US reveals existence of its fighter of the future  

The US Air Force discloses that it has built and flown a prototype of a 6th generation tactical fighter. No details about the fighter or the manufacturer have been released

US reveals existence of its fighter of the future  

Photo: Christopher Okula, US Air Force/Wikimedia

The secret was revealed: The US Air Force has disclosed that it has built and already flown a prototype of the state-of-the-art US fighter of the future. Will Roper, who is in charge of acquisition at Air Force Command, revealed the existence of the plane that according to him is part of the Air Force's Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.  

No additional details about the plane have been released until now, not even the identity of the manufacturer. But commentators told Government Executive website that the Pentagon is planning to manufacture a 6th generation tactical fighter jet.  

Roper said that the plane is being designed using new digital engineering technology. "Digital engineering is lowering overhead for production," he said. "It is letting us take aircraft assembly back to where we were in the [19]70s and prior to it — back when we had 10 or more companies who could build airplanes for the United States Air Force, because you could do it in hangar-like facilities with small, but very good teams, of engineers and mechanics."

Today there are only two companies in the US that manufacture fighter planes: Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Roper said that the time has not yet come to reveal details about the fighter of the future, but added that the Air Force revealed the plane's existence in order to encourage and spur companies to shift to digital engineering methods since it is possible today to build a fighter jet using computers before the start of the physical development.  

The digital engineering method has already been implemented in the automotive industry and in the manufacturing of Formula 1 race cars. Northrup Grumman uses this advanced method to manufacture intercontinental ballistic missiles and is involved in two satellite projects.