Huge blow to NATO if this is true. This is the most valuable airplane, failing to protect it is failing at air defense as badly as it is physically possible to do so.

If anything drones threaten to make fixed wing aircraft militarily obsolete due to their reliance on static large airport infrastructure rather than helicopters, this aspect is still very much not being grappled with by military powers all over the world.

It isn’t that drones are cheaper, or undefeatable by fixed wing aircraft, it is that small unmanned aircraft can travel vast distances low to the terrain and arrive lazily at just the wrong moment to hit a vulnerable piece of airbase infrastructure deep behind the frontline, this is a genuinely new aspect to warfare, up until now long range has always meant bigger airframe. Taking the human pilot out of the equation fundamentally changes this calculus though.