By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
(Washington D.C.) A stealthy, supersonic, semi-autonomous 6th-gen fighter maneuvers undetected through heavily armed enemy air space, evades radar detection to …. jam the adversaries command and control systems with EW weapons, gather, analyze and transmit targeting data across huge areas of terrain in milliseconds using AI-empowered computing, launch and operate groups of nearby minidrones, fire air-launched hypersonic missiles and then… incinerate enemy aircraft with fighter-jet fired precision laser weapons … all while flying too quickly and stealthily to be targeted.
Taking this hypothetical mission yet another step farther, what if the 6th-Gen fighter not only performed many of its missions with complete autonomy but also operated with a kind of self-regenerating coating or even composite armor which used synthetic biology to essentially regenerate and restore external structures lost or damaged by enemy fire?
In 2030, 2040 or 2050 …. all this could be a reality.
The alignment and collective execution of these now-in-development technical attributes rests almost entirely on the continued pace of Pentagon and industry innovation now striving to prepare for and anticipate the unknown, if not even somewhat mysterious, future warfare environment. Making these things happen, and integrating them to one another such that they complement one another in a coordinated fashion, requires visionary thinking, some amount of guessing and a delicate blending of art and science combining the best conceptual theorizing with early evidence of scientific promise.
Video Above: Air Force 6th-Gen Stealth Fighters Control Attack Drones
This complex, yet highly sought after mixture of sensibilities and science, it could easily be said, captures the intent of many Pentagon efforts to prepare for warfare decades from now. It is the reason entities like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s, Lockheed’s Skunk Works or Raytheon’s lesser-known Advanced Concepts and Technology (ACT} ) units exist… to explore the realm of the seemingly impossible and innovate yet-to-be-envisioned warfare technologies.
Navy NGAD 6th-Gen F/A-XX to Replace Famous F/A-18 Super Hornet
The first-of-its-kind carrier-launched 5th-generation F-35C is here but in small numbers, the F/A-18 Super Hornet has been a combat workhorse for decades and has already outlived its expected service life through years of successful upgrades ….. So how will the Navy meet advanced great power threats from the ocean in coming decades? The answer to this question has been clearly and decisively answered by the Navy … the 6th-Gen F/A-XX carrier launched stealth fighter, a now in development next-generation platform expected to blast onto the scene in coming years.
The Air Force’s 6th-gen Next Generation Air Dominance jet is already airborne, although little to nothing is known about it for obvious security reasons, but what about the Navy’s 6th Gen? Similarly, we hear very little about this for obvious reasons as well, yet there is a clear “need” and clear Navy emphasis being placed on the effort.
An interesting Navy document released in 2021 called the “Navy Aviation Vision 2030 – 2035” makes the unambiguous statement that the Navy’s F/A-XX NGAD aircraft will not only be a “family of systems” but also replace the Super Hornet as it moves into the 2030s.
“Its specific capabilities and technologies are under development, however analysis shows it must have longer range and greater speed, incorporate passive and active sensor technology, and possess the capability to employ the longer-range weapons programmed for the future,” the text of the Navy document states.
Intended as a new “strike fighter” to complement and fly alongside the F-35C, the new 6th-gen aircraft will likely be stealthy, AI-enabled, much faster than an F/A-18 or even F-35C, yets it largest margin of difference may reside in its ability to incorporate paradigm-changing, unprecedented new innovations. The new plane or planes will likely fire hypersonic weapons, operate as manned or unmanned autonomous aircraft and certainly leverage manned-unmanned teaming and new generations of sensing, weaponry and networking technologies.
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Interestingly, the Navy text makes the point that the new sea-launched 6th-generation aircraft will specifically enable continued aircraft carrier operations in high-threat areas. Perhaps this means the new F/A-XX will operate like an improved F-22-like air dominance platform from the sea, able to help establish air superiority for an entire Carrier Air Wing to follow. Certainly an advanced platform of this kind would bring new dimensions of “power-projection” to maritime warfare and possibly open up an “air corridor” for heavily armed, yet less stealthy platforms to attack.
“The advanced carrier based power projection capabilities resident in F/AXX will maintain CVN relevance in advanced threat environments,” the Navy strategy document states.
Air superiority at sea would certainly prove critical in the event that airspace above Carrier Strike Groups were too far offshore for F-22s or other land-based 5th-generation fighters to reach. For instance, should an F/A-XX be stealthy enough and fast enough to destroy enemy aircraft and also disable enemy radar and air defenses, then Carrier Strike Groups would be much better positioned to overcome China’s often-discussed anti-access/area-denial strategy.
In particular, if 6th-generation aircraft were able to operate in small groups or as a family of stealthy manned and unmanned systems, they could provide forward surveillance and potential identify launch sites for China’s highly touted Carrier-Killer missiles such as the DF-26 reportedly able to strike carriers at ranges of 2,000 miles. Operating as aerial “nodes” or forward reconnaissance, 6th generation carrier-launched aircraft could use stealth, speed and networking to detect and potentially even intercept attacking anti-ship missiles.
This kind of tactical ability would of course be brought to fruition through new dimensions of networking technology wherein multiple platforms could gather, organize and transmit time-sensitive intelligence and targeting data across multiple domains at great distances. Newer applications of AI, coupled with breakthrough transport layer technologies such as optical-communication, encrypted RF signals or new
ly hardened datalinks. Most of all otherwise disparate or disconnected platforms are increasingly being built with interfaces and the kind of technical infrastructure sufficient to support cross-domain interoperability.
Air Force NGAD 6th-Gen Takes to the Sky
The Air Force 6th-generation stealth fighter jet is airborne, although hidden from public view and little to nothing is known about the highly secretive or “black” program. The fact that the new jet has already taken to the skies, years ahead of schedule due in large measure to successful digital engineering applications, has generated initial comments showing great optimism for the effort from service leaders. While details about its stealth configuration, weapons and mission systems are not likely available, senior Air Force leaders have discussed concepts of operation for the fast-evolving Next Generation Air Dominance effort.
Video Above: Rep. Wittman China
One of the key concepts of critical importance to the program is aligned closely with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s “operational imperatives,” strategic concepts and goals for the force as it surges into future decades. The idea for NGAD, Kendall and other service officials have explained, is to develop the platform as a “family of systems” empowered by drones and manned-unmanned teaming technologies. Last Fall at the Air Force Association Symposium, Kendall said the expectation is that the NGAD will control as many as five or six drones from the air at one time.
The 6th-generation “loyal wingman” drones, called Combat Collaborative Aircraft, are already being designed and built as companion support aircraft for an NGAD “family” of systems. Service leaders are clear that the conceptual intent of the 6th-generation family is to enable attack operations against highly sophisticated advanced enemy air defenses, aircraft and weapons systems in what’s often called a “contested” environment. Survivability in high-end, great power war is the basis for 6th-generation designs and concepts of operation.
“We need an aircraft that can perform operations in denied airspace and make sure we have the ability to establish freedom of maneuver. We’ve had successful uncrewed platforms going back decades. It’s challenging to have a platform able to operate in denied air space,” Air Force Acquisition Executive Andrew Hunter said Last Fall at AFA.
The prospect of multiple, networked CCAs working in close coordination with a manned “host” plane introduces new tactical possibilities, in large measure because they will be networked to one another as well as to a manned aircraft performing command and control. Controlling drones from the air will of course reduce latency by not needing to send data through a ground station, streamline time-sensitive data and massively shorten sensor-to-shooter time. An armed forward drone, for instance, could autonomously identify a target, use on board computer processing and enable a human decision maker to find and destroy enemy targets from safe stand-off distances. Advanced algorithms and AI-enabled data processing can analyze a host of mission variables from otherwise disparate or separated streams of incoming sensor information.
The CCA’s will need to be lower cost and attritable as they will perform extremely high risk missions over enemy territory such as forward surveillance, blanketing or overwhelming enemy air defenses and even conducting attacks with weapons when directed by humans in a command and control capacity. On this point, Kendall added that a single manned 6th-generation aircraft may at some point control mini drone attack drones.
“You can think of him (pilot) as a quarterback or a play caller for that formation. And you can equip those killer crowds with a variety of mission systems and sensors, including any weapons…..and you can employ these very creatively and create a very difficult problem for the adversary,” Kendall told Warrior at the 2022 Air Force Association Symposium.
Video Above: New Air Force “Sentinel” ICBM to Fire Off 2024 – Counter Future Threats
It is also possible that the Air Force will engineer two distinct NGAD “variants” intended for specific operational environments such as Europe and the Pacific. An NGAD operating in the Pacific would benefit from larger fuel tanks enabling it to travel great distances while still having “dwell” time or operational attack options during a mission. A European variant, by contrast, might be built to be smaller and faster as countries on the continent are quite close together. Certainly having two distinct airframes would align closely with the “family of systems” concept.
How Long Will the F/A-18 Super Hornet Live
Having already outlived expectations and flown years beyond its planned service life, the Navy’s carrier-launched F/A-18 Super Hornet Block III may still live to fly and fight a few more years into the future.
The famous fighter has in recent years received new cockpit displays, infrared targeting technology, conformal fuel tanks, weapons upgrades, external weapons pods and a special glide slope carrier landing software called “magic carpet,” among other things. However, as is often the case with legacy platforms, they can only be upgraded to a point, a reason why the Navy is moving intensely on its highly secretive F/A-XX stealthy, carrier launched F/A-18 replacement.
As is often the case with certain legacy platforms such as the B-52 or F-16, the F/A-18 airframes have remained viable for thousands of flight hours beyond the initial thought of 6,000 mission hours. Upgrades, sustainment efforts and Service Life Extension Plans, fortified by airframe structural maintenance to the center barrel section, modifications and reinforcements have enabled the aircraft to fly to 10,000 combat hours, decades beyond what had initially been planned.
Other upgrades to the aircraft include the addition of a Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing System which provides a 20-degree field of view visor and a Digital Communication System Radio (MIDS) – Joint Tactical Radio System, Radio, MIDS – Joint Tactical Radio System, Digital Memory Device, Distributed Targeting System, Infrared Search and Track (IRST) and continued advancement of the APG-79 Active Electronically Scanned Array Radar, Navy weapons developers have said in recent years.
The added conformal fuel tanks make the fuselage slightly more “rounded” and less detectable to enemy radar and also massively extend dwell time for the aircraft, meaning it can loiter over enemy territory for longer periods of time to attack more targets on a single mission. This could be critical in areas such as the Pacific where the pure “tyranny of distance” and massive, extended geographical expanse makes it difficult to project and sustain air power from the sea. The IRST Infrared Search and Track technology is a next-generation targeting system built into the F/A-18 in recent years to improve targeting range and resolution while “har
dening” sensor networks to remain resilient and functioning in a “jamming” EW kind of combat threat environment.
The continued life of the F/A-18 Super Hornet is not surprising for several key reasons, such as the incremental arrival of the carrier-launched F-35C and need to sustain pure “mass” in terms of air combat formations and the ability to project power. For instance, the US Navy recently conducted “dual-carrier” training operations in the Pacific, an exercise to demonstrate an ability to network and launch large numbers of aircraft from the sea to blanket an enemy area with air attack, multiply attack options and expand formations to “overwhelm” an enemy with air power. Advanced networking technologies and F/A-18 sustainment efforts have made this possible. While certainly the stealthy F-35C is now operational and continuing to arrive, there are simply not yet enough of them in operation to mass a large Carrier Air Wing attack across a wide expanse. This is where the F/A-18 comes in, as stealthier 5th-generation aircraft, and perhaps even bombers, can destroy enemy air defenses to create an “air corridor” for less stealthy 4th-generation planes to fly in for attack.
Any engagement against a great rival power such as China in the Pacific would likely require the US to deploy a large force of carrier launched aircraft to cover wide areas of attack, intercept Chinese efforts to encircle Taiwan from the air and sustain air bombardment continuously to overwhelm and destroy an enemy. Multiple reports do say Boeing may soon stop production of its F/A-18, suggesting that even the well-extended Super Hornet may eventually sunset as 5th and 6th generation carrier launched airframes continue to arrive. This is likely why the US Navy is doubtless grateful that it has in recent years been requesting more F/A-18s while upgrading and improving the existing fleet. Also, unless the US Navy plans to field massive numbers of F-35C carrier-launched stealth aircraft in the future, the F/A-18 Super Hornet will not likely be going anywhere soon. … at least until large enough numbers of F/A-XX aircraft arrive.
Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19 FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.
We welcome our readers to our community and appreciate you noticing our content. The Center for Military Modernization accepts and partially relies upon subscriptions from those passionate about the importance of military modernization. We hope you will subscribe and consider joining our community. Thanks again for considering and PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE through Patreon.
