Originally Posted by
tartare
A question for those of you from the greatest nation on the face of the earth...
You currently have the USAF procuring (and apparently already flying) the NGAD.
At the same time the USN is procuring the F/A-XX.
I get that when it comes to the Navy and Air Force there is intense rivalry - and that the last time someone tried a common jet design, it ended up with three variants and a huge sticker price.
But the combined cost of these two new programs must also be astronomical.
How does procurement in the US armed forces work on these mega projects?
Forgive the gross oversimplification, but do the heads of each service just say "...we're designing our own jet because the other guy's jet won't work for us..."
Does the Pentagon have any authority to reign each service in - or does that rest solely with Congress approving or not approving funding?
You are talking 2 different aircraft, so first the overarching program is NGAD, the USAF fighter is PCA (penetrating counter air) and the USN is FA-XX program, NGAD also contains the skyborg program and probably stuff we dont know about
Both of them want different fighter USAF is looking at a large fighter with extreme combat ranges ( thousand plus nautical miles ) and laser and all the bells and whistles basically rumors are saying its going to be between an F111 and a B-21 in size. USN is getting a smaller less fancy aircraft that can be flown of aircraft carrier