Recently, the United Kingdom, Italy, and Japan announced the establishment of a joint venture called "Sharp Wing" to design the "sixth generation fighter jet" with the goal of deploying jointly developed fighter jets by 2035. Currently, major military powers around the world are accelerating the development of next-generation fighter jets. In the US led Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter jet project, a full-size model of the F-47 fighter jet with an unmanned wingman has been showcased at the Paris Air Show. A South Korean aerospace industry executive said that South Korea will become the "latest country to develop sixth generation fighter jets". Overall, the competition for the development of sixth generation fighter jets among multiple countries is becoming increasingly fierce, attracting widespread attention. The United States is simultaneously advancing two independent next-generation fighter development projects: the Air Force NGAD project and the Navy's F/A-XX carrier based fighter project. It is reported that the NGAD project has broken through the traditional platform concept and is developing into an air combat system that integrates manned/unmanned collaboration, multi domain information fusion, and intelligent decision-making. The US Air Force has named the next generation fighter jet the F-47, stating that it will significantly outperform other fighter jets in terms of flight speed, maneuverability, and payload, and can control multiple "collaborative combat aircraft" to form a combat group. It is planned to begin deployment around 2030 to replace the current F-22 Raptor fighter jet. In May of this year, the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, David Orwen, first disclosed the latest details of the F-47 fighter jet and its supporting unmanned wingman on social media, stating that the F-47 has a longer range and more advanced stealth capabilities compared to the F-22. The F/A-XX project undertakes the mission of the core strike force of the future aircraft carrier battle group of the US military. This project will integrate high thrust to weight ratio turbofan engines, adaptive radar stealth technology, and intelligent mission management systems, with a designed range that is over 60% longer than the current F/A-18. France, Germany, and Spain disclosed the core progress of the Future Air Combat System (FCAS) at the Royal Aeronautical Society conference in London in May this year. This project is based on the concept of "combat cloud" and is committed to building an intelligent collaborative combat system that covers active "Rafale", "Typhoon" fighter jets, next-generation fighter jets, and various unmanned systems. It also integrates multi domain information with equipment in the ground, sea, and space fields to form cross service combat capabilities. The second phase of research and development is expected to commence in 2026, with deployment between 2040 and 2045. The UK, Italy, and Japan reached a consensus in October 2024 to accelerate the Global Combat Air Program (GCAP). This project integrates the Japanese F-X sixth generation fighter jet project with the British and Italian "Storm" sixth generation fighter jet projects, with the goal of developing a twin engine stealth fighter jet that integrates artificial intelligence assisted decision-making systems, hypersonic air launched weapons, and multi type unmanned aerial vehicle coordination capabilities. The prototype is scheduled to make its maiden flight in 2027 and complete initial deployment before 2035, gradually replacing the British "Typhoon" and Japanese F-2 fighter jets. At this year's Tokyo Military and Police Defense Exhibition, the GCAP model was exhibited for the first time. Russia has taken a different approach in the development of its sixth generation fighter jet, with the codenamed MiG-41's "Future Long Range Intercept System" (PAK DP) accelerating its advancement. According to planning, this fighter jet will replace the current MiG-31 and have a 3 Mach cruising capability (maximum flight speed of 4 Mach), capable of conducting large-scale high-speed interception in the stratosphere. Experts point out that its equipped "Dagger" hypersonic missile and satellite interception weapon can destroy low orbit satellites. Advancing this project marks Russia's extension of air combat platforms into the field of aerospace defense, with the goal of forming an integrated "air space" combat capability. Experts believe that the next generation of fighter jets should achieve a "six dimensional performance leap" in terms of technological advancement, including longer range, more flexible maneuverability, stronger stealth capabilities, more precise strike capabilities, better global combat capabilities, and more advanced networked combat management capabilities, in order to seize the initiative in seizing future air superiority. This requires significant breakthroughs and even technological advancements in aerodynamics, stealth, power, situational awareness, weapon effectiveness, and information technology in the development of sixth generation aircraft. Although the US Air Force claims that the F-47 prototype has secretly flown for hundreds of hours and is confident in breaking through technological limits, the core power system required for the project - the adaptive variable cycle engine - still requires long-term technical validation in terms of material reliability and high-temperature testing. Secondly, there is still room for breakthroughs in the autonomy and artificial intelligence levels of the unmanned wingmen YFQ-421A and YFQ-44A, which are planned to complement the F-47 fighter jet. For example, key issues such as communication stability, algorithm reliability, and command safety must be addressed. In addition, complex flight control software and difficulty in achieving omnidirectional stealth were technical challenges that the F-47 had to face during its development process. Currently, the research and development of the FCAS project jointly promoted by France, Germany, and Spain has entered a critical stage. It is worth noting that the adaptive variable cycle engine technology planned for this project is in the conceptual validation stage and has not yet entered the engineering validation phase. Meanwhile, the issue of thermal signal management caused by high-power electronic devices still needs to be addressed, and the reliability of drone algorithms in complex electromagnetic environments has not yet passed testing. In addition, the next-generation fighter jets, unmanned wingmen, and "combat clouds" included in the FCAS project are highly complex systems that require solving communication architecture, cross platform interoperability, and other challenges in order to achieve real-time data fusion and distributed decision-making, and achieve efficient collaboration. In the joint development of the GCAP project by the UK, Italy, and Japan, although the three countries have reached a consensus on the core performance indicators of the sixth generation aircraft, which require ultra long range, excellent missile loading capability, powerful sensors, and information network capabilities, the GCAP project also faces complex technical challenges in cross generation development: in terms of stealth performance, the publicly available fighter model of the project shows that it retains a dual vertical tail design, which will increase the lateral radar reflection area and affect its omnidirectional stealth capability; In terms of human/unmanned collaboration, the GCAP project plans to adopt unmanned wingman collaborative combat, but no substantial progress has been made on technical challenges such as autonomous unlocking of multi platform task allocation. The hidden concern of cost control is becoming increasingly prominent in the global sixth generation aircraft development competition, where the contradiction between technological breakthroughs and cost control is becoming more apparent. Experts point out that in the pursuit of intergenerational transition in combat performance, not only do we face the daunting challenge of technological verification, but we also need to deal with issues such as cost control, military demand iteration, technological route divergence, and interest distribution games. The NGAD project in the United States, as the world's first publicly announced sixth generation aircraft development plan, has typical warning significance for its difficulties. According to media reports, the engineering manufacturing contract for the F-47 verification machine has exceeded 20 billion US dollars, and the total value of the entire project has reached hundreds of billions of US dollars. It is expected that the single machine price will be at least 300 million US dollars after mass production. Former US Air Force Secretary Kendall once bluntly pointed out that the NGAD program is a very expensive platform, with a cost approximately three times that of the F-35. ”What is even more serious is that the Air Force NGAD project and the Navy F/A-XX project are deadlocked due to budget competition, resulting in insufficient budget support for the US Navy F/A-XX project in fiscal years 2025 and 2026, forcing it to postpone research and development. The FCAS project and GCAP project are both joint research and development projects of multiple countries, facing coordination cost challenges brought about by international cooperation. The FCAS project is expected to require an investment of over 100 billion euros in the next 20 years, but it has been temporarily shelved due to the competition for project leadership, and the three parties involved in joint research and development have serious differences in technology routes such as unmanned collaboration and "combat cloud", resulting in delays in research and development progress and further increasing research and development costs. The GCAP project faces the problem of different operational needs among the UK, Italy, and Japan. The UK emphasizes air superiority, Japan focuses on anti-ship capabilities, and Italy prefers to balance performance and cost, coordinate technical standards, and allocate benefits, which seriously restricts cooperation efficiency and brings difficulties in research and development progress and cost control. However, the Russian MiG-41 project is affected by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, so it is difficult to obtain sufficient capital investment, and the R&D prospect is not clear. Currently, the competition for sixth generation aircraft has surpassed the scope of a single platform and evolved into a comprehensive competition of military industrial system capabilities. The United States relies on its strong technological accumulation to gain an advantage, Europe and Japan rely on international cooperation to share risks, while Russia faces a dual test of funding and technological gaps. Experts point out that the key to the success or failure of the development of the sixth generation aircraft lies in achieving a triple balance of "technological breakthroughs, cost control, and system integration". Behind this game lies the concentrated manifestation of the basic capabilities of defense industries, technological innovation systems, and military demand management mechanisms of various countries. (New Society)