Airmen assigned to the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s 115th Fighter Wing complete post-flight inspections on U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft Aug. 13, 2024. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Airman 1st Class Josh Kaeser)
WASHINGTON — As his tenure overseeing the Air Force comes to an end, Secretary Frank Kendall today offered a word of advice for the incoming Trump administration: the F-35 is here to stay, and now is not the time to talk about replacing manned fighter jets with drones.
The Air Force’s in-development uncrewed wingmen, dubbed Collaborative Combat Aircraft, have made significant progress, Kendall emphasized during a virtual discussion hosted by the Mitchell Institute. But asked directly about criticism tech billionaire Elon Musk has levied at officials for continuing to buy manned fighter jets instead of drones, the outgoing secretary suggested the world’s richest man needs to stay in his lane.
“I have a lot of respect for Elon Musk as an engineer. He’s not a warfighter, and he needs to learn a little bit more about the business, I think, before he makes such grand announcements as he did,” Kendall said. “It’s provocative, it’s interesting. I can imagine at some point — I don’t think it’s centuries, by the way, I think it’s more like decades — when something like he imagines can occur. But we’re not there, and it’s going to be a little while before we get there.”
Musk, who is set to co-lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) commission that could push for defense spending cuts, has taken aim at the F-35 in particular, calling officials “idiots” for continuing to build it. Vivek Ramaswamy, the DOGE’s other leader, has echoed Musk’s fighter jet criticisms, arguing to shift funds into other initiatives like hypersonics. And the two businessmen have already demonstrated considerable influence over congressional Republicans even before the Trump administration has taken over, spearheading a successful charge this week to torpedo a bipartisan stopgap spending deal.
In contrast, Kendall argued today that canceling the F-35 would be a fool’s errand. There’s no alternative in the near-term, the secretary emphasized, which would leave the West without an in-production stealth fighter. And even if the service’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter proceeds, it’ll be several years before the platform is operational, and will likely only be available in smaller quantities due to its cost.
“I don’t see F-35 being replaced,” Kendall said. “We should continue to buy it, and we also should continue to upgrade it.”
Plagued by issues from its inception, the F-35 certainly has plenty of fodder for the likes of Musk. Its problems continue: After a year-long halt of deliveries, prime contractor Lockheed Martin can now deliver upgraded versions of the jet, but those won’t be combat capable until next year at the earliest.
Although largely a defender of the F-35, Kendall has also been a staunch critic of the jet’s problems after a long history with the program, particularly as the Pentagon’s former top acquisition official under the Obama administration. And according to Kendall, there’s still plenty of room for improvement.
“We need better performance out of Lockheed, quite honestly. They’re not delivering what they have been promising, and they’re not doing it as fast as they could by a wide margin,” he said.
“We are committed to delivering the world’s most advanced aircraft — the F-35 — and its unrivaled capabilities with the government and our industry partners,” Lockheed said in a statement. “As part of that, we are investing over $350 million in our company’s enterprise engineering developmental systems integration test capabilities, which will generate capacity and efficiency within the F-35 program as we continue to build the quarterback of the fighter force.”
The Air Force plans to buy 1,763 F-35s — a specific, somewhat sacrosanct inventory objective that’s remained fixed for years despite fluctuating procurement. Down the road, Kendall suggested it may be prudent to “revisit” that number, particularly as CCAs and potentially NGAD become operational.
Still, Kendall said “I don’t think we’re ready to do that yet,” and that F-35s should be added to the Air Force’s inventory at an “affordable rate.”
Many defense officials have made similar comments to Kendall, though others have been warm to Musk’s criticisms.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Douglas Wickert, commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base, told reporters recently that fully roboticized warfare is likely “centuries away,” stressing that important ethical considerations also need to be worked out when introducing lethal autonomy.
“I don’t think it’s like, believable to say you can cancel the F-35 and wait three years for the next capability,” Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf told Breaking Defense in an interview earlier this month. Remarking that there are several “pretty questionable” capabilities the US spends money on, Schimpf said he “probably wouldn’t” start with the F-35 but would encourage “revisit[ing]” other programs to ensure that the “right decisions” are being made.
But Rep. Adam Smith, a Washington Democrat and ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, was more open to drones taking on a greater role.
“[T]he Pentagon is stuck in saying, no, we want tanks, we want big ships, and we want, you know, jet fighters. Swarms of drones can be vastly more effective. And if Elon is willing to push that envelope and force that sort of change, I think that can make sense,” Smith said.
“Look at Ukraine,” he continued. “If Russia could have achieved air dominance in Ukraine, they would have. They couldn’t and they had a substantial advantage there. So I think thinking about that future from outside the box would be appropriate.”
A Boeing rendering of a next-gen fighter. (Boeing photo)
NGAD analysis ‘mostly done’
After pausing the NGAD program earlier this year to conduct more analysis on the platform, Kendall appeared to confirm today that analysis is largely complete — though a decision about its fate still rests with the next administration.
“So we’ve taken a hard look at that,” he said of NGAD, adding “we generally finished the analysis on that.”
Kendall reasoned that with an election coming amidst the service’s analysis, “I don’t want to make a decision that’s going to be disrupted and reversed, potentially by the new team,” which may take a different view of NGAD as well as how other factors like CCA could play a role.
The secretary highlighted that although analysis is “mostly done,” new Air Force leadership “may want some additional analysis when they show up. But I want them to own this decision, and I don’t want us to start industry down a specific course and then have to abruptly reverse that few months from now.”
A decision on NGAD will be needed soon since it will be a prominent part of the service’s fiscal 2025 and 2026 budgets, Kendall said, though he noted that “we’re very close to being ready to proceed if that program continues its current form.”
Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
