Well, for one, slowness of adoption usually translates to "let's milk the crap out of the government's dollars for as long as we can without putting too much of

Well, for one, slowness of adoption usually translates to "let's milk the crap out of the government's dollars for as long as we can without putting too much of our own money into it". LHM's stock (as well as other major contractors) seems to be a good indicator of that. I have a relative who recently (2 years ago) called it a career after roughly 40 years at Lockheed-Martin, and a good chunk of that time was within the Skunk Works division. What I was able to gleam from him is that LHM sees the future of aerial warfare as a hybrid of manned and unmanned vehicles. The idea is that a 6th or 7th gen fighter might be a "mothership" of sorts with much more powerful weapons such as bombs or heavier artillery , but also in control of a number of unmanned drones capable of significantly faster attack abilities but with lighter armaments or laser weapons, all to replace current dogfighting scenarios. Fascinating, but terrifying at the same time.