- Today I want to take you on a journey back in time to a pivotal era in history.

And then fast forward to the cutting edge technology that's shaping modern warfare.

Now, some of you might remember me from my role as Lieutenant Phil Lowenthal in the film Memphis Bell, where I had the honor of portraying a brave young airman in World War ii.

That movie highlighted the incredible courage and determination of the men who flew the legendary B 17 bombers, also known as the Flying Fortresses.

By the 1990s, technology had advanced beyond anything that could have been imagined.

In the 1940s, the world of aviation and warfare has evolved tremendously ushering in a new era of stealth and precision.

One aircraft that truly revolutionized the game was the F1 17 Nighthawk.

You might know this sleek and angular bird from its secret missions during the Gulf War and Desert Storm.

It was like something out of a science fiction movie, but it was very real.

- You get that adrenaline rush.

- Every - Generation gets better and better, - But the time they see us, our miss is already in flight and on the way.

- Now, this is what intensity looks like.

- It was a time of uncertainty, a time when the world held its breath, fearing the catastrophic power of modern warfare.

But from the depths of darkness, new weapons were born ones that would redefine the battlefield.

- The first night of Operation Desert Storm, the only thing I was thinking as I went into my target was, - Do - They really want me to drop this bomb?

Because when it drops, this war is gonna start - A select group of pilots and innovative step forward, dedicated patriots who possess not only exceptional skill, but the courage to embark on a journey into the unknown.

The brewing storm in the east was merely the prelude.

- They marched me into the A briefing room and turned on a video that had one of the hangers up the tonal with the Lockheed superimposed on it.

And I sat there, my heart pounding, waiting for this thing to open up.

And as the doors open, I saw the one 17 for the first time wasn't shock, it wasn't anything what I was expecting.

- The hangar doors parted and backlit in the hangar was an F1 17 stealth fighter.

To me, it looked like Darth Vader's helmet, you know, and coming to a point on the top, and it didn't look like it was a real airplane.

It didn't look like it would be able to fly - Their dedication and resolve, pushed the boundaries of what's possible in the defense of freedom.

And in doing so, left their everlasting mark on the history of US air supremacy.

- From the very first training session.

Discipline was emphasized, security discipline, making sure that you kept everything protected, timing, discipline, making sure you got to your target within two seconds.

Target identification, discipline, hitting the right target, no collateral damage.

All that discipline that we trained with each and every day carried over into the war.

- Our 36 airplanes in our first few weeks of that war took out 60% of the strategic targets.

The other thousand plus land-based and carrier based aircraft, non stealth aircraft took out the other 40%, 36 took out 60%.

- We'd achieved something that in aerial combat prior to that point, had never been achieved before.

Just the type of precision stealth allowed you to you be more precise.

It was revolutionary for aerial combat.

- The science of stealth actually dates back to 1964 when a Soviet researcher in mathematician released a study titled M Age Wave Method.

In the physical theory of defraction in this work, he illuminated that the radar echo's intensity was intricately linked to the structure where the wave interacted.

Rather than the object's mere size.

Team skunkworks used his research to build a then cutting edge computer program called Echo One that could predict effects of radar waves on an object.

This resulted in the famed hopeless diamond design, which was shaped like a rough cut gem and was fully faceted to reflect radar waves away from the transmitter or receiver from almost every direction with great efficiency.

When it came to its radar signature, the hopeless diamond was downright exciting.

But when it came to its aerodynamics, it was a messy conundrum to say the least, which was something that legendary high performance aircraft designer Ben Rich was not too excited about, renowned for his exceptional contributions to stealth technology.

Rich played a pivotal role in designing groundbreaking aircraft with the F1 17 Nighthawks standing out as one of his most iconic creations, serving as the second director of skunkworks.

He succeeded the legendary Clarence Kelly Johnson and continued to push the boundaries of aeronautical innovation.

Rich's mastery of engineering and his relentless pursuit of advanced technologies earned him a reputation as a key figure in the development of classified aircraft.

His legacy extends beyond the tangible accomplishments of the F1 17 Nighthawk, as he was instrumental in shaping the future of stealth and tactical aviation, leaving an indelible mark on the history of aerospace engineering.

- I remember somebody asking my father a question, how are things going at the skunkworks?

And my father said, well, not very well.

And I am, I'm upset about it because everything we're trying seems to be working.

My father's view was that you either succeeded or you learned.

And I think it was his optimism or his inclination to regard even setbacks as opportunities for improvement.

Stealth technology, which of course was embodied first by the skunkworks and the SR 71.

And ultimately in the F1 17, the first operational combat aircraft that featured stealth technology was a game changer.

When it came to penetrating enemy airspace, it enabled operations that had never been contemplated before and it virtually negated the adversaries air defenses.

And so it was truly transformational for many, many years, particularly in the latter half of the Cold War aerospace technology was synonymous with American military superiority and stealth technology was a good example of that kind of, of technology that gave America a strategic advantage, unlike any that it had almost for its its entire history.

It completely transformed the way the Air Force was able to carry out combat operations.

And it basically negated the large and long time investment that the adversary made in sophisticated air defenses.

And so it was transformative and disruptive.

My father was a believer in that kind of program, and the skunkworks, I think, has a proud history.

Almost every one of its projects was intended to be disruptive, and those that succeeded were indeed disruptive.

My father was a really bold and and creative thinker, but had the practicality of a engineer the way he was trained.

So it made him very effective as somebody who conceived and pursued disruptive technology.

And he's truly one of a kind.

- Here's F1 17 pilot Ken Dwelly with an insider's.

Look at the science of stealth and the F1 17 nighthawk.

- Well, the first time I saw the thing in person was shortly after I arrived at Holloman in New Mexico for the F1 17 school, an instructor took us out to a hangar like this for an introduction.

And when I walked in the door and, and saw the thing, it just about took my breath away.

I mean, it, it, it didn't look like an aircraft at all.

It was like some prop from a movie set.

For starters, it's big.

I mean like F 15 big, it's also black.

It's angular, it's severe.

There's not a curved surface anywhere to be seen on this thing.

And the really strange part, which you just don't really get right away, is that there aren't any, any seams.

There are no rivets, there's no screws or bolt heads.

I mean, it's almost like the thing was cast in one piece from fiberglass.

It's not true.

Of course, the structure is actually conventional.

It's steel, aluminum, titanium composite.

But in practice, and as you see it here, it just looks crude.

There's a reason of course, and that's because the flat plates or the facets on the aircraft deflect the radar away.

And what doesn't get deflected is absorbed by the ram or the radar absorbent.

Material coating absorbs what's left.

Well, when people look at the aircraft from the ground, they want to know where the exhaust comes outta the aircraft.

Where are the exhaust pipes?

And the truth is that it comes out, it's just in a place where you can't see it.

It's on top of the airplane in the back, this long area right here, all the way to this area up here.

That's the exhaust.

It comes out in a trough, which is about this deep on the top of the aircraft.

And what they did is they buried these really complicated exhaust pipes inside the aircraft.

And they, they look, they call it a platypus 'cause it looks like the foot of a platypus.

But what it does is it takes the round area of the exhaust out of the, the General Electric 4 0 4 engine, and it goes through this and it gets distributed across this eight foot varied narrow off at the back of the aircraft.

And it is intended to remove the hotspots and really dissipate the heat.

So that's part of it.

And then this area back here is protected by ceramic tiles.

The same ones they used on the bottom of the space shuttle for the reentry heating.

They didn't build a lot of these airplanes and they needed to build them quickly.

And so in order to do that, they did what you was appropriate.

And they use parts from other aircraft.

And as I look at this thing, there are, if you look in the cockpit, there are displays from the F 18 and the P three Orion.

Actually, a lot of the, the, the heads up display, the engine instruments.

The throttles are from the F 18.

The landing gear that you could see is from the A 10.

The engines are from the F 18 without the afterburner.

And in the inertial navigation system, at least the earlier versions were from the B 52 bomber.

The number one design consideration for that airframe was to make it undetectable by radar.

And in order to do that, the shape had to take the priority.

And the really smart folks at Lockheed took the shape, which was most efficient from a radar stealth perspective.

They put wings on it and allowed it to fly, but it was completely unstable.

- Now, the way we characterize instability on an airplane or any unstable system by that way, is a thing we call time to double amplitude.

Now, when you take a, an unstable airplane like the F1 17 or this is what we call a controlled configured airplane.

Now we want the airplane to do just exactly what the stable airplane does, but now we're going to use artificial means through our active controls in order to make that happen.

- So fortunately, they had the benefit of the F 16 fly by wire fly control computer, which was also unstable, but for a different reason.

And they fed it through the air data from four probes on the front of the airplane.

And what happens is that the computers can react much more quickly than a pilot can.

These air data probes, the four of 'em, were the hardest thing that took the most time to design in the entire aircraft.

They take a design which is fundamentally unstable in every direction, and they keep the pointy end flying into the wind.

Well, before flying the black jet, I had about a thousand hours in the F 16, which is a wonderful airplane in a lot of ways.

It's, it's a brute force machine.

It'll go straight up, straight down, like being on a magic carpet.

Employing that aircraft in a combat environment was typical of how things have been done since Vietnam.

It had an air-to-air radar.

It had missiles, it had a gun, chaff flares, a jamming pod, and an excellent radar warning receiver.

The F 16 cannon does most every mission in a conventional way.

Let's put it like this.

If you had the opportunity to watch Top Gun Maverick, you've seen all those tools in action with all the associated drama and the risk.

The F1 17 had none of those tools, not not one.

And despite that, the F1 17 had the ability to fly into some of the most heavily defended areas on the planet in the dead of night and drop a pair of 2000 pound bunker busters into a ventilation shaft with near impunity.

When I walked out of the theater after watching Top Gun Maverick, I turned to my wife and I said, you know, a single F1 17 could have done that mission in the middle of the night and been gone before they even knew what happened.

She turned to me and she said, yeah, but it would've made a terrible movie.

I cannot overstate how much the F1 17 changed the game.

- The high stakes in high security games started at an undisclosed location in Burbank.

- Most people don't know what the skunkworks was actually at the Burbank Airport in California.

It's now at Palmdale, but at the time, it was at Burbank, and that's where the skunkworks was in the production facility for the F1 17.

So what they did was they'd produce the airplane and then late at night, a C five would fly in.

They'd go into where the production facility was, they'd put the airplane in the back of the C five, fly it out to the desert, put it back together again.

That's how they kept it secret to be honest.

There were all sorts of things that were considered at one time.

Fingerprint sensing devices, scanning security cards even before you got on the airplane.

You met, had to make sure the right people were getting on the airplane.

We understood and exercised TSA before there was a TSA, so it was called Top Secret Accounting.

- Another means of getting up there was to actually fly.

There are cover story aircraft a seven, the A seven.

And that was an attempt or a means of kind of confusing anybody that might be paying attention to what was going on up there.

Different airplanes coming in, different airplanes leaving, not really giving 'em much to, to look at or learn from it.

- Everyone that that was involved in the program had to be approved by an office in the Pentagon that very closely vetted the backgrounds.

And it's not just the pilots, but, but all the maintenance folks, all the support folks who, who worked on the aircraft.

And we flew up there on Monday and, and flew back or rode back more appropriately on, on Friday on a key air, 7 37 charter airplanes that were all set up.

And so nobody knew where we were going.

And when we were back on Friday, it was, yeah, hey, we were off.

We've been off doing our thing.

- Training began with activities held at Tonopah Air Force Base in Nevada, confined to a relatively limited geographical expanse, particularly in the initial stages.

A majority of the wings aircraft were airborne on a nightly basis, adhering strictly to nocturnal hours.

- They had certain limits when we could, how late we could fly.

When we showed up on Mondays when we first showed up, I think we ended up stopping at like 11 o'clock at night.

And then later on during the week after we'd, our had adjusted to our circadian rhythm and flying at night, they moved it back to a later timeframe as the airplane came outta the black world.

And we were flying.

People knew what we were doing.

We didn't fly as late as they did in the earlier days.

The airplane would had to fly only at night.

What they would do back in the original day was they would not even open the hangar doors until an hour after sunset.

And everything had to be in the hangers with the doors closed an hour before sunrise to make sure that there was, nobody could see the airplane.

- You're like vampires that you didn't wanna see the dawn - With all the early F1 17 pilots each had to make many family sacrifices for duty to their country.

- Imagine flying to Korea, working a whole week of normal duty hours in Korea, then flying home, and then try to be a, a normal person on the weekend for your family.

That's probably the best way to describe that, that situation.

- Boy, the family's really were the heroes of this whole program because they, they put up with it largely without complaint.

And when it was fun, when they, when they first formally announced that the one 17 existed and had pictures of it, and there was a big party at the, at the, at the officer's club and quite a number of these wives of one 17 pilots showed up with t-shirts to say, I, I sleep with a stealth pilot.

And they were, they were celebrating it.

They could finally know what the hell was going on.

Very cool.

- Colonel Alton Whitley took over his 37th fighter wing commander on August 17th, 1990, leaving him no time to settle in before the unit's initial deployment to the Middle East.

At the time of his appointment, he was director of fighter training and tactics at another base.

He led F1 17 operations throughout Desert Storm.

- Within hours of becoming the commander, I had to tell my family goodbye and I went up range with, with with my people convened the battle staff recalled the unit, and we started doing all the things in preparation for deploying on Sunday morning - Soon, Colonel Whitley and Team Stealth would have the opportunity to test our nation's combat effectiveness against an unprecedented array of sophisticated enemy air defenses.

- I'll never forget rolling out wings level that first night, that first time I over the city of Baghdad, and I had never seen anything like that in my life.

I said to myself, self, is there any way you're gonna be able to get through that?

Even from the stuff that's going off above your altitude and just coming down and the stuff that's going off below you.

And here's a random surface.

The a missile doesn't appear to be guided against anything, but it just, it's, it's a firework show unlike anything I've ever seen.

You can smell the cordite through your oxygen mask.

- We knew from our training that, that I can expect a high rate of fire 23 millimeter.

I didn't know that it looked like a red fire hose streaming out.

I didn't know that.

57 millimeter looked like orange golf balls coming up at a slower speed.

So it was very, very visual.

Each, each threat had a specific visual footprint, if, if you will, they had cro radar guided Sams that that night.

They, they, they fired in, in like a salvo of three and they were like bottle rockets.

So you could see the sh I wonder what that is and didn't know till, ask the intel, what, what looks like that?

Oh, that's a French made cartel.

Oh, okay.

- Flying in the first wave attack downtown Baghdad.

There was everything.

There was white, there was yellow, there was red, there was black and missiles.

I also had the privilege of flying the last wave attack downtown Baghdad.

They still had the yellow and orange DSU 23 4.

So you can never, you know, like a, a a, a blinded boxer, you could never really relax around there.

They were still shooting bullets.

They were still real, they could still take you down.

So you still had to concentrate intensely in and outta in and outta country.

But as long as you did that, you were, you were gonna survive the mission.

- I would think of Churchill's quote that was essentially, there's nothing so exhilarating as being shot at and missed.

So I think that feeling of elation at not only doing a job, but doing it well and surviving the risk is probably one thing I will always take away from that experience.

- Operation Desert Storm unfolded as a sustained air campaign spanning 43 days undertaken by the United States and its allies against Iraq from January 17th to February 28th, 1991.

Marking the most significant employment of US air power since the Vietnam War.

This operation achieved remarkable success with minimal US casualties and a brief duration, making it a notable 20th century accomplishment for the United States.

- When I flew the first night of Operation Desert Storm, my job was to drop a bomb before all the non stealthy aircraft came in.

And it would help them get in undetected.

If I did not drop that bomb and destroy that target, some of these pilots and air crews might have gotten shot down and not have gone home.

I did not have time to worry about fear.

- The thing I remember the most was realizing what a historic moment it was gonna be as we're, it's almost like you're in a little disbelief as when, when it's happening or is this really happening?

We're essentially kicking off a war here, proud and and privilege to be part of it.

You know, all the training that I've done over the years had built up to that.

I've been in the Air Force for over 10 years prior to this point.

And, you know, it, it was like, man, it's all coming to fruition.

It's all, it's all reaching a day.

Newmont here, - Four Star General Charles Chuck Horner - In Desert Storm.

We were so successful.

It looked easy, but it really wasn't.

Our biggest threat initially was the Iraqi Air Force.

They had first line fighters and they were very deadly.

So what we did is we took the heart out of the Iraqi Air Force fighter force, we cut off their ground control.

So they were blundering around in the night, and then we stuffed missiles right down the interceptors as they came airborne.

It was key to our success, the fact that we were able to seize control of the air.

Within minutes of the war.

Starting some of the engagements we had involved an Iraqi fighter pilot taking off, calling his ground control intercept, looking for the enemy, looking for where to shoot 'cause that's where they've been taught by the Russians.

And what we do is blow him outta the sky.

So the three most feared words in the Iraqi Air Force were cleared for takeoff.

Well, there's no doubt about it.

Our equipment was much better.

Our weapons, air-to-air wise were much better and our pilots were much better trained.

And that was a lesson from Vietnam where our pilots were not very well trained.

And we started things like the aggressors.

We started Top Gun in the Navy.

All these programs are designed to make us ability to seize control the air in the opening moments of any war.

It's critical to success nowadays.

Desert Storm was a war where we went all out from the first to the last minute.

There was no respite for the enemy.

If you're sitting about to kill people, kill 'em as fast and as viciously as possible so that you get the war over with and you limit the damage, you limit the loss of life.

And of course, that was the guidance from our president, from Secretary Cheney.

And we took it on and did it.

- The missions that have been accomplished really have been something to see from our standpoint.

I know there's a lot of debate early on about why we were here and about the wisdom and the mission, but I can assure you that everybody back home is 100% behind the effort that all of you are engaged in.

Now, the country has really come together phenomenal way since January 16th to support the effort.

- Despite their rigorous training for flawless execution, the air crew found themselves introducing a novel aircraft into one of warfare's most perilous settings.

The commanding echelons on the battlefield had anticipated potential casualties, yet the precise extent remained an enigma.

- I don't remember where the number came up, but we were also told that with the full Iraqi air defense system up on the first night, we could see 10% losses.

Well, with 10 aircraft going, that means somebody's getting shot down again.

I don't think we really thought that was gonna happen, but the fact that somebody smart thinks that's gonna happen does put a lot of little bit of doubt in your mind.

- We'd never really fully employed stealth technology to that point.

And, you know, just knowing that there was a bit of uncertainty about how it would work, we, you know, we, we had a little bit of doubt in the back of our mind, all of us, and just hoped that we would come through unscathed if, if we were gonna go do it.

So there was trepidation.

There were, I remember, you know, people would write letters.

We were writing letters and handing the letter to our buddies to send home to our families just in case we didn't make it back that first night.

So it was, it was a different experience.

You know, something that you don't experience every day - Will stealth work.

We'll be able to go in and get through the assets that the Iraqis had.

So the first night was the very first opportunity we had to do that.

We had 10 airplanes go up, hit targets, seven downtown Baghdad, two guys went to the west hit air defense headquarters, and I went to the east to hit one.

None of us knew if it was gonna work or not.

We managed to get in unscathed and make our way home.

I would never have gone in and bombed a radar site, surface air missile radar site with a non stealthy asset.

They had no clue I was there, came in, hit the target, was out the backside, and they had no idea that it was there.

So that just proves how great the technology that Lockheed developed that really helped us out during Desert Storm.

- How confident were we in in the, in the airplane and the mission?

I think every pilot in that room would've told you, we have 100% certainty that we can find our target and we can put our bombs precisely on that target.

There was no doubt about that.

As for the stealth aspect, we had run a couple missions over the previous few weeks and months where we would send an F1 17 right directly at the Iraqi border and turn at the last moment and fly along the border and then go home.

And the intelligence people would monitor and see if there was any reaction, radio cat or anything from the, from the Iraqis.

And we had never gotten a reaction.

So we felt pretty confident that we were gonna be able to enter a rack unobserved on that first night, even with their full air defense system up.

- One of the most lasting, profound things that I remember was pulling into that hangar after my first sortie.

And there were people all over, they were dared to recover the aircraft, but it, it seemed like there was a whole lot more people there.

And the minute you, you dropped your traps, which were the, the Bombay doors and everybody in the room saw that your weapons were gone, they started clapping.

So very powerful.

- Although the F1 17 force was retired from frontline service in 2008, the legacy of their performance in desert storms serve to largely validate stealth technology.

Eventually it would migrate from a niche capability to a holistic procurement strategy for us and Allied Air arms around the globe - We're thrilled to be involved in what I would call righteous combat.

That we have, we have responded to a need.

Our country responded, they asked us to respond, and we've had the opportunity to do something not only for our country, but for the country.

Kuwait, we think that's pretty important.

I testified in front of the House Appropriations committee, defense subcommittee in talking about stealth technology and specifically what they're wanting to hear is not our exploits over Baghdad, but rather how did the technology work?

Is it, is it something we should be investing in specifically?

They're, they're wanting to know, okay, so the the B two is the next generation steal.

Should we really be putting money in it?

And to have somebody like me to be able to sit there and go, yes.

Because let me tell you, once you've been stealthy, you don't want to be anything else because that is the future.

- I spent 20 years as a fire pilot and most of that time was training and practicing and getting ready to go to war if needed.

If there had been a war while I was on active duty and I hadn't been able to go, I would've been tremendously disappointed.

So it was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity for me to go to Desert Storm.

And I am just thrilled that I was able to go when, when my country called and I was ready.

But most of all, I'm thrilled that I was able to go in this aircraft, that we were able to develop new techniques, new tactics, that we were able to show that, that the stealth worked, that it could be done.

I'm glad that I went with this group of people who were all professionals and did everything that was called on them to, to make sure the mission was a success.

And I am thrilled most of all, that I went with the unit that worked together and brought everyone home safely.

And I SLU Colonel Whitley for his leadership in making sure that happened, - They were ready to go to war.

And I'm talking about everybody from the martians who, the people who took care of the stealth surfaces to the every aspect of aircraft, generation, crew, chiefs, specialists, you name it, they all knew what they were doing.

They had it together.

We had great logisticians.

It, it was just a fabulous opportunity for me to walk into.

And I, and I have to give all the credit to the people who've made it happen, who continue to work hard to make it better, but most importantly, to make it last.

And, and that's what I'm most proud of, is what an honor it was to serve with all these people for at, at all levels of, of performance.

- We took the record, put the court and had and threw it the fire.

You folks have written history.

You got, you establish a new baseline.

But I think the young people, today's military, regardless of the services they're in, have shown that as I tried to tell you early on, there's one ingredient if you got it, you got everything that's attitude.

Lot of you brought it, lot of you developed it, but it's a compliment to all of you.

All of you got it.

And I'm now proud of you - Following the F1 17.

And after six years of development, the Collier Award-winning F 22 Raptor, took flight on September 7th, 1997 When it comes to the definition of air dominance, nothing compares to the groundbreaking fifth generation F 22 Raptor.

Its Super cruise capabilities, its integrated avionics enhanced sensor and weapon system effectiveness.

Make it the superiority aircraft of the 21st century.

The F 22 is connecting the battle space and building the future of air power.

Captain Samuel Raz Larson has over 750 hours in the Raptor and is now the lead pilot of the F 22 demonstration team.

- I'm Samuel Raz Larson, captain and commander and pilot of the F 22 demonstration team.

F 22 demonstration team travels around the United States and around the world, showcasing the capabilities of the F 22 Raptor and showcasing the men and women who fly and maintain the aircraft.

So the F 22 is the first fifth gen fighter operational in the world.

And it ushered in a new era of air combat with all the capabilities that it brings to the fight.

Things like stealth, super cruise sensor fusion, super maneuverability.

It's all extreme capabilities that the world had never seen and it gave F 22 pilots and the United States Air Force an extreme tactical advantage.

And that has continued as we've matured the platform, upgraded the platform, and also to the level that we train at events like this at William Tell, where we not only have the technological edge, but also the edge and the standard in which we conduct our operations, the standard in which we brief and debrief and the standard that we hold to each other to.

So it's a phenomenal airplane and a phenomenal community to be a part of.

A lot of us on the team, including myself, were inspired to pursue careers in the Air Force by going through air shows, seeing jets fly, getting to talk to pilots and maintainers.

And so now we get that opportunity to, to meet with folks, talk with the young folks about our careers and what we've done, and you get to see that inspiration and potentially someone out there who might be your replacement someday.

And that's extremely rewarding.

Applying the F 22 is a, is an absolute privilege, such a capable aircraft and just to be one of the few who who've been able to fly it.

And in the demonstration we get to really showcase the extreme capabilities of the jet, extreme angles of attack, extreme thrust, the things they can do.

And so that's a joy for me getting to share that with others folks who have never seen it before, now they have a little bit of an idea of what an F 22 is capable of and what the United States Air Force is capable of.

- Now let's leap forward from the pioneering stealth capabilities of the F1 17 Nighthawk and F 22 Raptor to the advanced multi roll prowess of the F 35 Lightning two, a fifth generation multi roll fighter aircraft.

The F 35 represents the pinnacle of modern aviation technology and capability.

- The F 35 fifth generation fighter, it is a platform that is low observable, difficult to detect by enemy radar systems that could potentially shoot us down.

It has not just weapons like a traditional fighter does, but it also has a lot of sensors on it so that when it's flying it can sense all different portions of the battle space in the IR spectrum, RF spectrum, radio frequency all over.

And so what that jet can do from that is take all that information and create a common picture of the battle space.

From there we can either use that to prosecute ourselves or pass that information.

So we act as kind of a note in the construct to pass information to other fighters that maybe don't have those sensors on board.

- No pilot is perhaps more adept at the F 35 than Lieutenant Colonel Doug, Rosie Rosenstock, who served in the United States Marine Corps, United States Air Force and Florida Air National Guard as an operational pilot and test pilot.

Rosie is at the tip of the spear and is across the organizations that the Navy supports as a fifth generation expert.

- Now that I'm retired from the military, I'm kind of using all those expertise I gained as a test pilot, F 35 pilot and, and trying to help the government as their developing, developing systems for those platforms or trying to model those platforms or, or incorporate them in a simulation by being that person who's actually flown the jet, tested the jet, understands how it's supposed to work so that they understand whether or not they're simulation or their system is accurately replicating.

What happens in the airplane when you start talking to pilots and you realize what's really important when you're at 30,000 feet going faster than the speed of sound, there's, there's a lot of things that you might not consider.

So I'm trying to help bring that forward so that we can develop things that are useful for our war fighter, both in simulation and training as well as in the aircraft.

And so the joint simulation environment at JSE here at PAX River, it is a simulator that was built in order to execute F 35 operational tests and evaluations that could not be flown in lively because we just don't have the range space, we don't have the assets, we don't have what we need to do that and replicate it to a degree of accuracy that we can make a determination of how the F 35 would respond or would behave or how we would do in that environment.

So they built a synthetic environment that has everything that we think we would put the F 35 up against in the real world models of it.

As accurate as it can be models of the F 35, it's extremely complex, it's very high fidelity system, even though it was designed initially to do operational tests and evaluation quadrants and war fighters who are flying the F 35 realized very quickly how useful it is to train in that environment because it's much more close to what they would actually see in combat than they can simulate on a range in open air in lively.

So in a simulator, I can shoot at you all day and when your aircraft gets shot in the simulator and you actually crash, you come back and you feel like, okay, I need to look at what I was seeing on my display and how I'm gonna react differently.

And what we've seen through taking a lot of pilots through JSC is that they get better over time because they start to pay attention to things that they don't see in life fly.

Because the indications of a missile getting shot at you only show up in the jet if a missile's getting shot at you, but you, so you never see them, but you do see them in the simulator.

And so now if someone goes to combat and that jet that's not the first time they're seeing that indication and having to deal with it and know how to react to it, I think it will augment lively, but I don't think it's ever gonna replace it.

There's a, there's a balance that needs to be struck because you can't have a pilot who's just trained in a synthetic environment then go out and fly a real airplane and all of a sudden get hit with all those emotions and human factors and expect them to perform at the same level.

Kinda like shooting a basketball in a gym by yourself or, or, or playing in a game.

- Modern warfare continues to evolve with the all domain force of the future.

The all domain force aims to create a highly interconnected and interoperable force capable of responding rapidly to evolving threats in an increasingly complex and contested global environment.

- So as we think about the Air Force and what kind of air force we need to go to from the present to the future, it's really important that we think first about the types of competitors that we're going to face.

And so we are going to have to answer that challenge by evolving and changing.

And so some of the big ways that we're going to change include being more agile in the way that we have bases and forces and we'll spread those out.

We'll be able to take off from one base land at another work in small teams, and that will all be really important for generating enough air power to do the job.

- Retired Lieutenant General Clint Q High note.

- I think it's important to realize that air warfare doesn't just exist in and of itself.

It also contributes to what's going on on the land and in the sea In many ways the air domain kind of connects all the other domains, especially as the electromagnetic spectrum flows through it.

And so it's really important that we have some level of control of the air if we're gonna fight.

It tends to make everything else better for our, for our forces.

And so as we think about what kind of error warfare changes we need to make, we know that we have to be better connected not just with each other, but also between each other and the folks on the ground, the folks at the sea, the folks that are operating the satellites and space and so on.

And so connectedness is gonna be something that the, the Air Force and anybody flying in the air is going to need with connectedness comes the ability to push data and data is changing the battle space.

We are seeing how if you can find the enemy and track the enemy, being able to engage the enemy, especially from the air, is not as difficult as those other things ares.

And so what we find is that when we are able to use data in very fast ways and get data from one part of the battle space to the other, that's really important for the speed and the scale of operations.

And I think you're gonna see air warfare be integral to that as we transmit the data through the, we use airplanes as nodes in the network and we get that data to the right places so that we can action very quickly.

And so that gets into this virtuous cycle of being able to engage the adversary at faster and faster speeds at bigger and bigger scale.

And it tends to make a huge difference, more data sharing and more platforms in the air.

And many of those won't have people in them.

They will be directed from the ground or from the air or from maybe an aircraft that's a headquarters, maybe from the ship at sea, but they'll be doing things in swarms.

And I, I think that's going to be happening very quickly and that will all be really important for generating enough air power to do the job.

- As the keeper of skunkwork's legacy.

John Clark embodies the spirit of audacity and innovation that defines the institution under his stewardship.

Skunkworks has continued to transcend the limitations of conventional aviation ushering in an era of groundbreaking advancements in stealth technology, supersonic flight and beyond - That persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or ISR is just as important today as it as it was back, you know, at the, the onset of the U2 and everything that we we did in the, the Cold War.

You know, when you look at the need for information, understanding what the adversary is doing, that demand signal is higher than ever.

And finding ways to get aircraft that can perform that mission, provide the data to, you know, the National Command Authority, and then use that information to then make subsequent decisions.

It's critical.

And we continue to, to build on those capabilities today.

And I envision that we will continue to build on those capabilities long into the future.

What's interesting about that is if you go back in time all the way from, you know, the, you know, world War II and the birth of the skunkworks, the skunkworks was built upon, you know, the, the advent of the jet engine and the XP 80 and getting the first jet fighter out there as quickly as possible to deal with a capability that the adversary had brought forward.

And you know, that that's what really defines as a hallmark of the defense industry is this sense of a cat and mouse game, if you will, that the adversary makes a move.

We make a move and you systematically shift forward as we went through the Cold War as a nation, we made a lot of really great moves that allowed us to be in, in front of all of those cat and mouse games.

And as we look at things today, I think that we continue to look at where the adversary is going and as they introduce new technology and those, there's new threat systems, we have to maintain our agility to have that flexibility to move in different ways that may manifest with more rapid software development pipelines and bringing software to the aircraft much quicker.

That's absolutely something that we're working on.

It also may manifest with, you know, different compliments of a, a force structure that you, we play the game differently than we played in the Cold War, given that we have different assets in the, in the battle space, and we network them and integrate them together in a different way that provides that asymmetric advantage and once again gives us a, a leg up and that count and mouse game.

- Clark's leadership has not only sustained the division's tradition of excellence, but has also guided it into new frontiers aligning its projects with the ever evolving demands of the modern world.

- Everybody's talking about six generation aircraft, but yet nobody's talking about six generation aircraft.

I will say that the fun part about where we sit is that it was members of our team that helped actually establish those generations of aircraft nomenclature.

Looking back from the onset of the, what we characterize as the first gen aircraft all the way up through fifth gen, sixth generation aircraft are going to need some distinguishable characteristic.

It's not simply going to be, you know, fly a little higher, fly a little faster or have, you know, a little bit more survivability.

There has to be something that truly distinguishes them.

And in our estimation right now, those distinguishing characteristics are gonna be centered around how rapidly you can develop software and deploy software and you know, how quickly you can adapt the system dynamically to the adversary in that, in that cat and mouse game that we find ourselves in so frequently.

And, you know, the, the, the sixth generation aircraft will also be much more networked than the the fifth generation aircraft where I think that there's been a lot of lessons learned with respect to how, you know, an F 22 doesn't talk to an F 35 organically out of the box.

You know, my supposition is that the sixth generation aircraft's gonna put a lot of thought into how to better network those systems together such that they can participate in a network that's beyond just their own, you know, homogeneous aircraft type.

There are a number of companies out there that are advocating or, or pushing for what I'm gonna call the, the, the God ai, you know, that artificial intelligence that's all knowing, all seeing and is a centralized element that makes all the decisions and is, is driven solely based on its own knowledge.

I strongly advocate against that model.

The way in which we're using AI and have been using AI for a number of years is actually more in that construct of user-centered design.

How do I augment the humans that are in the system with rapid decision making and using AI as a tool as opposed to AI becoming the decision maker?

And so in doing that, that allows us to embrace this technology, bring it into the system, and maintain a, an element of determinism about how the system is gonna operate and, and behave.

I think that we have to be thoughtful about these more localized approaches and, and doing it in a more granular way of applying AI to solve a very specific problem.

So we, we've got a lot of ideas on solving problems that AI is well suited for.

As an example, we're exploring AI right now to conduct route planning and understand basically the, the, the navigational dimension of things.

It'll be a localized tool to do, use artificial intelligence for route planning as opposed to, you know, it, it becomes a, an artificial intelligence that's not only route planning, but it's also using the sensors and it's also deciding where the airplane ultimately lands and expends its weapons.

It, it's really, you start to get localized elements and then what that does is that that allows the human to stay in control.

What I see right now is that as we've analyzed the environment, the intersection of air and space when you put 'em together, is actually where it puts us as a nation in the best position to both defend ourselves as well as address an adversary if there's a need to, to, to wade into conflict.

And you rely on either domain singularly it's ripe with risk, especially if the adversary knows that that's, that's the approach that you're taking at that point in time, they can marshal all their resources defeat in a singular way.

I'll liken it to football in this way.

No football team just throws the ball.

No football team just runs the ball.

Each one of 'em, they have, you know, they may be a pass heavy offense, but they'll hand the ball off frequently to put the adversary or the defense on its heels and change things up.

And, and I think as a nation, we have to be thinking about those elements that maintain some asymmetry.

If, if we basically abdicate all of the, the things that a, an airplane does today to space, then the adversary will have a much easier job.

That would be like me being a, a head coach of a football team and telling the, the opponent that I'm not gonna run the ball at all during today's game.

And they will not, they'll sit in a nickel or a dime defense the entire time and they'll, they'll be able to defeat us.

That's one of the great things about working in the skunk works is that you got the freedom and latitude to experiment, explore, and try things that have never been done.

And, you know, I try to give the team all that latitude to fail so that when it doesn't work the first time, it's, it's not a problem.

It's just a question of what did you learn from that and what are we gonna do about it next?

- From the Daring Dog fights over the English channel to the development of game changing jet engines that propelled us beyond the sound barrier, each step forward in air warfare has been marked by relentless innovation.

The advent of stealth technology marked a paradigm shift where invisibility became a powerful asset, transforming the very nature of combat in the air and beyond.

But as we look ahead, the skies are once again set to change.

The dawn of the all domain force presents us with a landscape where air, land, sea space and cyberspace converge in ways unimaginable just a few decades ago.

In this future, the collaborative efforts of engineers, scientists, strategists, and soldiers will be more vital than ever before.

For Palm Springs Air Museum Productions, I am DB Sweeney.

- The following has been a Palm Springs Air Museum production in association with Jones Agency.