OWNING THE SKIES: WHAT TO EXPECT SIXTH-GEN AIRCRAFT.

• Author: Harper, Jon

The United States and several European nations are pursuing next-generation fighters. While many details are closely held or are still being fleshed out, a picture is starting to emerge of the capabilities they will possess.

A mockup of a Franco-German-Spanish stealth jet, part of the Future Combat Air System, or FCAS, was unveiled at the Paris Air Show in June. It came about a year after the United Kingdom displayed a model of a Tempest platform at the Farnborough Air Show. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Air Force and Navy are planning to develop their own "next-generation air dominance" capabilities.

Survivability against sophisticated enemy air defenses is expected to be a key requirement of sixth-generation systems that might have to square off against advanced adversaries such as China or Russia.

"It has to be able to penetrate the worst potential defenses we could be up against," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said in a recent interview with National Defense.

The U.S. Air Force's "Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan" outlined a need for a new "penetrating counter-air" platform that could go deep into enemy airspace and conduct kinetic and non-kinetic attacks.

While fifth-generation platforms such as the F-35 and F-22 are low-observable against today's X-band radars, the concept of stealth will likely be broader for future systems, said retired fighter pilot Gen. Hawk Carlisle, president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association and the former commander of Air Combat Command.

"It has got to try to be stealthier across more of the radar spectrum. It has to be stealthy in the IR spectrum. It has to be stealthy in the electromagnetic spectrum and how much it emits. It has to be stealthy in other ways," he said. "When we talk about sixth-gen, it's multispectral stealth across as many sensor capabilities as exist out there."

Another way to improve survivability is to suppress enemy air-defense systems with electronic warfare tools or shoot down their missiles and fighter jets, analysts have noted.

"Navy leaders intend [the future fighter] FA-XX to be survivable in highly contested environments, which it might achieve through a combination of sensor countermeasures and self-defense weapons rather than aircraft shape and coatings alone," said a report published last year by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments titled, "Regaining the High Ground at Sea: Transforming the U.S. Navy's Carrier Air Wing for Great Power Competition."

BAE's Director of Future Combat Air Systems Michael Christie--in an interview published in Eurofighter World magazine--said the Tempest will need to have the right defensive technologies to protect itself against a large number of enemy assets. BAE is the prime contractor for the Tempest project.

European missile-maker MBDA envisions platforms armed with interceptors.

Even if aircraft are stealthy, "we think that in the end game you will...