US F/A-XX and F-X 6th Gen Aircraft News Thread

Brumby

Brumby

Major
Adaptive cycle engine enters final phase of development

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The US Air Force has awarded two five-year development contracts to GE Aviation and Pratt & Whitney worth up to $1 billion each to continue development of a next-generation military jet engine and prepare for an anticipated competition in the early 2020s for the chance to power a new combat aircraft and possibly re-engine the Lockheed Martin F-35.

The awards of the Adaptive Engine Transition Programme (AETP) contracts to GE and P&W on 30 June extends a nearly 10-year effort to introduce a fuel-saving cruise mode into an engine intended for a supersonic fighter. Both contractors will develop and test multiple new centreline engines sized at a 45,000lb-thrust level.

“We believe GE is best positioned to integrate the adaptive suite of technologies into existing and next-generation combat aircraft,” says Dan McCormick, general manager of GE Aviation's Advanced Combat Engine programmes.

P&W was not immediately available for comment.

The USAF is developing concepts for replacing the Lockheed F-22 after 2030, which includes updating existing designs with new technology. Re-engining the F-35 with an adaptive cycle, 45,000lb-thrust engine is also under study.

An adaptive-cycle engine is intended to address a design limitation in modern powerplants. An engine optimised for subsonic speed is more fuel-efficient, but cannot easily exceed the speed of sound. A supersonic engine, however, can accelerate over Mach 1.0 but is limited in range because it guzzles fuel.

The AETP programme continues development of a technology that could make supersonic engines 25% more fuel-efficient, thus extending the range of a fighter by as much as 30%, according to GE.

There are two kinds of airflow in modern engines. One airflow enters the engine core, mixes with fuel, combusts and generates energy to power the gas turbine machinery and create thrust. Another portion of the airflow enters the inlet and then bypasses the core, generating thrust without the need to consume any fuel directly. An adaptive cycle engine proposes to add a secondary stream of bypass airflow in cruise speed conditions. This secondary duct can be shut off when it’s necessary to accelerate rapidly.

The USAF launched the technology development programme in 2007 with adaptive versatile engine technology programme with GE. P&W and GE then participated in the adaptive engine technology demonstration (AETD) programme that began in 2012. AETD is expected to end later this year.
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SamuraiBlue

SamuraiBlue

Captain
Here is another 6th generation fighter plan.

Airbus reveals Tornado successor concept for 2040s
At a briefing in Munich, Airbus Defence & Space unveiled a glimpse of a future strike fighter concept of the 2030-40s designed to replace the Tornado. TIM ROBINSON reports.

With a growing realisation that it needs to think about modernising parts of its aging front-line force, in January, the German Bundeswehr released a White Paper on future plans and proposals. One of these, the Next Generation Weapon System (NGWS) is intended to replace the Tornado which the Luftwaffe may keep in service until 2040 – some 20 years after the RAF will have retired its last GR4.

Among the many and varied presentations covering A400M, MRTT, and light and medium products at the annual Airbus Defence and Space (AirbusDS) TMB (Trade Media Briefing) in Munich this year, also saw the company unveil its concept for a FCAS (Future Combat Air System) to meet the Luftwaffe‘s evolving requirement for the 2030-40 timeframe.

Though it is still early days and the concept is still notional, it did reveal some of the company’s thinking around its FCAS. Interestingly the twin-engine, twin-tail stealth design would be a twin-seat design, according to Alberto Gutierrez, Head of Eurofighter Programme, Airbus DS. The second crewmember may be especially important for the FCAS concept of operations, which would see it operate in a wider battle network, potentially as a command and control asset or UCAV/UAV mission commander.

Another presentation on UAVs during TMB16, also shed light on the FCAS concept of operations. AirbusDS foresee it is not a strike aircraft in itself - but rather part of a 'system of systems' – with this manned strike platform networked with Eurofighters, unmanned bomb or missile 'mules' and even UAV swarms. FCAS, says AirbuDS, is conceptualised to be a platform able to slot into a scalable system..... to read more
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Brumby

Brumby

Major
As Air Force Shrinks, Officials Look For New Ways to Amass Firepower

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WASHINGTON — The Air Force’s current fleet of aircraft is the smallest and oldest it has ever been, and although a plethora of acquisition programs are slated to update it with new capabilities, service officials are concerned about its ability to control the skies and strike targets at will.

The service is banking on future technologies that can bring additional firepower to the battlefield without having to buy new aircraft, relying instead on unmanned aerial systems (UAS), modified legacy planes and advanced weaponry.

“Warfare is still about amassing firepower at a time and place in space, whether it’s in the air or on the ground,” outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh told Defense News in June ahead of his retirement later that month. “And amassing firepower means you need weapons, you need precision, and you need the ability to target.”

“We have platforms and sensors that can provide that. We just don’t have the mass firepower available in every scenario we might face because we have shrunk the size of our force,” he said. “So if you can’t bring as many airplanes to the fight, maybe you’ve got to figure a way to bring more weapons to the fight.”

One of the most highly anticipated ways of doing that is the so-called "arsenal plane" under development by the Pentagon’s secretive Strategic Capabilities Office. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter revealed the existence of the outfit, which seeks near-term advancements by modifying and repackaging existing technologies for new uses, earlier this year.
SCO’s arsenal plane concept will take an older airframe — the office has not yet divulged which platform is to be used — and load it with a large amount of precision-guided munitions. During combat, fifth-generation fighters would penetrate the enemy’s airspace and provide targeting information to the arsenal plane, which could then take out adversaries from standoff distances, said SCO director William Roper during the Defense One Technology Summit.

Welsh said he wasn’t sure if the arsenal plane concept would ultimately be adopted by the Air Force, but that it “absolutely” should be developed further because of the service’s dire need for more firepower.

“Let’s say we get no new force structure for the next twenty years and we’re stuck with what we have, what we have on the books today. If you want to do air superiority on a broader scale than a hundred and eighty-seven F-22s will allow you to do it, the real thing you run out of at first in the forward edge of the battle space is weapons,” he said.

SCO also has high hopes for the “loyal wingman” concept, which gives pilots in manned fifth-generation planes control of an unmanned fourth-generation fighter — allowing, for example, a pilot to fly his F-35 and an unmanned F-16 simultaneously.

“We're probably not ready to build an unmanned fighter that just goes out alone. We're going to have to team it with a piloted system,” Roper said. “What an unmanned system really gives us is the ability to do maneuvers that we wouldn't do with a pilot, carry payloads that might not be safe to have on a manned system, and to put in a little more risk than we would put when we put a pilot in.”

Both SCO and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which aims to develop long-term breakthroughs, are focusing on technology related to swarming unmanned aerial systems, or UAS. One of SCO’s projects involves the creation of cheap, expendable micro-drones that can be carried and deployed by tactical aircraft, but do not need to be recovered, Roper said.

On the other side of the technology curve is DARPA’s Gremlins program, which would make deployable UAS recoverable, allowing the services to operate unmanned systems with more expensive payloads, said its deputy director, Steven Walker. Phase one contracts for concept development have been awarded to Composite Engineering, Dynetics, General Atomics and Lockheed Martin.

Other technologies DARPA is working on include software to aid the decision making of pilots in manned-unmanned teams, as well as payloads that would give UAS different effects, such as electronic warfare capabilities, he said at the Defense One event.

The agency also is investing heavily in hypersonic weapons, including a hypersonic air-breathing missile and a boost-glide vehicle, with the hopes that these super-fast and maneuverable munitions increase the survivability of aircraft. Walker stressed that these weapons will become available in the near future, calling them a “today” technology.

“I would say we're closer on hypersonics than we are with directed energy in terms of making that a real capability” he said. “I look forward to that being a key part of any U.S. air posture in the future.”
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IMO marrying an existing platform as the arsenal plane to 5th gen is fundamentally flawed because their RCS profile dictates an operating distance at least 200 nm from sensor threat. LPI com. link such as MADL to my knowledge has an effective range of less than 100 nm.
 
Jura The idiot

Jura The idiot

General
Brumby said:
As Air Force Shrinks, Officials Look For New Ways to Amass Firepower

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IMO marrying an existing platform as the arsenal plane to 5th gen is fundamentally flawed because their RCS profile dictates an operating distance at least 200 nm from sensor threat. LPI com. link such as MADL to my knowledge has an effective range of less than 100 nm.
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how does it fit to your presentation:
Jun 27, 2016
Brumby said:
System of systems air warfare
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? EDIT I mean did you drop the mission truck from your video yet? :)
 
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