I thought it was an interesting article - but I thought the 2040 IOC date was a little unrealistic.
The NGAD concepts had been flying since around 2018, ~7 years before the F-47 was selected, and some of the stuff in that program had been worked much earlier than 2010. Even fast tracked I think the announcement that the F-47 will be operational by the end of PUTUS47's term is unlikely.
Realistically it took the US 15 years to get the F-47 to the point of contract award, and at best another 3 years to having a flying sample. The F-22 took 6 years from award of contract from the prototype stage - to get to flight stage.
2040 is 15 years from now, and with no companies that have built a 5th Gen Aircraft, let alone 6th Gen, so to say that I am suspect of 2040 as an actual date to have operational aircraft is putting it mildly. While there maybe prototypes flying I cannot see them being a LRIP let alone full scale production to provide aircraft in any sort of numbers.
Now those Air Forces that have F-35 no doubt can greatly assist FCAS, but the F-35 isn't a F-22 by any stretch, and while a lot of the software, radars and munitions have a jump, I am not sure the actual airframe is in any sort of way ready to go to even a prototype flying sample which will take years to refine.
