Image: USAF
The Air Force's Virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, held on September 15, 2020, was extremely revelatory. During the course of the event, Dr. Will Roper, the Assistant Secretary of the USAF for Acquisitions and Logistics, took the stage to announce that the Air Force is already testing a next-generation fighter prototype:
"We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world,” Roper confirmed to Defense News, “and we broke records in doing it. We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before."
The NGAD program, responsible for the development of advanced manned and unmanned vehicles capable of providing the U.S. with an absolute "Air Dominance" edge over its adversaries, is an ambitious collaboration/competition between several top aerospace companies who are developing and testing next-gen "demonstrators" that will replace aging combat platforms scheduled to enter retirement in the near future.
Roper is optimistic that these new, digitally-engineered combat aircraft can become operational in as little as five years, which is probably the reason for the noticeable increase in flight-test activities of strange-looking crafts reported by aviation enthusiasts in some Western states.