Should the Long Range Strike Bomber be the US Air Force's 6th Generation Fighter?

America’s next war plane may look much more like a stealthy long-range bomber than a sleek, fast and maneuverable fighter.

That’s the conclusion of a wide-ranging study by the respected Center for Budgetary and Strategic Assessments. Breaking Defense obtained a copy of the report from a source not affiliated with CSBA.

Here’s the study’s main finding: “The overall conclusion of this study was that over the past few decades, advances in electronic sensors, communications technology, and guided weapons may have fundamentally transformed the nature of air combat.”

The conclusions are based on author John Stillion‘s analysis of a database of “over 1,450 air-to-air victories” around the world from 1965 to the present.

According to Stillion’s study, the ability to build an aircraft that can find, surprise and then kill enemy aircraft and anti-aircraft systems using speed and maneuverability is rapidly meeting the physical limits of range, speed and useful capability.

“The increased importance of electronic sensors, signature reduction, RF [radio frequency] and IR [infra-red] countermeasures and robust LOS networks in building dominant SA [situational awareness], and the potential reduced tactical utility of high speed and maneuverability could mean that, for the first time, the aerial combat lethality of large combat aircraft may be competitive or even superior to more traditional fighter aircraft designs emphasizing speed and maneuverability,” the study says.

Put another way, missiles can now often outperform most fighter aircraft, although stealth and electronic warfare help even the score.

Trends from the database of air combat since 1965 show the rise of long range missiles and a steep decline in dog-fighting. Of the 33 U.S. kills in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, only four involved any maneuvering at all. 25 years on, the power of long range sensors and missiles is only greater, meaning that traditional fighter attributes such as speed, thrust-to-weight ratios, and turn radius are even less important to success today and in the future.

Stolen concludes that speed will not help future aircraft because higher speeds mean higher heats from engines and along leading edges and other aircraft surfaces. More combatants will rely on Infrared Search and Track Systems (IRST) because Digital Radio Frequency Memory (DRFM) jammers will disrupt search radars. (See page 36 of the study). So enemies will be looking for heat with those IRST sensors and fast planes will be easier to spot.

What does this mean for the Pentagon as it explores building the next generation fighter, the so-called sixth generation fighter?

Stillion says the Pentagon should consider “‘radical’ departures from traditional fighter concepts that rely on enhanced sensor performance, signature control, networks to achieve superior SA [situational awareness], and very-long-range weapons to complete engagements before being detected or tracked by enemy aircraft.”

link.

This ONLY makes sense if DARPA's plans for how to fight in the future air space work.

I suppose you'd need to bring back the Goblin, or some other type of parasite fighter, UCAV style.