Yeah, I don't think it's prudent to take any pictures of a tailless fighter and assume that it's the F-47. When the US is willing to finally show it off they'll do so with a ton of fanfare so we won't mistake it for anything else. As it's more and more likely that the F-47's design hasn't been finalized yet, it's way too early to take any of the art representative of the real thing.
US F/A-XX and F-X & NGAD - 6th Gen Aircraft News Thread
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
What is the likelihood "The Committee" succeeds in getting the F/A-XX heavily funded to the detriment of other important programs?
"U.S. officials say a key driver behind this decision is a fear that America’s industrial base cannot develop and produce two different advanced stealth fighters simultaneously."
So its official. They acknowledge that their industrial base may not be able to match that of their greatest rival, and so have pragmatically chosen to focus on a single 6th-gen fighter project rather than try two and fail at both.
The only headscratcher is why they've decided to focus on the USAF fighter and not the USN plane. America's lack of strategic depth in WESTPAC means that even if they had the best land-based fighter in the world, it would be hard-pressed to fight without safe bases where it can launch with combat loads. Having their only 6th-gen fighter be the Navy's carrier-borne mainstay makes sense, it being essentially an F-22 replacement that also cannot fight over the Pacific does not. Unless they really believe the F-47 will have revolutionary improvements in combat radius?
Could also just be that the air force has more institutional power/influence in the US than the navy?
At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if the USN's F/A-XX program is eventually forcefully merged with the USAF's F-47 program going forward, for "budgetary-saving" reasons.
Or, you know, just cut the crap and raise that military budget to 5% of the US GDP (and we all know how that's still going to be lol).
If that happens then it won't be much different from the F35 program with versions for both the navy and air force (though I think Marines will get screwed this time).