Air Warfare Review 2024: Budget cuts and delays fail to dampen modernisation efforts in 2024

By and large, 2024 has proven to be a mixed year for the air warfare domain. Collaboration between manufacturers and defence ministries remained strong, with some noteworthy contract wins and much needed upgrade announcements for various nations air forces’ fixed-wing and rotary platforms.

It has also seen, however, continued programme delays, aircraft retirement announcements and budget cuts from governments looking to preserve cash, despite rising geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine, across the Middle East and throughout the Indo-Pacific region.

Crucially, both the UK and US announced a swathe of large aircraft retirements and cuts this year.

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The US cut its budget in FY2025 for the F-35 to the tune of US$583 million across its Navy and Air Force, despite bolstering its total procurement resource for other platforms by $10 billion. The US Air Force also announced plans to retire more than 1,000 helicopters, AEW&C, combat and ISR aircraft, while UK Minister of Defence John Healey announced cuts to UAVs and helicopter platforms to save the UK Ministry of Defence £500million ($637.4 million).

What was 2024 like for combat aircraft?

It was a mixed year for fighter jet platforms across Europe and the US in particular. Lockheed Martin saw a mix of contract wins, coupled with aircraft production delays and declining profit – particularly across its F-35 Lightning II programme.

For the F-35, in February, Singapore approved its procurement of eight F-35As, a first for the nation. In September, Romania’s US$7.2 billion F-35 purchase was finally greenlit, making it the latest European country to join Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II programme.

Elsewhere, the UK – with its initial commitment for 74 F35-Bs – finally received the first of its TR3 upgraded jets in October and moved closer to its 50% target by 2024 after questions about the delivery timeline for the remaining jets were raised earlier in the year.

The F-16 continued to be a crucial force in the push towards securing air dominance in Ukraine, with the Netherlands delivering its first batch of F-16s to Ukraine in October. A second batch of Danish F-16s are also believed to be set to arrive by the end of 2024.

In Europe in October, the US State Department confirmed a potential upgrade for Poland’s F-16C/D Block 52 to the latest F-16 V configuration. In November, Turkey’s continued interest in the platform changed. The US$23 billion contract to acquire 40 F-16V jets and 79 modernisation kits – previously announced in January 2024 – was reduced to $7 billion as its defence minister confirmed the swap from US-sourced to domestically-produced modernisation kits.

One of the biggest announcements for the Eurofighter Typhoon came as Germany lifted its objections to Turkey potentially buying 40 of the aircraft in November. Further sales were also pursued with up to 138 potential exports in the pipeline. The multinational produced fighter is still undergoing its European Common Radar System Mk2 tests, with ground tests first conducted in July.

For Saab, its Gripen aircraft was selected by Thailand as a replacement for its ageing fighter jet fleet, winning out over Lockheed’s F-16. Sweden also started its preparations to give Gripens to Ukraine. The Swedish manufacturer also pushed forward with more technology upgrades on its jets, announcing its intent to partner with defence AI-firm, Helsing, to put AI on its Gripen E aircraft.

For the next-generation fixed wing combat air programmes, much still relies on 2025. While the US said it would defer any decisions on NGAD until President-elect Trump is installed in the White House, the UK must wait for the recommendations in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) before further decisions on GCAP can be made.

Tanker transport aircraft rises to prominence

Outside of fighter jets, other notable aircraft platform news came in the form of Embraer’s C-390 Millennium transport carrier. The Brazilian manufacturer made significant strides with this aircraft over 2024, with orders for the aircraft coming from several NATO countries – including the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Sweden – emphasising various air forces need to modernise their tactical transport fleet.

The manufacturer also announced at the end of the year that it was working on researching an ISR configuration for the C-390 alongside the Brazilian Air Force, to develop further in 2025.

Rotary programmes upgrades remain on track

For helicopters, a surprise outcome of the New Medium Helicopter (NMH) programme in the UK reared its head in August. Airbus and Sikorsky dropped out of the bid, leaving Leonardo as the last manufacturer for the £1bn contract. The tender process is still ongoing and will conclude in the “first half of 2025”, according to UK Minister of State for Defence Procurement and Industry Maria Eagle.

Other notable updates in 2024 included the ongoing procurement of Boeing’s Block II CH-47 Chinooks by the US and the US Army and DARPA’s successful flights tests of an entirely remotely controlled Black Hawk in July 2024. Sikorsky, a Lockheed Martin company, then later won the DARPA fund to install autonomy on the US Army UH-60 Black Hawk in October.

In August, the US Army announced that it was formally moving forward with the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA), meaning the design and planning stages for the rotorcraft could begin. This news came in the wake of the US Army cancelling the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) programme in favour of a shift towards UH-60M Black Hawk bolstering, the FLRAA development and procurement of uncrewed aerial vehicles.

Replicator 1.0 effort presses on

Perhaps the most significant UAV programme throughout 2024 has been the US Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) Replicator 1.0 effort. The colossal effort, valued at around $1 billion, is intended to field thousands of attritable, autonomous systems across multiple domains before the end of 2025.

The programme hinged on the core assumption that the US’ main adversary is China. To better compete with a country which has the advantage of mass, the US believes it must innovate and counter with a mass of its own which will be “harder to hit and harder to beat”, as US Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks stated back in August 2023.

Despite being first announced in 2023, Replicator 1.0 reached its stride in 2024. In May 2024, the Pentagon announced that the Switchblade 600 was purchased in the first tranche. In a 13 November 2024 statement, the US DoD gave more information on the second tranche, or Replicator 1.2, signed in August 2024, conforming it contained Performance Drone Works’ C-100 and Anduril’s Ghost-X and Altius-600M.

Replicator 1.0 is significant due to the speed with which it has been established and awarded contracts, its size and how it emphasises the crucial role UAVs can play in achieving affordable mass, which will be vital in any potential peer or near-peer-to-peer conflicts.

This acceptance of the importance of an affordable mass can be seen in various loyal wingman programmes that emerged in 2024. Unveiled at ILA Berlin in June 2024, the Airbus Wingman concept UAV, aimed at Germany’s expressed requirement for loyal wingman aircraft, is explicitly designed to cost-effectively increase the overall combat mass.

Likewise, in October 2024, France Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu announced that Dassault Aviation would develop a loyal wingman-type UCAV to achieve mass while complementing the upcoming Rafale F5 crewed fighter being developed by the Future Combat Air System (FCAS).

Related Programmes in Defence Insight

Global Combat Air Programme [UK]

Future Long Range Assault Aircraft (FLRAA) [USA]

Related Equipment in Defence Insight

KC-390/C-390 Millennium

F-35B

F-35A