The World's 4th, 4.5 & 5th Generation Fighters
- Thread starter Semi-Lobster
- Start date
airsuperiority
Captain
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
well he's sucking his thumb and pointing at the girl in the magazine. i tried to tell him no cuz 1, it's just a picture, and 2, those ones in the picture are fake. but then my uncle's telling me to give wt the nephew wants...so i might as well
well he's sucking his thumb and pointing at the girl in the magazine. i tried to tell him no cuz 1, it's just a picture, and 2, those ones in the picture are fake. but then my uncle's telling me to give wt the nephew wants...so i might as well
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
Education of the next generation is always our priority
.
As many have stated before if the design is true then the 6th gen stealth fighter will completely forgo manueverability in favor of stealth. Not exactly the best of ideas considering how that turned out for the F-4.
Education of the next generation is always our priority
.As many have stated before if the design is true then the 6th gen stealth fighter will completely forgo manueverability in favor of stealth. Not exactly the best of ideas considering how that turned out for the F-4.
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
It's not real 'yet' and ehile the pcis are artist impression, I wouldn't necessarily call it fan boy art since it came from Boeing and not some kid with pirated Photoshop in his PC.
anyway here is the full article...
Boeing unveils strike fighter options
Boeing used the show to reveal two concepts for a stealthy, tailless, supercruising strike fighter to replace the US Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornets after 2025.
Both twin-engine concepts, which feature optionally piloted cockpits, resemble a modern-day replacement for the ill-fated A-12 Avenger. The carrier-based stealth bomber project was cancelled in 1991 amid cost overruns and technical problems.
But the provisionally 9g-rated airframes also reflect the air-to-air performance once provided by the Grumman F-14, says Dave Thieman, a development official in Boeing's advanced global strike systems division.
Talk of replacing the F/A-18E/F, which entered service from 1999, may seem premature, but the earliest stages of the navy's acquisition process have already started.
"They're going to need [replacement] vehicles beyond 2025," says Thieman.
In June 2008, navy officials unveiled an F/A-XX requirement, including manned and unmanned airframe options.
More recently, the service has renamed the requirement as next generation air dominance (NGAD), seeking to widen the possibilities to include new airframes or land-based systems, such as missiles.
An analysis of alternatives is expected to start in late 2011, potentially leading to a technology demonstration phase with competing prototypes about two years later. Boeing's rivals are likely to include both manned and unmanned options.
For Boeing, NGAD represents a strategic opportunity to re-enter the US market for next-generation strike aircraft, which seemed lost after Lockheed Martin claimed the Joint Strike Fighter contract.
Boeing officials have focused on the navy's thinking for a Super Hornet replacement that remains at least 15 years away.
The company understands that its potential customer wants a replacement with more engine power to supercruise, with the low observable aircraft to also carry internal weapons, distributed sensors and have extreme agility.
"It's a [Lockheed] F-22 on the carrier," Thieman says.
Meanwhile, the US Air Force has launched a capabilities-based analysis for an F-22 replacement. Like the Super Hornet, the fighter remains in active production, but the air force expects a replacement will be required after 2025.
If funding for a replacement programme can be found, there is likely to be pressure for the air force and navy to launch a joint technology demonstration.
In that situation, the air force may require a bigger airframe than a carrier-based fighter, though the projects could share common engines, systems and weapons, Thieman believes.
It's not real 'yet' and ehile the pcis are artist impression, I wouldn't necessarily call it fan boy art since it came from Boeing and not some kid with pirated Photoshop in his PC.
anyway here is the full article...
Boeing unveils strike fighter options
Boeing used the show to reveal two concepts for a stealthy, tailless, supercruising strike fighter to replace the US Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornets after 2025.
Both twin-engine concepts, which feature optionally piloted cockpits, resemble a modern-day replacement for the ill-fated A-12 Avenger. The carrier-based stealth bomber project was cancelled in 1991 amid cost overruns and technical problems.
But the provisionally 9g-rated airframes also reflect the air-to-air performance once provided by the Grumman F-14, says Dave Thieman, a development official in Boeing's advanced global strike systems division.
Talk of replacing the F/A-18E/F, which entered service from 1999, may seem premature, but the earliest stages of the navy's acquisition process have already started.
"They're going to need [replacement] vehicles beyond 2025," says Thieman.
In June 2008, navy officials unveiled an F/A-XX requirement, including manned and unmanned airframe options.
More recently, the service has renamed the requirement as next generation air dominance (NGAD), seeking to widen the possibilities to include new airframes or land-based systems, such as missiles.
An analysis of alternatives is expected to start in late 2011, potentially leading to a technology demonstration phase with competing prototypes about two years later. Boeing's rivals are likely to include both manned and unmanned options.
For Boeing, NGAD represents a strategic opportunity to re-enter the US market for next-generation strike aircraft, which seemed lost after Lockheed Martin claimed the Joint Strike Fighter contract.
Boeing officials have focused on the navy's thinking for a Super Hornet replacement that remains at least 15 years away.
The company understands that its potential customer wants a replacement with more engine power to supercruise, with the low observable aircraft to also carry internal weapons, distributed sensors and have extreme agility.
"It's a [Lockheed] F-22 on the carrier," Thieman says.
Meanwhile, the US Air Force has launched a capabilities-based analysis for an F-22 replacement. Like the Super Hornet, the fighter remains in active production, but the air force expects a replacement will be required after 2025.
If funding for a replacement programme can be found, there is likely to be pressure for the air force and navy to launch a joint technology demonstration.
In that situation, the air force may require a bigger airframe than a carrier-based fighter, though the projects could share common engines, systems and weapons, Thieman believes.
Semi-Lobster
Junior Member
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
Not the same article, but here is a link confirming that it is a Boeing concept design for a future aircraft, so its not necessarily a finalized design at all.
Not the same article, but here is a link confirming that it is a Boeing concept design for a future aircraft, so its not necessarily a finalized design at all.
bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
An article in the Economist may provide a answer. "Fluidic Controls" or with the advent of modern materials maybe "wing warping" is now a possibility.
.........But ailerons add weight and complexity to a wing. They also generate a lot of the radar reflections that designers of stealthy aircraft wish to eliminate. Finding a way to do without ailerons while avoiding the tedious business of having to warp the whole wing would thus be a good idea. And a group of researchers in Britain think they have one.
FLAVIIR, the Flapless Air Vehicle Integrated Industrial Research project, is a consortium of Cranfield University and nine other British universities, working in conjunction with BAE Systems, a defence contractor. Its pioneering effort, an aircraft called Demon, is a remote-controlled, delta-winged drone, 2.7 metres (106 inches) from wingtip to wingtip, that is powered by a small jet engine. Nothing particularly odd about that. But, in addition to ailerons, the wing is fitted with what the project’s engineers refer to as fluidic controls.
Instead of moving a physical surface, fluidic controls divert the airflow over a wing by blowing compressed air out of narrow slots. Each side of Demon’s delta wing has one row of these slots in the upper part of its trailing edge and another on the lower part. When one row on one side blows air at a higher pressure than the other it causes the airflow over the trailing edge on that side to bend up or down, in exactly the way that an aileron would, and the plane rolls accordingly. The ailerons, fitted as a back-up, in case the fluidic controls did not perform as hoped, are thus redundant.
FLAVIIR’s researchers have come up with a range of designs for these fluidic controls. Philip John, the technical director of the project, says the version used on Demon has the compressed air entering a single chamber within a wing’s trailing edge. This chamber contains a slightly eccentric cylinder which can be rotated to make either the upper or the lower slots bigger. On Demon, the air is produced from a seperately powered compressor, but in a production version it could be drawn from the engine.
Once enough data have been gathered from Demon, either a larger demonstration aircraft will be built or the system could be tested by converting an existing plane. The Demon system’s success in controlling roll, one of the three axes of movement of a body in free space, is also leading engineers to wonder if the other two axes, pitch and yaw, might similarly be transferred to fluidic systems from, respectively, the elevator flaps on the tailplane and the rudder on the tail. The result, they hope, will be aircraft that are lighter and easier to maintain—and invisible to the enemy.
Sorry, but I don't see anything that makes it turn. Perhaps, you can show me
An article in the Economist may provide a answer. "Fluidic Controls" or with the advent of modern materials maybe "wing warping" is now a possibility.
.........But ailerons add weight and complexity to a wing. They also generate a lot of the radar reflections that designers of stealthy aircraft wish to eliminate. Finding a way to do without ailerons while avoiding the tedious business of having to warp the whole wing would thus be a good idea. And a group of researchers in Britain think they have one.
FLAVIIR, the Flapless Air Vehicle Integrated Industrial Research project, is a consortium of Cranfield University and nine other British universities, working in conjunction with BAE Systems, a defence contractor. Its pioneering effort, an aircraft called Demon, is a remote-controlled, delta-winged drone, 2.7 metres (106 inches) from wingtip to wingtip, that is powered by a small jet engine. Nothing particularly odd about that. But, in addition to ailerons, the wing is fitted with what the project’s engineers refer to as fluidic controls.
Instead of moving a physical surface, fluidic controls divert the airflow over a wing by blowing compressed air out of narrow slots. Each side of Demon’s delta wing has one row of these slots in the upper part of its trailing edge and another on the lower part. When one row on one side blows air at a higher pressure than the other it causes the airflow over the trailing edge on that side to bend up or down, in exactly the way that an aileron would, and the plane rolls accordingly. The ailerons, fitted as a back-up, in case the fluidic controls did not perform as hoped, are thus redundant.
FLAVIIR’s researchers have come up with a range of designs for these fluidic controls. Philip John, the technical director of the project, says the version used on Demon has the compressed air entering a single chamber within a wing’s trailing edge. This chamber contains a slightly eccentric cylinder which can be rotated to make either the upper or the lower slots bigger. On Demon, the air is produced from a seperately powered compressor, but in a production version it could be drawn from the engine.
Once enough data have been gathered from Demon, either a larger demonstration aircraft will be built or the system could be tested by converting an existing plane. The Demon system’s success in controlling roll, one of the three axes of movement of a body in free space, is also leading engineers to wonder if the other two axes, pitch and yaw, might similarly be transferred to fluidic systems from, respectively, the elevator flaps on the tailplane and the rudder on the tail. The result, they hope, will be aircraft that are lighter and easier to maintain—and invisible to the enemy.
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bladerunner
Banned Idiot
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
Modern re-assessment
Wing morphing is a modern extension of wing warping in which the aerodynamic shape of the wing is modified under computer control. The technique, it is hoped, will give improved control at flying speeds near the speed of sound where traditional control surfaces are less effective. Wing warping and wing morphing are also currently used to get extra control over an aircraft during difficult times such as in a storm. Research into this field is mainly conducted by NASA. CERN in Europe is also trying some of its finds on miniaturised models of several aircraft to better their aerodynamics, response, and control in flight or near the speed of sound. Airbus is also rumoured to be trying some of this technology on its test planes
Modern re-assessment
Wing morphing is a modern extension of wing warping in which the aerodynamic shape of the wing is modified under computer control. The technique, it is hoped, will give improved control at flying speeds near the speed of sound where traditional control surfaces are less effective. Wing warping and wing morphing are also currently used to get extra control over an aircraft during difficult times such as in a storm. Research into this field is mainly conducted by NASA. CERN in Europe is also trying some of its finds on miniaturised models of several aircraft to better their aerodynamics, response, and control in flight or near the speed of sound. Airbus is also rumoured to be trying some of this technology on its test planes
Re: glimpse of future Gen 5++ fighter
Guys, regarding the turn capabilities of a flying wing design, you do realize that an aircraft does normaly NOT use it's rudders to commence a turn but that it rolls and then pitches up, right. Turning is basicly climbing around a circle. Vertical stabilizers are there mostly to provide directional stability, with a rudder to allow some heading correctings (the direction in wich the nose is pointing) e.g. for crosswind corrections.
Only in slow speed, high AOA maneuvering will a rudder probably be used to roll an A/C and then make it turn that way, as ailerons become progressively less effective in these regimes, while rudder effectiveness increases. (That's most prominantly true for swept wing designs, of course)
Directional stability on a flying wing is the bigges issue there, and it's an issue for fighter sized manned assets at first, as the cockpit structure is a relatively big part were air can act on the airframe in front of the center of gravitiy. That needs to be precisely counteracted, a job for really fast computers. Differential power settings are probably to slow I guess. And I also believe 3D TVC is not that usefull and defeats the VLO efforts.
The plane will probably be pitch unstable and I'd assume it'll be really maneuverable, maybe even via 2D TVC, or via these airflow systems, and that principle of deflecting air flow with airflow to move an A/C also works to achive TVC without moving nozzle parts.
In the end, a bit maneuverability might be given up for stealth increases, but it's not that bad really, and the rudders have always been a big RCS issue.
Btw, scaling the cockpits of that concept and a SH to the same size makes the two A/C appear rather close in size to me, with the F/A-XX having more wing area to store more fuel, thus perhaps allwoing to relinquish the need for external tanks.
Guys, regarding the turn capabilities of a flying wing design, you do realize that an aircraft does normaly NOT use it's rudders to commence a turn but that it rolls and then pitches up, right. Turning is basicly climbing around a circle. Vertical stabilizers are there mostly to provide directional stability, with a rudder to allow some heading correctings (the direction in wich the nose is pointing) e.g. for crosswind corrections.
Only in slow speed, high AOA maneuvering will a rudder probably be used to roll an A/C and then make it turn that way, as ailerons become progressively less effective in these regimes, while rudder effectiveness increases. (That's most prominantly true for swept wing designs, of course)
Directional stability on a flying wing is the bigges issue there, and it's an issue for fighter sized manned assets at first, as the cockpit structure is a relatively big part were air can act on the airframe in front of the center of gravitiy. That needs to be precisely counteracted, a job for really fast computers. Differential power settings are probably to slow I guess. And I also believe 3D TVC is not that usefull and defeats the VLO efforts.
The plane will probably be pitch unstable and I'd assume it'll be really maneuverable, maybe even via 2D TVC, or via these airflow systems, and that principle of deflecting air flow with airflow to move an A/C also works to achive TVC without moving nozzle parts.
In the end, a bit maneuverability might be given up for stealth increases, but it's not that bad really, and the rudders have always been a big RCS issue.
Btw, scaling the cockpits of that concept and a SH to the same size makes the two A/C appear rather close in size to me, with the F/A-XX having more wing area to store more fuel, thus perhaps allwoing to relinquish the need for external tanks.
Re: Boeing's answer to the 4.5 gen aircraft market
Another update on the original topic, the F-15 Silent Eagle. Boing has signed a deal with Korea Aerospace Industries. KAI will design, develop and manufacture the conformal weapon bays for the jet. These can be put on new F-15SE or retrofitted to older Strike Eagle variants.
SK is also still looking for a third batch of aircraft for it's F-X fighter buy.
Another update on the original topic, the F-15 Silent Eagle. Boing has signed a deal with Korea Aerospace Industries. KAI will design, develop and manufacture the conformal weapon bays for the jet. These can be put on new F-15SE or retrofitted to older Strike Eagle variants.
SK is also still looking for a third batch of aircraft for it's F-X fighter buy.