The F-47 is being developed to introduce a new generation of stealth technology.
Its blended wing-body horizontal configuration suggests a bomber-like level of stealth can be achieved with an agile, high-speed maneuverable stealth fighter jet.
NGAD F-47. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
F-47 NGAD Artist Impression. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
The F-47’s purely horizontal fuselage inherently lowers the aircraft’s radar signature.
It lacks the vertical structures, sharp edges, or protruding contours that are most likely to generate a return to ground-based radar.
Electromagnetic pings can bounce off shapes, edges, and angles to transmit a more structured return signal that indicates the range, size, shape, and speed of a threat.
A fuselage without vertical structures or sharp edges, however, generates a much smaller return signal to ground radar.
An aircraft like the F-47, with a fully horizontal blended wing-body, is likely engineered to appear on radar as a bird or another small, unremarkable object.
Stealth Breakthrough
The breakthrough engineers seem to be pursuing is to design a fighter jet with a bomber-like stealth profile that can nevertheless maneuver like an agile, high-speed fighter—without any fins, tails, or vertical structures that usually enable high-speed maneuvering.
In essence, the F-47 may seek to combine the best of bomber-like stealth technology with new generations of thrust, speed, and agility necessary for an air superiority platform.
Of course, success for a stealth airplane depends on factors beyond its external configuration—considerations include radar-absorbent coating materials, thermal management, and conformal antennas and sensors.
An optimal combination of these factors, combined with a specially engineered external configuration, could create an agile, high-speed fighter jet capable of flying with bomber-like stealth.
Boeing NGAD F/A-XX Fighter Rendering. Image Credit: Boeing.
6th-Gen Computing
The largest technological leaps with the F-47 will likely involve AI-enabled computing. Many regard the F-35 as a “flying computer” with its sensor fusion, threat library, computer automation, and software designed to assist pilots with aerial maneuvers and flight path stability.
All these systems should be improved for the F-47. Its computers will doubtless operate at higher speeds, with advanced data analytics and AI-enabled information management and transmission.
Advancing AI
AI is increasingly being used at the point of data collection. Forward-operating platforms and technologies are no longer merely gathering and transmitting data.
Rather, they are processing, organizing, and analyzing data even as they gather it.
This increases efficiency, reduces latency and massively accelerates sensor-to-shooter timelines, meaning targets can be found and verified in milliseconds.
Advanced AI-enabled algorithms can be trained to quickly identify threats while sifting through vast amounts of data.
New generations of sensing and computing can also support greater levels of autonomy and manned-unmanned teaming.
The F-47 should be capable of simultaneously overseeing several drones known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft.
These drones will use advanced computing to organize incoming sensor data from disparate or disaggregated sources, perform the necessary analytics, and make time-sensitive combat decisions.
Using the necessary interfaces and gateways able to exchange, aggregate, and analyze information, advanced AI-capable computers will integrate incoming information from otherwise disparate sources.
Perhaps some data arrives through GPS, while other data is received through radio frequencies or wireless signals.
The right interfaces and gateways can essentially pool and “translate” data from otherwise incompatible transport layers.
About the Author: Kris Oborn
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.
