What Weapons & Tech Will Now Airborne 6th-Gen Stealth Fighter Have?

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) Testing, overwhelming or jamming enemy air defenses, finding high-value targets with long-range sensing, organizing and analyzing incoming data streams, transmitting high-value target detail and even launching precision-airstrikes with missiles, rockets or EW ….are all missions which the Air Force’s emerging “loyal wingman” drones supporting its 6th-generation aircraft are expected to perform.

6th-Generation Stealth Fighter

The anticipated arrival of groups of up to five or six drones to fly in coordination with the Air Force’s emerging 6th-Generation stealth fighter is driving groups of service weapons developers and strategists to refine new concepts of operation for air attack and requirements to align with new technology. The service is developing groups of unmanned systems called Combat Collaborative Aircraft performing an increasingly widening sphere of missions in support of air dominance, air attack, surveillance and forward weapons delivery.

The Air Force’s 6th-generation stealth fighter is already airborne and likely to introduce paradigm-changing measures of speed, maneuverability, stealth, AI-enabled computing and perhaps of greatest significance, manned-unmanned teaming. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall listed a 6th-gen “family of systems” as one of the service’s key “operational imperatives,” meaning the new jet would operate in close coordination with as many as five or six drones.

“Since its original inception, it has been all about a family of systems, so I think the real question is, how can we tie in some of these other capabilities that we’ve been talking about with uncrewed systems, collaborative partners, and so forth?” Chris Ristich, Director, Integrated Capabilities Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, told Warrior in an interview.

While critical to the ultimate deployment and operational success of the emerging 6th-Generation fighter, requirements and Concepts of Operation for the Combat Collaborative Aircraft are still being determined as technology continues to evolve and new breakthroughs are discovered. For instance, the Pentagon is now able to demonstrate the ability for cargo aircraft to launch and also “recover” drones with its Gremlins program, so the operational flexibility of airborne unmanned systems is expanding quickly. Ristich made reference to this successful Gremlins program when discussing the anticipated vision for the CCAs.

“I think we’re still looking into the Secretary’s imperatives. For the collaborative combat aircraft, and how that system will deploy, launch and recover, for example, is not fully defined, yet. They’re still exploring that design space. But it could be anything from a Gremlins like concept to an actual combat employment to conventional military operation,” Ristich said.