Key Points and Summary – The 6th-generation F-47 is being engineered for “stealth supremacy,” featuring a “paradigm-changing” blended wing-body with no vertical tails, similar to a stealth bomber.
-While it will possess F-22-like agility for dogfighting, its true power may make close combat obsolete by leveraging advanced sensors and AI to “see first, verify first, shoot first, and kill first,” getting inside the enemy’s OODA loop.
Boeing NGAD F/A-XX Fighter Rendering. Image Credit: Boeing.
Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. The rendering highlights the Air Force’s sixth generation fighter, the F-47. The NGAD Platform will bring lethal, next-generation technologies to ensure air superiority for the Joint Force in any conflict. (U.S. Air Force graphic)
-The F-47 is also designed as a “mothership,” operating at a safe standoff distance while controlling multiple “Loyal Wingman” drones (CCAs) in contested airspace.
The F-47 NGAD Stealth Fighter Is Coming
Stealth, speed, dogfighting prowess, long-range weapons delivery, controlling drones from the cockpit, and operating as a flying sensor “node” or command and control center in the air are just a few of the key attributes likely associated with the emerging 6th-generation F-47.
Developers are likely seeking an optimal balance between full broadband stealth, pure speed, and aerial agility, fortified by what may be paradigm-changing breakthroughs in fighter jet vectoring, thermal management, thrust reduction, and radar signature reduction.
A simple observer’s assessment of the fuselage indicates a potential breakthrough of paradigm-changing proportions, as the configuration suggests the F-47 has achieved a bomber-like blended wing body with a smooth, rounded horizontal surface.
Stealth Supremacy
The absence of vertical structures suggests that weapons developers and cutting-edge innovators have found a way to combine bomber-like stealth with fighter-jet-like speed and agility. There are no protruding structures, sharp angles, or edges off of which an electromagnetic ping might bounce off to generate a return rendering.
Ground radar is naturally more challenged to determine the shape, size, speed, or flight path of the F-47.
This means potential enemies will, as mentioned by President Trump, “never see it coming.” That certainly is the idea with the airframe, which is publicly said to be capable of Mach 2 speeds and nearly double the range of an F-35 or F-22.
NGAD Artist Photo. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
(ILLUSTRATION) — An artist illustration shows a flight of unmanned weapons carriers escorted by a sixth generation air dominance fighter during a combat mission over an undisclosed location. Mike Tsukamoto/staff; Airman 1st Class Erin Baxte.
Stealth performance is bolstered by special rubber-like coatings and radar-absorbent composite materials that absorb rather than reflect electromagnetic pings from enemy radar.
The concept, as explained in the case of a B-2 bomber, is to create a circumstance in which the stealth aircraft appears to enemy radar like a small bird.
Future of Dogfighting
While the F-47 will almost certainly establish F-22-like air supremacy by leveraging advanced dogfighting capabilities, thrust-vectoring, and an exemplary thrust-to-weight ratio, the irony is that new generations of sensing technology may make dogfighting somewhat obsolete.
While there will always be a need to prevail in the close-in-fight when it comes to air combat, high-fidelity long-range targeting, highly sensitive and powerful AESA radar, new generations of targeting sensors, and AI-enabled computing may translate into a solution wherein fighter jets can prevail without needing to operate within striking range of an adversary aircraft.
These variables are also changing, given that air-to-air weapons such as the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) JL-15 and the US Air Force-Navy AIM-260 are now providing much greater air-to-air attack range.
A U.S. Marine Corps KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft with Marine Aerial Refueler Transport Squadron (VMGR) 152 refuels an F-35B Lightning II aircraft with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA) 121, both assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 12, 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, during exercise Red-Flag Alaska 25, at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, July 21, 2025. VMGR-152 partnered with the U.S. Air Force during Red Flag Alaska to enhance aerial refueling and assault support capabilities. Training in Alaska’s harsh environment sharpened the squadron’s combat readiness and lethality. (U.S. Marine Corps photo Lance Cpl. Cecilia Campbell)
However, the possibility of a range-detection disparity may ultimately prove to be a more decisive variable regarding who prevails in air-to-air combat.
This is certainly the case with the F-35, as US Air Force Red Flag wargames have shown that the F-35 can see and destroy 4th-generation aircraft at ranges from where it cannot itself be detected.
The F-47 will need both unparalleled long-range, high-resolution sensing and air-to-air and air-to-ground precision weapons hardened against jamming and able to outrange enemy weapons.
Heat Signature
The F-47 aims to be on the cutting edge of thermal management, meaning an internally buried engine, coupled with exhaust emission controls, cooling technologies, and IR suppressors or heat-reducing technologies are all likely to factor prominently.
The idea is to ensure that the aircraft itself operates at roughly the same temperature as the surrounding atmosphere, to prevent IR sensors and heat-seeking weapons guidance systems from detecting an actionable heat signature from the aircraft.
Loyal Wingman
Most of all, the F-47 will need to leverage unparalleled AI-enabled computing, sensing, and command-and-control capabilities.
The faster and more securely an integrated on-board computer system can gather, organize, and analyze incoming data from otherwise incompatible transport layers and sensors, the more lethal it will be.
Getting ahead of, or inside, an enemy’s decision-making process or OODA Loop (observe, orient, decide, act), as famously described by Boyd, will enable the F-47 to see first, verify first, shoot first, and kill first. Advanced analytics can perform target acquisition, verification, and sensor-to-shooter pairing through fire control faster than an adversary.
This airborne AI can perform time-sensitive analytics at the point of collection and further expedite high-speed decision-making in combat.
This is the same breakthrough computing and command-and-control that will enable the F-47 to control the flight path and payload of multiple drones from the cockpit.
This means that a manned F-47 can operate at a safe, standoff distance while operating forward drones and Combat Collaborative Aircraft in position to penetrate contested areas, test, jam, or attack enemy air defenses and function as a multi-domain aerial sensor node in position to form a combat cloud or air-sea-land-space combat network.
About the Author: Kris Osborn
Kris Osborn is the 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.
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