Upgrade Carrier Air Wings With F/A-XX Now or Lose to China (From Breaking Defense)

If the US is to stand a chance against China, the time is now to move out on the Navy’s future next-gen fighter, explains Rebecca Grant of the Lexington Institute. Read below and here.

The Navy has a dangerous problem.

The USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s newest and biggest aircraft carrier, arrived in the US Southern Command area of operations after a rapid transit from the Mediterranean ordered by President Donald Trump. With Ford comes Carrier Air Wing 8, with four squadrons of fighter planes and electronic attack and surveillance aircraft that will amplify strike options and help track every move of what the Pentagon has called drug boats.

Carrier Air Wing 8 provides powerful options. Yet while US aircraft carriers have delivered remarkable results in Operation Rough Rider and other strikes in the Middle East, their recent combat success is masking a problem that will only get worse: old planes.

Too bad no one in Trump’s Pentagon can make a decision on the future of the Navy: a plane with the dull name of F/A-XX.

The Navy’s position is clear. “We need F/A-XX in the United States Navy,” said Adm. James Kilby in June, who testified as acting Chief of Naval Operations. “We’re talking about a fight in the Pacific.”

And yet, excuse after excuse wafts from the five-sided building about why the program shouldn’t move forward. Maybe aircraft carriers can’t face Chinese missiles. Perhaps drones should replace manned fighters. Worst of all was the wild concept — officially pushed at one point by the White House — that America’s aerospace industrial base could not manufacture both the Air Force’s F-47 and the new Navy stealth plane at the same time. Meanwhile, the Chinese have their advanced new carrier in sea trials and at least two new stealth aircraft in test.

The latest word is that the Pentagon will inflict another year or two delay on F/A-XX. That mistake could doom naval aviation.

Range And Maneuver

What the Navy carrier airwings need in order to face China is a strike aircraft with the survivability and range — plus the missiles and tanking to mount thousand-mile strikes. The air admirals know this perfectly well. The tactical imperative is to push the range of the carrier’s top strike fighters to give the carrier maximum lethality and maneuver room. This is the same impetus which led to the range and engine improvements of the Grumman F6F Hellcat in World War II, and to the design of the F-14 Tomcat with the AN/AWG-9 radar and the Phoenix missile for the “outer air battle” against the Soviet Union’s bombers in the Cold War.

Over a decade ago, the Navy accurately read China’s military development and began preparing for the F/A-XX to dominate the air battle at extended ranges. The Navy’s three-fold plan was to design longer-range missiles, a stealthy tanking drone with a sideline in surveillance, and key to it all, a new strike fighter with added range, payload and stealth.

The missiles are here. Trump patted one during his visit to the USS George Washington, in Japan, on Oct. 28: the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile or LRASM, a sleek, black missile notable for its angled nose. The F/A-18EF have also integrated the SM-6 for in-flight launch, a long-range missile capable of taking on air, land and sea targets. The SM-6 has a range of about 300 miles and perhaps quite a bit more if modified with a booster engine.

The MQ-25 Stingray stealthy tanking drone is also scheduled to join the fleet in 2026. The MQ-25 combines air refueling capacity with sensors and communications relays. While the MQ-25 can be on station for recovery refueling near the ship, its main role is to offload 15,000 lbs. of fuel at a 500-nm range from the carrier, enabling strike fighters to extend their mission radius and time on station. While land-based tankers remain important, the MQ-25 Stingray frees up strike fighters that were formerly performing refueling roles and gives carrier aircraft of all types a guarantee of additional range.

But the whole plan was built around the new strike fighter, and that’s MIA. The F/A-XX is a larger, stealthier aircraft that will carry more payload than strike fighters in the current air wing. But it’s the range that may really set it apart.

Assume an estimated 600 nm combat radius for today’s F-35C and F/A-18EF. An increase of 25 percent over existing planes, as predicted by the Navy, gives the F/A-XX an unrefueled combat radius greater than 750 nm. Add in the reported 250 nm or more for the SM-6/AIM-174B missile, which can be employed by the air wing’s strike fighters and the combat radius reaches 1,000 miles. On-station tanking from the MQ-25s adds flexibility and range and the tactical advantages grow.

Combat radius — the distance to a target and back — varies with bomb load, altitudes in the mission profile, weather, tactics and more. However, the combination of F/A-XX with MQ-25 and advanced missiles should be able to deliver effects 1,000 to 1500 miles from the ship and beyond. Aircraft carriers with F/A-XX will be able to launch from a much wider swathe of the ocean, increasing the maneuver room for the aircraft carrier under combat conditions.

The timing is urgent. Production of the F/A-18EF ends in 2027, and the F/A-XX is the designated replacement.

Both Boeing and Northrop Grumman have mature prototypes for F/A-XX and suppliers and production lines ready to go. A decision now to move to the next phase of engineering and manufacturing design would start a countdown toward low-rate initial production and official first flight. If the Navy has been as deliberate and careful with F/A-XX as the Air Force was with the B-21 requirements, an F/A-XX could take to the skies in 2028 or 2029.

There is no time to waste. Pentagon leadership needs to listen to the Navy and move out on F/A-XX now.

Rebecca Grant is a Senior Fellow of the Lexington Institute.