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

[Jura The idiot]

I absolutely agree that mindless killing machines are immoral and that in my humble opinion, we need to keep the man in the loop.. I hope people understand that when you program a machine to do your killing for you? you've lost the human element, and taken the "safeties" OFF!

don't worry, the Pentagon couldn't even stage an independent testing of the F-35 for the Comptroller yet, and the F-35 'loyal wingman' isn't even a program of record yet, so their 'combo' is hooey, h-double o-e-y

 

[Brumby]

DARPA’s ACE Wants To Automate Dogfighting To Empower AI
Source : AWST

A DARPA program to build pilot trust in artificial intelligence (AI) in combat by automating dogfighting has taken a step forward with the award of the first contract and the release of a solicitation to develop algorithms for close-in air combat.

Just as air combat training is used to develop pilot performance and trust, DARPA’s Air Combat Evolution (ACE) program aims to use dogfight automation as a crucible to give pilots confidence that AI “can handle a high-end fight.”

ACE will develop AI algorithms to automate within-visual-range combat and test them first in a modeling and simulation environment, then in subscale unmanned aircraft and finally in live 1v1, 2v1 and 2v2 combat between full-size fighters.

DARPA argues that dogfighting is less difficult to automate than it appears because the solution space is bounded. Instead the challenge is enabling the pilot to trust the AI, and ACE will develop methods of modeling and measuring trust, including crosscheck ratio—essentially how often the pilot grabs the stick to counteract the automation.

 

[anzha]

Finally!

The US Navy's Next Gen Fighter has gone black:

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The USAF's NGAD has this nifty quote:

This effort is in Budget Activity 4, Advanced Component Development and Prototypes (ACD&P), because efforts are necessary to evaluate integrated technologies, representative modes or prototype systems in a high fidelity and realistic operating environment.

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If the NGAD follows the LRSB with its funding profile and developmental stages, we have a selection in 2023.

Will we? With everything going on? Stay tuned.

 

[anzha]

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[SamuraiBlue]

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Here is an interesting twist to this selection;

Forget Stealth—The U.S. Navy’s New Fighter Could Look Like The Old F-14

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The U.S. Navy

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a program office to begin figuring out what the sailing branch needs in a new manned fighter jet.

One leading think tank in Washington, D.C., has ideas. Whatever the Navy buys to replace today’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, it should “emphasize range and speed, with low-observability being a secondary concern.”

In other words, it need not be a stealth fighter. Not as long as it can fly far and fast while carrying a useful payload.

The Navy’s current warplanes are likely to hang around through the 2030s. The fleet’s nine carrier air wings at present possess around 70 planes each—44 F/A-18E/Fs, five EA-18G jamming planes, five E-2 radar planes, a pair of C-2 transports and around 19 H-60 helicopters.

New CVM-22B tiltrotors are replacing the C-2s and

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are due to arrive in the mid-2020s. A single squadron of around 10 F-35C stealth fighters eventually will replace one unit of Super Hornet in each wing.

The Navy wants the new Next-Generation Air-Dominance plane, or F/A-XX, to be ready in time to replenish the remaining Super Hornet squadrons once the newer F/A-18E/Fs start wearing out in the 2030s.

To that end, Naval Air Systems Command this year established the NGAD office. The program it oversees could end up spending nearly $70 billion through the 2050s to buy potentially hundreds of new fighters. Today there are around 600 F/A-18s in the Navy inventory.

The Navy hasn’t specified exactly what it wants the F/A-XX to do. But the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C.

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. The fleet “will require carrier-based aircraft with the ability to intercept enemy aircraft or cruise missiles and engage them with either [air-to-air missiles] or directed-energy weapons.”...... to read further, click on the link above.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Here is an interesting twist to this selection;

Makes sense since interception as well as strike are important functionalities for carrier based fighters. One of the primary functions for the Tomcat was fleet defense against Soviet Backfires. F-35C doesn't quite live up to the requirements in the high-speed department so it'll be relegated to strike whereas the sixth gen will take care of fleet defense.

 

[Skywatcher]

Here is an interesting twist to this selection;

Huh, David Axe actually made sense for once.

 

[siegecrossbow]

Also keep in mind that just because low-observability is of secondary concern doesn't mean that it will have terrible RCS. It just means that the designer will prioritize other parameters over LO when designing this plane. For all we know it could have equal or superior RCS reduction to the F-35.

 

[anzha]

Guys,

David Axe is the Minnie Chan of the US with the added benefit of having - pun intended - an axe to grind. I wouldn't put too much weight on anything the man writes.

 

[localizer]

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Cmon work faster china.