Summary and Key Points: The Air Force’s NGAD program raises the question: could future air combat rely entirely on unmanned fighters?
-Current advancements in AI-driven autonomy, unmanned-to-unmanned collaboration, and remote command and control suggest it’s feasible.
-While AI has proven superior in dogfights and tactical maneuvers, combining human judgment with machine speed and processing power remains critical.
-However, the key challenge lies in determining whether remote human decision-making can maintain effectiveness during high-speed, dynamic combat situations.
-Thus, unmanned NGAD jets are technically plausible, but ensuring seamless human-machine coordination at safe stand-off distances remains essential to their success in complex, rapidly evolving aerial engagements.
Could America’s New NGAD Fighter Jet Be Fully Unmanned?
For several years now, senior Air Force weapons developers have been clear that the emerging NGAD 6th-generation stealth fighter program effort will consist of a “family of systems” leveraging manned-unmanned teaming.
Breakthroughs in command and control technology, networking, autonomy, and mission systems have enabled a tactical circumstance wherein groups of unmanned systems can be operated from the cockpit of a manned aircraft, bringing new levels of air attack into the realm of possibility.
What about the possibility of the host NGAD platform also being unmanned?
Can the same operational capabilities be achieved?
For years, weapons developers have been refining new levels of autonomy, AI-enabled decision-making, and unmanned-to-unmanned information sharing using unmanned platforms.
Unmanned fighter jets were tested over a decade ago, and new algorithms empowered by advanced AI can increasingly perform many functions faster and more efficiently than humans.
Years ago, former Secretary of the Navy Ray Maybus generated much discussion when he said that the F-35 would likely be the last “manned” fighter ever to exist. Could he have been correct?
Unmanned Fighter Jets
Over the years, many circumstances arose wherein an AI-enabled, unmanned fighter jet was able to “outperform” a manned fighter in dogfighting and various combat maneuvers, yet does that mean human pilots are becoming obsolete?
Not at all. The Pentagon maintains a clear consensus that an optimal approach to airwar involves blending high-speed, AI-enabled computing with attributes unique to human decision-making. Both are critical and indispensable to airwar success, but what if human decision-making and input were kept at safe stand-off distances to perform command and control?
Does that mean a forward-operating, stealthy unmanned fighter could successfully perform all the required missions?
This would likely depend upon proximity range and the speed of information exchange, as the goal would be to enable “tip-of-the-spear” human and machine-blended decision-making without having human pilots in the line of fire.
The Air Force has, in recent years, experimented with an enterprising way of approaching these questions, as the Air Force Research Lab flew a manned fighter jet empowered by an AI copilot. The AI-capable copilot, Artuu, was tasked with solving procedural functions, information analysis, and certain kinds of problem-solving in support of a human decision-maker working in close coordination.
Human decision-making progress can be streamlined and greatly assisted by an AI-enabled copilot’s high-speed processing and information management capabilities. This approach seeks to leverage the best of what is possible with AI-capable computing and human decision-making.
Human-Machine Interface
However, a human decision-maker and an AI system could be connected in milliseconds at great distances. In that case, there is no reason the manned-unmanned process could not be effective with a human located at safe stand-off distances.
This would enable human command and control to occur necessarily, yet physically separated from a forward-operating unmanned jet. Does a pilot need to be in the cockpit to make all necessary decisions if data processing and transmission is so fast that it can happen across distances?
There is a strong argument that the human-machine interface needs to occur in closer proximity to manage fast-changing battlefield dynamics and make rapid decisions as required. Specific attributes are unique to human decision-making that arguably cannot be replicated by advanced computers.
Mathematically generated algorithms would seem ill-suited to approximate much more subjective human consciousness and decision-making elements such as intuition, emotion, and ethical nuances.
An unmanned NGAD could be highly effective and potentially successfully execute many of the operations historically performed by humans.
Yet, the question ultimately becomes proximity, command and control, and data sharing.
Could human-machine teaming be accomplished quickly and effectively without a human needing to be in the jet?
That is the operative question, as there are many variables and scenarios of combat circumstances specific to fast-changing combat at the “tip of the spear,” which would likely require a human to be physically in the jet.
About the Author: Kris Osborn
Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive and 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.
