planes

The fate of the F-22 Raptor is a point of contention between the U.S. Air Force and the department that provides funding for it. To free up funding for its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter successor, the Air Force intends to retire the aircraft. Congress, however, is hesitant to retire the first fifth-generation fighter jet in the world too soon after funding aircraft that had substantial production delays. 185 F-22 Raptors are currently in use by the Air Force. However, one of the little-known facts about the F-22 is that there are only 123 jets in the inventory of main mission aircraft, which means that they can actually engage in combat.

The remaining F-22 jets are incapable of engaging in air combat and are only used for training, research, and backup purposes. Although the majority of F-22s are under 16 years old, the aircraft was originally developed for the Advanced Tactical Fighter program in the 1980s. This indicates that the jet’s design philosophy is mostly based on the Cold War period. The F-22 was designed to battle Soviet and Warsaw Pact fighters at medium ranges from bases that were already constructed in Western Europe. It wasn’t made to operate at extremely great distances, for instance; it was made to be the best at what it does.

The working environment is very different now, forty years later. The United States, which was formerly the only country deploying fifth-generation stealth fighters, now faces competition from the Chinese J-20 and FC-31 and the Russian Su-57 “Felon” aircraft. Fighter jets are likely to go a thousand miles or more only to combat enemy fighters, thus air planners must now think about how to operate throughout the wide Asia-Pacific theater. There is a need for a new aircraft due to the size of the competition and the altered geographic conditions.

The newest stealth technology will be included in the new NGAD aircraft, but its capacity to travel great distances is also crucial. The airplane, which was created, constructed, and flown in just one year, in 2020, has not yet been made public. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall warned earlier this year that each aircraft will cost “multiple hundreds of millions of dollars,” therefore it will be very expensive. (In contrast, the cost of an F-35A Joint Strike aircraft is around $70 million.)

As part of its 2023 military budget request, the service plans to retire 33 of the Block 20 aircraft, which are among the oldest combat-capable planes. Not only would retiring them reduce running expenses, but it would also prevent spending the $50 million needed to modernize each one. The savings would subsequently be used by the Air Force to advance NGAD. Although an NGAD fighter prototype has already been taken to the air, it won’t be replaced by the F-22 until 2030.

Before the NGAD can be deployed in sufficient numbers, the Air Force may sell off the majority of its F-22s, just as China’s and Russia’s fifth-generation fighter fleets are expected to expand. (That may change, though, given the collapse of Russia’s economy as a direct result of its invasion of Ukraine.) Congress is hesitant to give the Air Force permission to retire the F-22 early, especially in light of the F-35A’s lengthy delay and enormous cost overrun. Congress is concerned that there may be a capability gap where the Air Force lacks a reliable F-22 replacement if NGAD encounters comparable challenges.

Up until 2050 and beyond, the NGAD fighter and any unmanned fighter jets that fly beside it are likely to maintain American air superiority. Even if it comes on schedule, there is a risk that it will exhaust all the oxygen in the space before it does. The risk appears to be manageable, according to the Air Force, but Congress isn’t so sure. Congress might be more inclined to support supporting the current fleet of Raptors and the purchase of a $200–$300 million future fighter plane if NGAD went public.

The idea that the battlefield of the future will be overwhelmingly chaotic and complex, with many advanced radars, electronic warfare systems, surface-to-air missiles, and fighter aircraft deployed by technologically advanced adversaries like China and Russia, has sparked interest in artificial intelligence.

“It’s going to take a suite of sensors integrated together,” says Eric Ditmars, vice president of secure sensor solutions, at Raytheon Intelligence & Space. “There are environments where the radar performs phenomenally,” he says. “There are environments where the radar is jammed, where infrared search-and-track systems are phenomenal.” Systems that are integrated must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. “The environments are getting so contested that you really have to have the ability to be more adaptive,” says Ditmars. “The intent is to allow that pilot to be able to be more flexible in the mission that they are executing, and not be as reliant upon the pre-planning that has been done.”

Being able to rapidly call upon the right sensors could make or break a mission, especially when unexpected threats pop up, he says. It is a concept that goes past the sensor fusion techniques employed aboard the F-35, Ditmars says. “This [system] is deciding, ‘In this environment, I need to use my AESA radar in this mode. I’m not going to use my [electronic warfare] system because that’s going to be detected,’” he says. Potential scenarios might be solved ahead of time by training artificial intelligence (AI) programs using computer simulations of combat, he says. “That’s the great thing about artificial intelligence. You give it a set of defined criteria and it figures it out,” Ditmars says.

The idea has been used before. Recently, researchers with Air Combat Command created the ARTU software, a machine learning tool that trained the radar on the Lockheed U-2 observation aircraft to detect enemy missile launchers using more than 500,000 computer simulations. The U-2 demonstration of the artificial intelligence program took place at Beale AFB in California at the end of 2020. “ARTUµ was responsible for sensor employment and tactical navigation, while the pilot flew the aircraft and coordinated with the AI on sensor operation,” explained the service. “Together, they flew a reconnaissance mission during a simulated missile strike. ARTUµ’s primary responsibility was finding enemy launchers while the pilot was on the lookout for threatening aircraft, both sharing the U-2’s radar.”

The AI program was “easily transferable” to other systems, according to the USAF, which also stated that it intended to advance the technology. “Putting AI safely in command of a US military system for the first time ushers in a new age of human-machine teaming and algorithmic competition,” remarked Will Roper, who at the time served as the USAF’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics. “Failing to realize AI’s full potential will mean ceding decision advantage to our adversaries.” In other words, asking a pilot to make sense of complex sensor data in the middle of a pitched battle might lose precious seconds to the enemy. “We’re trying to take some of this workload off the pilot. They are human and they can only do so much,” Ditmars says. “As the systems get more and more complex, it becomes very challenging for them.”