Possibly, I haven’t seen that past any conceptual stage (I’m an amateur btw, nothing to do with defence). The point stands that the shepherd is a lot more comp

Possibly, I haven’t seen that past any conceptual stage (I’m an amateur btw, nothing to do with defence). The point stands that the shepherd is a lot more complex than the sheep. F-35 is so packed with sensors: multi purpose radar, IR sensors, I believe there are radio receivers throughout the airframe, turning the whole thing into a phased array receiver. It has sophisticated software and hardware to orchestrate it all. You can configure it to shoot down enemy planes, fight air defences, bomb targets, I’m guessing shoot at ships etc. It can do it all while maintaining stealth and remaining in the air for hours (with aerial refuelling). This is much fancier than any drone can do right now.