The latest Future Years Defense Program, for fiscal 2025, shows continued support within the Pentagon for dramatic growth in spending on so-called sixth-generation aircraft. This includes the Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance and the Navy’s F/A-XX programs. In Europe and Asia, there is enthusiasm for competing sixth-gen developments like the French-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System and the British-Japanese-Italian Global Combat Air Programme.
These major developments, along with collaborative combat aircraft, are expected to drive $70 billion in spending between 2024 and 2030, according to Tamarack Defense’s military aircraft market forecast. While production deliveries by 2030 for major platforms are expected to be slim, research and development spending is expected to increase significantly. In the U.S., sixth-gen budgets are set to grow from $4 billion in FY24 to $12.6 billion in FY29, with the majority allocated for research and development.
Tamarack Defense anticipates earlier and higher volume deliveries of collaborative combat aircraft compared to larger platforms. The forecast across the U.S. Air Force’s and U.S. Navy’s CCA programs projects 255 deliveries by 2030 and 950 by 2033. Outside the U.S., there is steady growth in development activity for sixth-gen programs, with an estimated $2 billion to $3 billion in contractor-available funding per year. Production deliveries are expected beyond 2030, but early prototypes are anticipated in the medium-term research and development plan.
Logan Slone is a co-founder of Tamarack Defense, a data analytics and advisory firm.
