HERE WE GO AGAIN? A taxpayer watchdog group report due out this morning is warning Congress against repeating the same costly and problematic issues in the fifth-generation F-35 program as DOD develops sixth-generation fighter aircraft programs.

NGAD you asked: The report, from Taxpayers for Common Sense, targets the Air Force’s nascent Next-Generation Air Dominance program to replace the F-22 and complement the F-35. The centerpiece is a crewed fighter aircraft, but it includes drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft.

What they’re saying: Morning Defense got an early look at the report. It raises concerns about the high cost of each crewed fighter, the complexity of integrating a wide array of capabilities into one warplane and the strategic rationale for pursuing such advanced systems.

“The F-35 program is a case study in what can go wrong when you race to deploy next-generation technology as quickly as possible. We ended up with a $2 trillion plane that’s only fully operational 30 percent of the time,” Taxpayers President Steve Ellis said in a statement.

“We can’t afford to make the same mistakes with the next generation of fighter aircraft. Yet the Pentagon is on track to repeat some of those mistakes, and risks making entirely new ones. Congress needs to take a close look at Pentagon plans for these programs to make sure they deliver for taxpayers and national security.”

Recommendations: The group recommends pausing all funding for the sixth-generation fighter programs until DOD produces, at Congress’s direction, an evaluation of other options and whether sixth-generation fighters are needed. It also calls on Congress to make sure that at least 90 percent of the designs for the program are completed before their critical design reviews.