What the FY2027 request buys
Verbatim from the R-2A exhibit for project 640011 of PE 0604609F. This is the budget justification's own description of work that has not happened yet — the one thing no other level of the budget carries.
- Continue HVAA-P Planning for Development activities as informed by the endgame demonstration. - Commence additional Planning for Development and conduct further concept refinement activities in response to Force Design and DoW priorities. These efforts will address critical capability areas including, but not limited to, Autonomy Capabilities, Counter-Air, Persistent ISR, Strategic Airlift, and Rapid Strike, all informed by Mission Engineering Threads. This work will build the necessary evidence to support AoA Sufficiency studies at all security levels and relevant domains, delivering fully informed data to drive acquisition decisions, inform continued development planning, and prepare for MAJCOM interactions and PPBE activities required for PoR establishment. These products will support the Capability Development Enterprise with system attribute trades and open system solutions, leveraging modern digital engineering tools. Where necessary, activities will involve targeted S&T investments, risk reduction, and demonstrations to resolve technical debt, along with supporting directed studies in collaboration with the Air Force Futures and MAJCOM.
- FY 2027 funding increased compared to FY2026 by $47.702 million. This increase is due to programmatic adjustments within the Capability Development portfolio, to include the consolidation of Projects 640011 and 640012 as well as a heavy USAF demand signal for HVAA-P maturation, risk reduction, and Planning for Development activities. - All associated FY 2027 plans and activities in the "Capability Development System Attribute Definition and Acquisition Planning” thrust and Project 640012 have been consolidated into the 'Capability Development Core Ops' thrust under a single Project. This realignment prevents the duplication of work between the two areas and ensures all activities are properly aligned within a single, unified capability development framework.
FY2026: the year under way
Prior-year accomplishments and current-year plans from the same exhibit. Context for the FY2027 plan, not a series — an activity partitions its project exactly in the request year, but can under-cover it in earlier years.
- Commence and complete the Next Generation Air Lift (NGAL) concept analysis and assessment. Delivers acquisition data and analysis to support data-driven acquisition decisions. Inform Planning for Development and prepares for MAJCOM interactions and PPBE activities required for program of record establishment. Support additional directed studies based on USAF Force Design Mission Thread priorities. - Commence endgame demonstration for High-Value Airborne Asset Protection (HVAA-P) to assess potential solutions to close near-term capability gaps, inform future acquisitions decisions and follow-on efforts, and provide a transition path for proven technologies. - Complete and provide fully informed, mission- and campaign-level Ensemble Analysis on surrogate Hard and Deeply Buried Targets (HDBTs). Delivers the data, analysis, and methodology for evaluating ensembles of existing and future weapons utilizing existing intelligence products.
Three years, and no five-year plan
An R-2A activity publishes the prior year, the current year and the budget year. The FYDP outyears exist at project and program-element level and are deliberately absent here rather than inferred. Estimate types are colored and never summed into one figure.
| Fiscal Year | Estimate Type | Amount ($M) |
|---|---|---|
| FY2025 | Actual | 9.4 |
| FY2026 | Enacted | 9.9 |
| FY2027 | Request | 57.6 |
This activity is 100% of project 640011's FY2027 request and 100% of PE 0604609F's. In the request year the activities under a project sum to it exactly; in the current year they under-cover it in about 9% of cases, so an activity's delta can legitimately exceed its parent's and the two must not be compared row to row.
2 activities in project 640011
Every R-2A line of this project, largest FY2027 request first. Linked where the activity has enough of its own narrative to carry a page; the rest are shown in full on the project page.