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

[FORBIN]

F/A-XX is also expected with a very long range F-35 have a decent superior to Hornet but not than F-14 retired, A-6E also
Here

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F-14 Tomcat: The Navy Fighter It Wishes It Could Bring Back from the Dead

The Navy’s F/A-XX program could be used to fill the service’s air superiority gap—which has essentially been left open since the F-14’s retirement and the demise of the NATF and A/F-X programs. But the problem is that the Navy is pursuing the F/A-XX as a multirole Super Hornet replacement rather than an air superiority-oriented machine. “The danger in its development is that it suboptimizes the fighter role in the quest for a hybrid fighter/attack jet,” the Hudson Institute report notes. “This would leave the Joint Force without a carrier-based sixth generation air superiority fighter.”

While the requirement for a carrier-based long-range strike capability is a frequent subject of discussion around Washington, the U.S. Navy’s need for improved air superiority capabilities is often neglected.

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[Air Force Brat]

F/A-XX is also expected with a very long range F-35 have a decent superior to Hornet but not than F-14 retired, A-6E also
Here

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actually this is "ole twitter dave", imagining along with other old fellows that the Navy wants the "Turkey" back, they don't, they couldn't wait to get rid of the Turkey, (beautiful wench that she was!),,,, because she was kind-of a "Turkey". Even the Naval Aviator's had a love/hate relationship with the "Tomkat".

Surprisingly the Super Hornet is really a very good fourth generation aircraft, (I say surprisingly because the "scale upgrades" rarely carry up the "Sweetness" that made the original) Hornet such a good airplane, but Boeing got the Super Hornet, "just right" as "Goldilocks" would say..

I do agree that F/A-XX does need to have a very robust A2A personality, something at least akin to the F-22,, but the F-35C is a much better A2A airplane than "twitter Dave" gives it credit for, (yes the block 5 upgrade to six AIM-120s can't come to soon), while retaining all the A2G sweetness that it will become known for!

one more thing I have noted about "Twitter", it seems the Twitter personalities, really are just "tweeting to each other",, kinda some little "glorified" chorus of defense journo's... they really don't seem to notice the real world around them, and yes I am principally talking about those who live in and around the "Washington DC" area,,, kinda sad, cause some of them seem to be nice people,, who really love their "cats"???

 

[aonestudio]

Estimating future air dominance

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[Air Force Brat]

Estimating future air dominance

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This is a "bean counter" type approach! note he sights cost overruns, and whines and cries about money spent, but completely ignores the fact that the F-22 is still the air-dominance fighter of record....

author also suggests using aluminum, when titanium is the best material for high stress heavy load article??

NOT SMART!, look at the Titanium bulkhead that was replaced on the F-35B with an aluminum article in order to "save weight"??? and which bulkhead on the F-35B is problematic with stress fractures/cracking? which bulkhead threatens to cut short the number of total airframe hours and reduce the life-span of the F-35B?

the author also encourages relaxing L/O requirements and going for an OK RCS, when superior RCS is available!

so the "bookkeeper" approach will bring us a new level of mediocrity, he's obviously not a fighter pilot nor an engineer first, but your "Momma", telling you not to spend all that money on a nice roadbike that will last for years, but just go to Walmart, and buy that "cheap junk" made as cheaply as possible,,, I recently bought one of those, you couldn't even tighten the handlebar stem, the product was so far out of spec...

there are lots of airplanes down through history that have been built using Mr. Stems approach, where are they now??? gone to the scrap heap,, the F-22 was built to a very high standard, the cost went up as the unknowing cut production and capped it around 187 aircraft, instead of the planned buy of 700+ aircraft, that's the most damaging factor driving up aircraft cost per article..

so, Welcome aboard! when you do post an article, please be advised to add your own perspective, kinda let us know where you're "coming from"?

 

[Jura The idiot]

This is a "bean counter" type approach! note he sights cost overruns, and whines and cries about money spent, but completely ignores the fact that the F-22 is still the air-dominance fighter of record....

author also suggests using aluminum, when titanium is the best material for high stress heavy load article??

NOT SMART!, look at the Titanium bulkhead that was replaced on the F-35B with an aluminum article in order to "save weight"??? and which bulkhead on the F-35B is problematic with stress fractures/cracking? which bulkhead threatens to cut short the number of total airframe hours and reduce the life-span of the F-35B?

the author also encourages relaxing L/O requirements and going for an OK RCS, when superior RCS is available!

so the "bookkeeper" approach will bring us a new level of mediocrity, he's obviously not a fighter pilot nor an engineer first, but your "Momma", telling you not to spend all that money on a nice roadbike that will last for years, but just go to Walmart, and buy that "cheap junk" made as cheaply as possible,,, I recently bought one of those, you couldn't even tighten the handlebar stem, the product was so far out of spec...

there are lots of airplanes down through history that have been built using Mr. Stems approach, where are they now??? gone to the scrap heap,, the F-22 was built to a very high standard, the cost went up as the unknowing cut production and capped it around 187 aircraft, instead of the planned buy of 700+ aircraft, that's the most damaging factor driving up aircraft cost per article..

so, Welcome aboard! when you do post an article, please be advised to add your own perspective, kinda let us know where you're "coming from"?

now come the FlightGlobal story USAF analyst suggests ways to avoid cost overruns on 6th-gen fighter

09 August, 2018

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The Aircraft and Weapons division chief with the US Air Force Cost Analysis Agency has made a series of suggestions in a research paper for keeping the price of a sixth generation fighter down after analysing a myriad of cost-overruns by the B-2, F-22 and F-35 programmes.

A reoccurring theme throughout many of the suggested measures is a need for the USAF to maintain a disciplined focus on a narrow set of unchanging priorities for their next generation fighter. The research paper was presented at an International Cost Estimating and Analysis Association workshop in June 2018.

One suggestion is that the USAF develop their next aircraft by focusing on one major item at a time and then incrementally adding other system upgrades – an approach that has worked on previous aircraft programmes.

“As in the case of the F/A-18E/F, an incremental approach was followed that began with a new airframe, but used existing avionics,” wrote David E. Stem, Aircraft and Weapons division chief with the USAF Cost Analysis Agency and author of the paper. “As time progressed and avionics technology could be developed outside the main program, it could then be incorporated into the aircraft.”

This focused, incremental approach is contrasted with a history of making major changes to several features of military aircraft at once, while moving from the prototyping stage to the engineering, manufacturing and development phase, a practice that was especially true of the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme, says Stem.

“The desire to enter production before development was completed resulted in a concurrency between the two phases of the program where design changes were being fed to aircraft already in production,” he says. “Traveled work, essentially manufacturing retrofits, plagued the test aircraft as they were being produced causing delays in the flight testing. It also caused early production aircraft to be delivered that did not meet the full capability as outlined in the [system development and demonstration] contract.”

The report recommended building off a prototype design that is production representative, citing the F-16 as an example of a light weight fighter that largely was unchanged when it went into full-scale development and production.

A few of the suggested changes fly in the face of the USAF’s philosophy of modern fighter design and would force the service to majorly rethink its operations, however.

One such recommendation is that the service relax its radar cross section requirements. The desire for stealth drives many design tradeoffs with systems such as internal avionics, internal weapons, internal fuel, making it difficult to accommodate changes to the aircraft later, says Stem.

The USAF has built much of its strategic thinking around stealth technology, including its upcoming heavy bomber, the Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider, and so reducing an emphasis on an aircraft’s radar cross section would be a major change.

Another proposal is to challenge designers to use less software in their aircraft functionality. Software development snags have frequently caused delays and cost overruns on the F-22 and F-35.

However, that suggestion is counter to the prevailing trend of evermore software-controlled functions on aircraft. For example, in 1960, software accounted for 8% of the functionality in the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, compared with 80% of the functionality in the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor in 2010, according to research published in the Air and Space Power Journal.

 

[Air Force Brat]

The US is about to start official analysis and consideration of the F/A-XX 6th generation stealth aircraft for the US Navy.

This thread will be about the two following US military 6th generation stealth aircraft programs.

The US Navy F/A-XX 6th Generation Aircraft program
The US Air Force F-X 6th Generation Aircraft program

The Navy is scheduled to make a selection for production by 2030 so that F/A-18E/F Super Hornets can begin to be replaced after 2035.

The US Air Force Program to replace the F-15C/D aircraft, and then later the F-22A aircraft is expected to meet roughly the same schedule, with the F-22s being replaced many years later of course, after the F-15s are all replaced.

Here is some news to start the thread:

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A couple of more F/A-XX pictures from Boeing:

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And here is of concept art from Lockheed for the F-X aircraft:

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See my

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Here we go Anzha, post about 6 Gens and sweet dreams to your hearts content!

 

[anzha]

This is more Europe focused, but...

Next Generation Combat Aircraft
Threat Outlook and Potential Solutions

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[Brumby]

I can't find the old thread on the sixth generation fighter and so I will create a new one. Since the nature and direction of the program is not necessarily platform centric but rather systems centric it probably is appropriate to expand the meaning to include associated systems and their future developments.

There is an article in the March edition of Air International discussing the root of the program and how various technological themes are coalescing around the program. Below is an excerpt from the article.

An Air Force requirement for an F-22 follow-on was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) in 2011. However, rather than moving to meet this requirement, the Air Force has been devoting time and effort to helping decide what should be the next step, looking at options in its Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan document, produced by the Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team led by Brigadier General Alex Grynkewich and published in 2016. However, the Flight Plan was not about a sixth-generation fighter. Indeed, the document considered the generational paradigm obsolete. Instead it aimed to identify – rather than planning for or building – capabilities needed to solve operational or strategic problems in the limited time available, requiring acquisition agility and parallel development of technologies that could be inserted into the programme at the right time. Achieving this will require synchronising multiple development efforts and using prototyping and experimentation to manage risk. The end result may include a manned fighter design, but its envisioned networked air superiority capability is unlikely to be limited to one.

Speaking at a briefing in Washington DC soon after the Flight Plan had been completed, General Grynkewich said: “Future dominance cannot rest on a single platform.” The Flight Plan’s multiple systems of systems could be networked together and may include a manned fighter – as part of the Air Superiority Family of Systems – but is also likely to include sensors, missiles, command and control nodes that make use of artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned aircraft capable of both autonomous operations and manned unmanned teaming. The Flight Plan also considered capabilities that make flying air superiority missions possible, such as logistics and base defence. The US Air Force Chief of Staff, General David Goldfein is a strong proponent of thinking in terms of multiplatform networks that deliver required warfighting effects, rather than building a new aircraft that replaces an older type, as previous generations of Air Force fighters have done.

The Air Force is following the Flight Plan’s guidance for an enterprise-wide approach to air dominance, and has created an Air Superiority Family of Systems budget line from which the AoA and other projects were funded. This was included in the FY2019 budget request with $550 million, planned to increase to $1.4 billion by FY2020. Other programmes are looking at technologies that are likely to be applied to future air dominance aircraft, including Autonomy Capability Team 3, an Air Force Research Laboratory programme to apply AI in air vehicles used for air combat. Project Avatar is a programme run by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office working to enable semiautonomous UAVs that can be teamed with manned aircraft. Other programmes are working on autonomous UAVs, including loyal wingmen (that would use manned-unmanned teaming with similar performance air vehicles flying alongside manned combat aircraft), new propulsion technology enabling supersonic cruise, AI, new materials and technologies applicable to the air dominance mission.

 

[Jura The idiot]

I can't find the old thread on the sixth generation fighter ...

it's
US F/A-XX and F-X 6th Gen Aircraft News Thread https://www.sinodefenceforum.com/us-f-a-xx-and-f-x-6th-gen-aircraft-news-thread.t7126/

you (Brumby) may like there Aug 10, 2018

now come the FlightGlobal story USAF analyst suggests ways to avoid cost overruns on 6th-gen fighter

09 August, 2018

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still relevant, if relevant LOL

 

[siegecrossbow]

Unfortunately mods no longer have the ability to merge threads! We may have to ask Webby.