet. In particular, the service wants access to all the data the contractor will have. This was announced by US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.

The F-35 project was launched more than 20 years ago. The service then adopted a procurement philosophy called Total System Performance. This means the contractor has a monopoly on the aircraft throughout its life cycle.

Also, the US Air Force wants to avoid problems related to parallelism. This is a situation where procurement takes place during the development phase of an aircraft. The service wants the contractor to complete the fighter jet first and only then can it move on to the issue of procurement.

According to Frank Kendall, the US government should have much more control over the NGAD than the F-35. The authorities will ensure that the prime contractor and subcontractors use a modular open system. This will allow for new suppliers to be brought in to upgrade individual aircraft systems in the future.

Brigadier General Dale White will lead the new project. He serves as executive director of the US Air Force's fighter and advanced aircraft programme at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Last week, the US Air Force opened a multi-billion-dollar competition for full-scale production of the sixth-generation fighter jet. The service is accepting bids from companies and plans to award the contract as early as next year.

Earlier we wrote that the US Air Force will choose only one company to design the fighter. This is due to the high cost (several hundred million dollars). The service simply cannot afford to choose several contractors.

Source: Defense News