Hope Hodge Seck 0:00 Welcome back to Left of Boom. I'm your host, Military.com managing editor Hope Hodge Seck. Late last year, a top Air Force official acknowledged that the service had secretly built and flown a prototype for a future fighter jet. Even as the US military continues to produce its premier fifth-generation fighter, the F-35, speculation abounds about what comes next. At least a dozen countries are now at some phase of work developing a sixth-generation fighter -- even though experts continue to debate exactly what "sixth generation" means. A few things seem clear: The plane of the future will be smarter and get more help from drones, and it will still have a pilot in the cockpit. To give us more insights into the future of fighter warfare. We're joined by Richard Aboulafia, vice president for Analysis with the Teal Group. He's one of the leading voices on military aircraft and his columns appear regularly in Aviation Week and Forbes.com. Richard Aboulafia, welcome to the show.