During a briefing on Northrop Grumman’s second-quarter financial results on July 27 Kathy Warden – the company’s CEO – revealed that “we have notified the USAF that we’re not planning to respond to the [Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) request for proposals (RFP)] as the prime.”

It had previously been widely assumed that the competition to build the USAF’s NGAD fighter platform would be a three-horse race between Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In mid-May, the USAF announced that it had issued a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development (EMD) contract for NGAD, and that it would select a contractor for the programme in 2024. Within days of this announcement, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall stated that only two companies were actively involved in NGAD, though it was stressed that more vendors could join the competition in the future.

Northrop Grumman’s decision is probably a reflection of the company’s expectations that NGAD may not be profitable, and Kathy Warden confirmed that the firm is still not expecting to generate profit from the B-21 Raider’s low-rate initial production (LRIP) phase, and that a loss of up to $1.2bn on the five expected LRIP lots was “reasonably possible.”

Warden said: “We are remaining disciplined in assessing the right programmes to pursue, and that’s one where we feel we’re well positioned with mature offerings, and where the business deal reflects and appropriate balance of risk and reward for both the customer and the industrial base.”

Northrop Grumman is still interested in serving as a sub-contractor and mission systems supplier for the NGAD programme and is thought likely to bid on the associated Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) programme. This will produce the ‘Loyal Wingmen’ – low-cost, attritable, AI-driven unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs) – that will augment the manned NGAD fighter within the same system of systems in the future. It may be no mere coincidence that Northrop showed off mock-ups of its Model 437 and Model 101 UAVs at the Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, UK, in July.

The company may also pursue opportunities relating to the US Navy’s F/A-XX fighter programme, though the firm has not produced a manned fighter or tactical aircraft since the YF-23 Black Widow. However, it does play a major role in the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) programme. Northrop has previously withdrawn from a number of procurement competitions when it could not see a compelling business case for a profitable programme. For example, this was the company’s explanation when it withdrew from the USAF’s T-X advanced trainer competition in 2017, despite having built and flown a full-scale Model 400 Swift prototype.