By 2030, the U.S. Air Force plans to receive 200 NGAD platforms and 1,000 CCA combat aircraft.

U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall stated this during a speech at the AFA Warfare Symposium.

According to Kendall, the next generation of air dominance would include both the Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter platform “and the introduction of uncrewed collaborative aircraft”.

“The notional 1,000 CCA figure was derived from “an assumed two CCAs for 200 NGAD platforms, and an additional two for each of 300 F-35s,” Kendall said.

He cautioned that it wasn’t an inventory objective, but a planning assumption to use for analysis of things such as basic organizational structures, training and range requirements, as well as sustainment concepts.

The exact number of NGAD platforms the Air Force is planning to purchase has been a closely-held secret, and even if it is “notional”, the 200 figure is suggesting that it is greater than the current inventory of F-22s which the NGAD will eventually succeed circa 2030.

Affordability for force-building is one of the drivers behind the push for CCAs, Kendall said — if the Air Force only buys F-35s and F-15EXs, then “we have an unaffordable Air Force”. The goal for CCAs will be to cost “some fraction” of the cost of an F-35.

“We’re going to design around that,” he said.

Kendall also hinted that greater purchases of F-35s would be coming in the fiscal 2024 budget request to be submitted to Congress in the following week, and that purchases of the F-35 would be larger than previously planned.

The Militarnyi earlier reported that the total amount of the U.S. defense budget for next year could exceeded $835 billion. It is believed that this would become one of the largest peacetime defense budgets. The current budget is $816 million.

The U.S. President Joe Biden will present the plan on Thursday. It is noted that of the total amount, $170 billion will be allocated to purchase weapons, and another 145 billion will be spent on research and development of new types of weapons. Both amounts are at an all-time high.

The major systems that are planned to be purchased from the proposed budget include, for example, the F-35 from Lockheed Martin. It is planned to allocate $13.5 billion to these platforms to extend development and modernization.

The Pentagon will request 83 F-35s for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. This would include the planned 48 aircraft for the Air Force and 35 for the Navy and Marine Corps.