The US Air Force last week opened a multibillion-dollar competition for a full-scale
What is known
Lockheed Martin, Boeing and NorthropGrumman will have to make every effort to win the contract. The US Air Force cannot afford to select multiple contractors due to the high cost. Although several companies were working on the concept.
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendallstated that one fighter would cost hundreds of millions of dollars. In total, the service wants to receive "about 200 aircraft" to replace about the same number of F-22 Raptor. At the same time, experts believe that a more likely target is 250 fighters.
On the other hand, the US Secretary of the Air Force emphasizedthat he is not so much worried about the total number of aircraft in service as their modernization. The service neglected this for years, he said, while China aggressively built up its air dominance and air defense capabilities. The US did not react to this as quickly as it should have.
The sixth generation fighter is being developed inas part of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program. It has its roots in the Aerospace Innovation Initiative, which began under the administration of Barack Obama.
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The Aerospace Innovation Initiative wasis designed to create a set of sixth-generation technologies for future air supremacy. As a result, in 2015 a contract was signed for the production of experimental prototypes and testing of new technologies, which eventually formed the basis of NGAD.