Has the engine contract been awarded yet? The adaptive engines will be the next point of intrigue in this saga.
US F/A-XX and F-X & NGAD - 6th Gen Aircraft News Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
Well worst that could happen is if they pull a LCA-like development timeline then finally dust off this from the back of the warehouse right? To be honest this also looks like it came from Thomas the tank engine universe.
Or they can pull their own person of the Su-57 collaboration scheme off on the Indians.
Or they can pull their own person of the Su-57 collaboration scheme off on the Indians.
antiterror13
Brigadier
Could it also be a A-10 style twin engine up there so USAF can finally retire A-10 without Army complaints.
They might engineer a takeover of commercial airline by Airbus. Just like the Intel JV talks.
Dunno but all I see are declarations, announcements, and some CG renders for it. Until I see it flying, I don't believe anything regarding it's development status
As they say, show me themoney plane!
I generally believe that at most, only tech demonstrators have flown so far, and that J-36 has at least 2-3 years lead over it. Wake me up when they show something tangible
As they say, show me the
I generally believe that at most, only tech demonstrators have flown so far, and that J-36 has at least 2-3 years lead over it. Wake me up when they show something tangible
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Ok, after happy pages of sweet revenge, some first impressions.
1. Photos hide rear, but also emphasize supersonic flight.
2. Canards - supersonic stability (and performance), but also apparently maneuver requirements were maintained. Lile it, hate it - canards will hit high frequency LO. But won't kill it(after all, it's Boeing, i.e. an obvious bird of prey descendant). Low frequency one can still be wastly better than 5th gen. No easy L-band workarounds.
Maneuverability will help such aircraft to operate at low altitudes; it will help it in both wvr(which it probably very much capable of reaching) and contested bvr.
3. Huge(relatively) cockpit and relatively weak, single wheel frontal chassis. Not necessarily, but this plane can in fact be very small, perhaps as small or even smaller than F-16.
5. Wings look rather long.
6.adaptable engines are basic feature of the package.
Summary: likely light(even against expectations, though it was already expected to be smaller than F-22). Given presence of canards and highly advanced (towards efficiency across flight modes) engines, likely meant to fly very far.
Speculations:
4. Fuselage shape smells drone variant(just "remove" cockpit in your imagination). Likely aimed at high incriment dedicated loyal wingman in the future, and almost certainly meant to operate with them normally. Not just "command" them, but be *part* of them. Which will also amplify stealth of manned component - not directly, but through similarity of "blinking" LO airframes.
I wonder how high are Boeing chances here, though, given that USAF is doing everything to prevent vendor lock.
5. Lightness speculation, together with obvious high integration with CCAs, probably means that something has to give.
In F-22, range was sacrificed. In F-35 it was aerodynamic performance(efficiency). Here, I feel it will be IWB depth.
LWs, F-35s and B-21s can carry voluminous payloads.
If you aim at a bay capable of only AIM-260s and future WVR missiles, it can be extremely shallow, or even conformal(bays). APKWS in bay doors?
6. If lightness speculation is true, it's unlikely USAF sees DEW as it's future. Maybe F-35 and B-21 are seen as more suitable.
7. Maneuver performance is still viewed as important.
8. Numbers are seen as important, and general vector of buying 1 7th gen aircraft by 2054 as wrong. Which is very refreshing.
Overall, given how much US fun community now burns and copes(oval office release as misinformation), USAF most certainly managed to surprise community. While it's certainly funny to watch meltdowns, I won't be exactly as optimistic as to expect that USAF doesn't know what it wants, or can't get it.
Yes, it does feel like canarded fighter mafia's sweet revenge. But a very advanced and forward-looking one.
1. Photos hide rear, but also emphasize supersonic flight.
2. Canards - supersonic stability (and performance), but also apparently maneuver requirements were maintained. Lile it, hate it - canards will hit high frequency LO. But won't kill it(after all, it's Boeing, i.e. an obvious bird of prey descendant). Low frequency one can still be wastly better than 5th gen. No easy L-band workarounds.
Maneuverability will help such aircraft to operate at low altitudes; it will help it in both wvr(which it probably very much capable of reaching) and contested bvr.
3. Huge(relatively) cockpit and relatively weak, single wheel frontal chassis. Not necessarily, but this plane can in fact be very small, perhaps as small or even smaller than F-16.
5. Wings look rather long.
6.adaptable engines are basic feature of the package.
Summary: likely light(even against expectations, though it was already expected to be smaller than F-22). Given presence of canards and highly advanced (towards efficiency across flight modes) engines, likely meant to fly very far.
Speculations:
4. Fuselage shape smells drone variant(just "remove" cockpit in your imagination). Likely aimed at high incriment dedicated loyal wingman in the future, and almost certainly meant to operate with them normally. Not just "command" them, but be *part* of them. Which will also amplify stealth of manned component - not directly, but through similarity of "blinking" LO airframes.
I wonder how high are Boeing chances here, though, given that USAF is doing everything to prevent vendor lock.
5. Lightness speculation, together with obvious high integration with CCAs, probably means that something has to give.
In F-22, range was sacrificed. In F-35 it was aerodynamic performance(efficiency). Here, I feel it will be IWB depth.
LWs, F-35s and B-21s can carry voluminous payloads.
If you aim at a bay capable of only AIM-260s and future WVR missiles, it can be extremely shallow, or even conformal(bays). APKWS in bay doors?
6. If lightness speculation is true, it's unlikely USAF sees DEW as it's future. Maybe F-35 and B-21 are seen as more suitable.
7. Maneuver performance is still viewed as important.
8. Numbers are seen as important, and general vector of buying 1 7th gen aircraft by 2054 as wrong. Which is very refreshing.
Overall, given how much US fun community now burns and copes(oval office release as misinformation), USAF most certainly managed to surprise community. While it's certainly funny to watch meltdowns, I won't be exactly as optimistic as to expect that USAF doesn't know what it wants, or can't get it.
Yes, it does feel like canarded fighter mafia's sweet revenge. But a very advanced and forward-looking one.
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My bet is they'll build a couple of prototypes and then the program gets axed, which won't even be a problem because Boeing got the bailout and they'll announce they're skipping 6th gen European style
The root problem is unrealistic and mutually contradictory requirement: America is defining this program as air dominance, or at least air superiority, so by definition it must be at minimum superior to J-36 and J-50. At the same time they also require it, or should I say their financial situation requires them to constrain cost to below F-22.
At this point they don't have much info on J-36 and J-50, and they haven't spent money on it yet, but knowledge of both J-36/50 and program cost will emerge at around the same time, and they're inevitably heading toward a moment where they compare how much they're spending with what it's up against, and have to make a decision on which requirement to abandon, but their pride will prohibit them from abandoning the former, while their finances prohibits them from abandoning the latter, and in either case by that point it'll be way too late to abandon either.
This already happened to NGAD when they put it on pause for Trump to deal with, Trump being Trump has no idea what's going on, but engineering reality hasn't changed.
Yes. That is in much better shape. Two prototypes built. But not tested in flight. They cancelled f-35 integration. Now two actual engines in EMD.
Other programs will get cancelled before NGAD. Only 3-4 other programs are more important. And at this point that have all the leverage over Boeing.