Little is known about the sixth generation fighter. Northrop Grumman and the US Air Force have designed, built and already flown at least one prototype in complete secrecy.
Since the first flight of the NGAD demonstrator was announced in 2020, Pentagon officials have remained silent about the details of this project.
According to official figures, the NGAD program includes the deployment of a whole family of related air combat systems, which may include warplanes, drones, satellites in space, and platforms in cyberspace. In this context, NGAD is sometimes referred to as a “system of systems”.
According to Charles Brown, NGAD is built with “unique flight control software”.
“It will not have external software inputs, but it will also be a fully autonomous system that can receive external information from other systems – satellites, command centers, drones and other aircraft. Thus, this system cannot be physically hacked.”
The general noted.
This is an approach that Charles Brown believes has not been used in any of the USAF’s previous fighters. He also said that “a very special fuselage coating” will be used when designing the sixth-generation fighter, and that the role of the pilot will “fundamentally change”.
“As a preliminary result, we can say that NGAD is no longer an aircraft. The fighter here is just one part of the overall system. The future of air warfare will be the sharing of advanced networks and interconnected families of various types of vehicles. Therefore, it is unlikely that the NGAD program will end with the appearance of a new fighter, as many imagine. This is not an isolated super fighter. In general, the aircraft in the promising developments of the United States ceases to be a system-forming element. Its role will be reduced to being part of super-large weapons systems, where the main role is given to detection, navigation, control, communication, weapons systems, ”writes the Defense News portal.
According to Foreign Affairs analysts, “the role of a human pilot in the NGAD system will be minimal.”
“Most of the management functions will be performed by artificial intelligence. That doesn’t make the NGAD an ordinary drone. Their duties are much broader. This is a kind of decision-making center, but these decisions are no longer made by a person, but by artificial intelligence. The pilot gives the computer only decision-making rights and starts the combat program. The man in the air war of the future will be superfluous. The sixth-generation fighter will have many drones under its direct control. Even more than ten is possible, ”the newspaper writes.
To date, one of the few open white papers on the NGAD topic is the Summary of the Air Force Background Report for the US Congress 2020. Among the broad body of common language, the report notes, the project is conducting research in five areas: new engines, network-centric technologies (i.e. continuous exchange of information), artificial intelligence, cyberweapons, and directed energy weapons. The meaning of all this is not specified in the report.
The NGAD program remains top secret. At the same time, its cost has been steadily increasing over the past few years. The Air Force is seeking $1.65 billion for the program in FY 2023, approximately $133 million more than was requested in FY 2022.
Major General James Pecchia, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force Budget, attributed the increase in funding to the high cost of new communications equipment.
Source: Gazeta
