The F-35 brings stealth, paradigm-changing sensors, and a new generation of AI-enabled computing and the F-22 brings unparalleled thrust-to-weight ratio, speed, and air-to-air combat superiority.
Both platforms are positioned such that they can be upgraded and improved decisively in the coming years as computing, sensing, and targeting technologies emerge.
Both the F-35 and F-22 have already been enhanced to paradigm-changing levels through software upgrades that enhance drone controls, weapons delivery, sensing range, fidelity, and on-board computing.
Making Room for the Next Generation Fighter
These circumstances might lead someone to wonder why or how a 6th-generation aircraft could improve upon this. Essentially, is one truly necessary, given the proven extent to which the F-35 and F-22 can be upgraded?
Most anticipated future innovations are likely to take place in the realm of sensing, computing, targeting, networking, and command and control, meaning an aircraft can surge into future capabilities without there being a need to construct an entirely new airframe.
New coating materials might enhance stealth properties, but is there really a need to engineer a new fuselage or external configuration if the existing 5th-gen fleet can be upgraded with great effect in the coming decades?
Why We Need 6th Gen
Whether there is a need for a new generation of aircraft is indeed an interesting and pressing question, as some might wonder if technology has progressed to the point where it becomes advantageous and sensible to engineer an entirely new 6th-generation platform.
Would it be more expedient, affordable, and beneficial to the Pentagon’s long-term air war capability to simply keep upgrading the 5th-generation fleet?
While some may think upgrading the current generation fighters is ideal, and is likely an entire sphere of unknown variables of relevance to this, yet there may indeed be sufficient reason to architect a new airframe.
If available images or “renderings” of 6th-generation stealth fighter jets are any indication, the actual 6th-generation prototype demonstrator may be built with an entirely new generation of stealth technologies.
That would appear to be the case, if the largely secret, yet airborne 6th-generation fighter jet, was similar in configuration to images offered by Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. All of the 6th-generation images presented by industry competitors showed an entirely different airframe configuration without fins, tails, or vertical structures.
This would suggest, should it be similar to the actual configuration of the existing 6th-generation plane, that perhaps there is a new generation of stealth technology that can lower a fighter’s radar signature while still ensuring maneuverability.
Specifics related to such a breakthrough, should a new airframe already exist, are likely not available for understandable security reasons, yet it is entirely conceivable that some of the stealthy, tailless designs offered by the industry are delivering a new generation of stealth technology without compromising speed and aerial agility.
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Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19FortyFive 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.
