Unleash hypersonic missiles, deploy drone swarms, and incinerate targets with lasers. This next-gen stealth fighter redefines air supremacy with AI and advanced speed.
By Kris Osborn, Warrior
An intriguing, mysterious and reportedly extremely promising cloud of possibility surrounds the visible, yet largely "black" and "unknown" F-47 aircraft, an already airborne stealth platform expected to completely change the paradigm in the realm of speed, AI, sensing, weapons and overall air supremacy.
A stealthy, supersonic, semi-autonomous F-47 fighter is almost certain to be engineered to maneuver undetected through heavily armed enemy air space, evade radar detection to …. jam the adversaries command and control systems with EW weapons. Along with functioning as an attack platform, an AI-enabled F-47 will likely gather, analyze and transmit targeting data across huge areas of terrain in milliseconds. Using AI-empowered computing, the F-47 will 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 too stealthily to be targeted.
Beyond the F-35
It is important to recognize that, through ongoing software upgrades, the F-35 may well remain dominant into the 2070s and beyond, as many of the most substantial technological leaps forward will likely be in the areas of computing, AI, mission systems, weapons, and command and control. These areas can be modernized in paradigm-changing ways without having to reconfigure the main fuselage or fundamental architecture of the plane itself. However, this does not mean there is not a pressing need for the F-47, a platform which likely incorporates new generations of stealth technology.
Clearly the absence of protruding, angled, vertical structures, from a pure aerodynamic perspective, offers less contours off of which electromagnetic radar “pings” can bounce off to generate a return rendering. Much like a fully horizontal, smooth high altitude B-2, early models of 6th-gen aircraft suggest that the F-47 could somehow achieve the seemingly impossible task of simultaneously achieving both optimal stealth and optimal speed and air maneuverability. Historically, one is inclined to believe that a fighter jet can only vector or maneuver by adjusting air flow with wings, tails and vertical structures. However, there may be new breakthrough technologies enabling a fully-horizontal stealth fighter jet to maneuver, vector and dogfight better than an F-22. It would seem possible, should available 6th-gen imagery of the F-47 provide an indication.
F-47 & AI
There are far too many of those most needed attributes for a 6th-generation fighter to cite, however, AI-enabled targeting data analysis, sensor range, and fidelity are likely key areas of focus. A breakthrough high-speed, ultra stealthy 6th-generation aircraft will massively achieve overmatch if it has an F-35-like long-range and high fidelity targeting sensors to see and destroy enemy targets from standoff ranges before it is seen itself. An ability to network with ground command centers, drones, other fighter jets, ground vehicles, Navy ships, and even satellites will enable the platform to gather and process time-sensitive data needed to move in and attack and destroy an enemy. While speed and maneuverability will of course be critical, long-range sensors, networking, high-speed, AI-enabled computing, and weapons guidance will likely be what separates the F-47 from competitors.
Perhaps even more data, including electronic warfare, space, radar warning receivers, cyber and as-of-yet- unknown types of indicators will increasingly be incorporated into onboard AI systems. Advanced algorithms can quickly perform analytics upon a vast array of incoming information, bounce it off a seemingly limitless database and make near real-time decisions, computations and analyses. Improving the speed of decision-making and providing clarity for pilots are often referred to as “easing the cognitive burden.”
More Range for the Pacific
The F-47, could prove essential in any effort to contain or defeat China in the air in the Pacific for a number of key reasons; it seems conceivable that the Pentagon might engineer a Pacific-specific F-47 variant designed to prevail in the extensive ranges or “tyranny of distance” known to characterize the region. The F-47 could be configured with larger fuel tanks for a massively expanded range, something potentially of great significance in a large-scale air war with China. While the growing, multi-service and multi-national fleet of F-35s continues to present a formidable deterrent in the Pacific theater, some might wonder if the current deterrence posture in the air is insufficient to meet a fast-evolving Chinese threat in future years.
Clearly, Pentagon leaders were of the view that the US Air Force needed a new long-range, stealthy high-tech 6th-generation fighter to confront the growing mixture of threats presented by China in the Pacific theater. This may have been part of the thinking driving President Trump’s decision to build the F-47. The Pacific of course includes vast distances of ocean separating islands, large land masses and ocean stretching thousands of miles from Northern Japan and the Korean Peninsula South to Australia. There are tactically relevant distances within the Pacific which, depending upon a given contingency, will need to be considered, as Taiwan is a very “reachable” 100 miles from the Chinese mainland. This Chinese proximity advantage, however, can be greatly mitigated or offset by forward-operating F-47s and U.S. Navy carriers and F-35B-armed amphibs within a few hundred miles of Taiwan.
F-35 Limitations in Asia
A map shows that the distance between the Northern-most parts of the Philippines and Southern Taiwan is only 155 miles, a circumstance which would seem to enable US allied 5th-generation aircraft to defend Taiwan from land-bases in the Philippines. An F-35A, for instance, operates with a range of 1,380 miles with a full weapons load could reach air-space over Taiwan and operate with some dwell time without needing to refuel with a risky and highly vulnerable tanker aircraft. This defensive posture would require the US to base F-35As in the Philippines, a deterrence concept which seems to make strategic sense.
In early 2025, images of two Chinese 6th-generation fighters blasted out on social media, generating worldwide analysis and speculation regarding the potential sophistication of the new, never-before-seen aircraft. The F-47 has also been known for many years as a "family of systems," meaning it will control groups of unmanned aircraft known as Combat Collaborative Aircraft, or CCAs. The fighter will operate not only as an attack platform but also as a flying command and control "node" or "center" in the air able to direct drones to test enemy air defenses, blanket areas with surveillance or even launch attacks when directed by a human. This kind of technology greatly reduces latency and enables faster decision making at the “tip of the spear,” placing US forces in position to shorten the sensor to shooter curve. Target details obtained by forward operating drones will not need to pass through a ground control center to have a human make critical time-sensitive decisions.
Kris Osborn is President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in 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.