By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
The Air Force’s 6th-Generation stealth jet is “airborne,” … and that is about all we know. The largely secret or “black” program remains both inspirational and mysterious as senior Air Force leaders reveal small pieces of information about the plane.
It will be part of a “Family of Systems,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall says, meaning in part that it will operate drones from the cockpit and perform both manned and unmanned missions. The Next-Generation Air Dominance platform will control drones from the cockpit called Combat Collaborative Aircraft to test enemy air defenses, conduct forward surveillance and even fire weapons when directed by a human. For years, Air Force innovators have been preparing the F-22 to control drones as well, however it is a reasonable assumption that the 6th-gen aircraft will likely be equipped with a new generation of computing and command and control to enable an aircraft to control a number of drones at one time. Therefore, the Next-Generation Air Dominance platform will likely surpass the F-22 when it comes to controlling drones, manned-unmanned teaming and autonomous operations.
Apart from leading or flying as a “Family,” the NGAD aircraft may also reach paradigm-changing levels of stealth and speed. How might it be stealthier than an F-22? Well, if the airborne NGAD looks like available industry 6th-gen renderings, then it may have a blended wing-body without vertical tails of any kind. Such a configuration might indeed be stealthier than an F-22 as there would be no protruding structures, contours or sharp edges likely to generate a clearly return signal rendering to enemy radar. Without defined structures which “protrude” in some way, a blended wing-body fuselage that is completely horizontal like a bomber may indeed fly with a lower radar signature than an F-22. In terms of coating and radar absorbent materials,s little to no information is likely available about NGAD, however it seems reasonable to assume that new composites and blended materials may be part of a lighter-weight, faster 6th-generation aircraft. This kind of possibility would be quite relevant to thrust-to-weight ratio, as the F-22 is listed with the top thrust-to-weight ration among fighter jets worldwide. What if, in a 6th-generation platform, F-22-like or greater propulsion, vectoring and engine power were built into a much lighter weight fuselage? Such a possibility could in theory engineer a stealth fighter with a thrust-to-weight ratio far superior to an F-22.
What about speed? The F-22 is regarded as among the fastest and most superior air dominance platforms in the world, as it can hit speeds of Mach 2.35 and fly with a “supercruise” ability enabling and extending Mach speeds without needing afterburner. Also, while thought about primarily as an air-dominance, air-to-air fighter, the F-22 not only performs ground-attack close-air-support but also uses advanced sensors and networking to act as an “aerial quarterback,” Air Force pilots and weapons developers explain. While the F-22 may not be thought of in the same sensing and computing capacity of an F-35, the aircraft is increasingly able to exchange two-way information with both F-35s and a host of 4th-generation aircraft as well. On the topic of computing, NGAD will likely be engineered with a new-generation of AI-enabled computing, data analysis and high-speed processing. While an F-22 can certainly continue to receive computer upgrades and increase its capacity for unmanned or autonomous operations, an entirely new platform likely affords an opportunity to re-imagine functionality, sensing and AI-enabled flight. For example, the Air Force is already experimenting with flying with an AI-capable robotic co-pilot called ArtUu able to connect and share targeting data with a human pilot in real time. ArtUu. The idea is to optimize both high-speed, AI-enabled computing and those faculties and capacities unique to human cognition into a blended combination. A newly-built 6th-generation aircraft will likely be positioned to accomplish this with a smaller hardware footprint.
The most significant margin of difference between the F-22 and NGAD 6th-generation stealth fighter may not be visible to the eye, meaning it will emerge in the realm of computing, sensing and AI-driven operations. Some experts have speculated about “smart skins,” referring to advanced sensors engineered into the fuselage of the aircraft itself, and the aircraft will likely fly with a conformal antenna or perhaps even some as-of-yet-unseen method of in-flight data sharing. New generations of computing, particularly if enabled by AI or working in close coordination with AI-enabled systems, could exponentially improve operational functionality by connecting otherwise disparate pools of incoming sensor data, controlling more drones from a single monitor or make in-flight weapons guidance adjustments.
This leads to what may perhaps be the most mysterious, yet impactful margin of difference between the F-22 and 6th-Gen … the realm of weapons. While the F-22 has greatly increased its weapons capacity through software upgrades such as 3.2b, a fleet-wide effort to vastly improve the performance characteristics of the AIM-9X and AIM-120D. Through software upgrades and open architecture computing upgrades, these F-22-launched weapons were given increased range, survivability, lethality and targeting precision-guidance. However, being built as a new platform entirely, a 6th-generation NGAD aircraft is likely being built with a capacity to accommodate weapons which don’t yet exist. The technical infrastructure built into the NGAD will likely be backward compatible, meaning it will be able to fire existing weapons, yet simultaneously operate with the ability to fire entirely new weapons as they emerge.
Lasers will likely be a large part of the equation as well, as the NGAD will likely be built with a much enhanced ability to fly with mobile sources of electrical power. Arming fighter jets with lasers is a fast-approaching reality for the Air Force, which will without question arm the F-22 and F-35 with laser weapons. However, the challenges with this are quite significant as laser require high levels of expeditionary mobile power which require a larger and heavier footprint. A 6th-gen, however, might be built with vastly improved abilities to fly with large amounts of electrical power in much smaller form factors enabling a fighter jet to fly and operate with high-power, high-density, scalable laser weapons at an unprecedented level far beyond what current 5th-generation is capable of.
Kris Osborn is 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.
