Is anyone thinking about a 7th-Generation Stealth Fighter? Why Not Hypersonic?

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) The Air Force’s highly secret 6th-generation stealth fighter jet is already airborne, a potentially promising development likely to usher in a new era in air-supremacy with new applications of stealth, speed, computing, autonomy and manned-unmanned teaming. 

6th-Gen

Most of the details of this 6th-gen demonstrator aircraft remain elusive for security reasons, yet Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and other service leaders have been clear that it is a “family of systems” wherein manned jets will control small groups, even swarms, of mini-drones. The Air Force calls some of these unmanned systems Combat Collaborative Aircraft, essentially drones which will fly in coordination with a manned, stealthy, next-generation 6th-gen plan in support of a number of high-risk combat missions. The 6th-gen plane, called Next-Generation Air Dominance, is often viewed as a faster-stealthier, next-generation F-22.

Video Above: Air Force 6th-Gen Stealth Fighters Control Attack Drones

The collection of technologies woven into a 6th-generation aircraft are quite significant and likely things like conformal sensors, blended antennas, a new level of AI-enabled sensing and computing, manned-unmanned teaming, smart skins with sensors woven into the fuselage and a new generation of stealth properties such as coating materials, thermal heat signature management and external configuration. 

Industry renderings of the 6th-generation aircraft, one of which may be the demonstrator chosen, do indeed reveal a new, sleek, advanced, stealthy body type. Images of 6th-generation planes show a fuselage with no vertical structures, giving it a B-2-esque ultra stealthy horizontal blended wing-body.

With all of these kinds of innovations informing 6th-generation aircraft, it might be quite difficult to imagine what a 7th-generation stealth fighter might look like? Will there be such a thing?