With its sights set squarely on countering Chinese threats in the Pacific and Russian aggression in Europe, the U.S. now has at least five secretive new warplanes in development. These programs range from next-generation air superiority fighters that will fly amid a constellation of AI-driven support drones to dual-cycle scramjet-powered hypersonic strike drones very similar to the long-awaited SR-72 concept.

With new multi-static anti-stealth radar arrays and more advanced integrated air defense systems continuing to come online, the U.S. Air Force has stated that it believes even the mighty F-22 Raptor will no longer be survivable enough in near-peer contested airspace as soon as 2030. The Raptor is widely considered to be the stealthiest fighter ever to take to the skies, so the broader context one can glean from concerns about its survivability is clear: the U.S. needs a slew of new offensive and defensive warplanes it can rely on to dominate the skies over its opponents. These warplanes will also have to defend our own airspace against a sea of new stealth fighters and bombers being hurriedly developed by Russia and China.

In order to meet the combined threat of new air defenses and increasingly potent enemy warplanes, the U.S. now has two different but deeply connected stealth-bomber programs at some stage of development, alongside two similarly connected stealth-fighter programs. But perhaps the most secretive of all of these new programs is an Air Force Research Laboratory effort to field fully-functioning dual-cycle scramjet engine systems for a low-observable hypersonic drone designed to fly three different types of combat missions.

Related: What kind of fighter could the latest military tech really build?

1) NGAD: The US Air Force’s next air superiority fighter will come with its own drone wingmen

The F-22 Raptor is widely seen as the most capable air-superiority fighter on the planet, but with fewer than 150 combat-ready airframes left in service, America’s apex predator of the skies is an endangered species. That’s where the U.S. Air Force’s NGAD program comes in.

Unlike other efforts to field new warplanes, NGAD isn’t aiming to develop a single jet, but rather a whole family of systems that can be spread across multiple airframes, including a bevy of support drones that will fly alongside the crewed fighter. This new family of systems will specialize in air combat with the stated aim of dominating enemy airspace. However, like all modern tactical aircraft, it will have multi-role capabilities that will allow for air-to-ground engagements as well.

NGAD is expected to lean further into current aviation trends of cockpit automation and data fusion, taking many of the more monotonous or complex flight control functions out of the pilots’ hands to allow them to focus on the fight, especially while directing support drones to engage air or surface targets on the fighter’s behalf. While not confirmed, it’s expected that the NGAD fighter will leverage now-in-development adaptive cycle engines for increased thrust, improved fuel economy, and a dramatic jump in thermal management (and as a byproduct of that, more energy production for advanced systems like directed energy weapons).

In 2020, it was announced that a full-sized technology demonstrator for the NGAD program had not only already been flown, but had even broken multiple records. While it’s important to note that a technology demonstrator is not the same thing as a flying prototype and may not even look like the new air dominance warplanes the U.S. will eventually field, it sounds as though the NGAD program is progressing at full speed.

The expected sticker price for America’s new NGAD fighters will likely begin at around $200 million per airframe. Its support drone costs are expected to range wildly from attritable low-cost platforms like the Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie, at around $1.3 million apiece, to fully-functioning unmanned stealth fighters at a per-unit cost of around $100 million which is greater than the F-35A’s per-unit cost. That may sound pretty steep, but it’s worth noting that America’s F-22 Raptor, which saw price increases due to the abrupt cancellation of the line, ended up ringing in at around $337 million per jet (when rolling development costs into production) in 2011 dollars. That’s a whopping $442 million today. The Air Force has stated that it does not intend to purchase NGAD fighters as 1:1 replacements for the F-22, so the total number of fighters this program will deliver remains uncertain.

Related: America’s NGAD fighter might actually be nothing like you think

2) B-21 Raider: The US Air Force’s next stealth bomber will sneak past radars that can even spot stealth fighters

Despite its sleek, futuristic aesthetic, Northrop Grumman’s B-2 Spirit stealth bomber has now been in service for more than a quarter-century. Now, as China and Russia continue developing their own B-2 competitors, the firm is looking to expand America’s lead in this field with the B-21 Raider that is currently in development.

The B-21 will draw heavily from the B-2’s successful flying-wing design that Northrop has long specialized in, yet will be a fair bit smaller, carrying an anticipated 30,000-pound payload into the fight, rather than the B-2’s impressive 60,000. Despite the shrinkage, the B-21 will still be rated to carry just about every nuclear and conventional munition we’ve come to expect out of America’s bomber fleets, while leveraging stealth technology said to be at least “two generations ahead” of the famously sneaky B-2.

Unlike stealth fighters, which are detectable (though not targettable) using low-frequency radar bands, the flying-wing design leveraged by both the B-2 and B-21 is said to be extremely stealthy against all radar frequencies. This makes these long-range bombers perfectly suited for strike operations in a heavily contested airspace in the initial days of conflict. If a war were to break out with China, for instance, it would almost certainly begin with U.S. stealth bomber fleets engaging anti-ship defenses on Chinese shores to allow aircraft carriers to close in.

Today, there are at least six B-21 Raider airframes in some stage of production, and unlike most clean-sheet builds for new warplanes in U.S. history, the Raider is expected to conduct its first test flights with all its mission systems already installed and operational. If all goes well, that will dramatically reduce the time between first flight and initial operating capability. The U.S. Air Force capped the per-unit price for its new stealth bomber at $550 million per airframe in 2010, which when adjusted for inflation, puts the Raider’s anticipated cost at around $729.25 million each. That figure might make your eye twitch, but the U.S. is said to have spent as much as $2 billion each on its original stealth bomber when rolling R&D costs into procurement.

Related: How the B-21 Raider could shift power in the Pacific 

3) F/A-XX: The US Navy’s new stealth fighter will share systems with NGAD while delivering a huge jump in range

After decades of trying to force every fighter the U.S. has ever developed into carrier duty culminating in the acquisition nightmare that has been the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Navy’s next stealth fighter is being developed specifically to thrive on America’s flattops.

Being developed under the name F/A-XX, the “F/A” prefix indicates that this new aircraft will be expected to not only deliver multi-role capabilities like all modern fighters but will also be expected to excel at both air-to-air and air-to-ground combat operations. The U.S. Navy and Air Force have both indicated that the stealth fighter to emerge from the F/A-XX effort will share some common systems with the NGAD program, which will allow this new fighter to be fielded more rapidly. That will also mean the Navy’s next jet will benefit from the same modular software and hardware architecture intended to allow for frequent low-cost updates to these aircraft as technology matures around them.

Aside from the requisite boost in stealth and data fusion capabilities the U.S. prioritizes in new fighter programs, the Navy’s F/A-XX will also need to deliver a huge increase in fuel range over the Super Hornets and F-35Cs currently operating at sea. China’s area-denial bubble, or the area of the Pacific that falls within reach of China’s advanced hypersonic anti-ship missiles like the DF-ZF, now extends more than 1,000 miles from Chinese shores, while Navy jets like the F/A-18E and F-35C have a combat radius of only around 650 miles. That means American carriers cannot sail close enough to China to fly combat sorties without placing the carriers themselves at risk of being sunk.

The F/A-XX is expected to address this capability gap by leveraging both larger fuel stores and the aforementioned more-efficient adaptive cycle engines likely destined for the NGAD, while also benefitting from mid-air refueling provided by carrier-based MQ-29 drones. The Navy has not yet released cost estimates for this fighter, but it will likely ring in at a comparable price to the NGAD.

Related: Carrier Woes: The Navy’s fighters can’t reach China

4) Wingman Bomber: The US Air Force’s B-21 Raider will fly with an extremely advanced drone stealth bomber