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

[sevrent]

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F/A-XX Will Have Just 25% More Range Over Existing Navy Fighters​

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Donnelly did not offer any specifics, but the F-35C carrier-based variant of the Joint Strike Fighter has the longest combat radius of any tactical jet in the Navy’s current carrier air wings, which U.S. military sources put at around 670 nautical miles (close to 1,241 kilometers). This, in turn, would put the F/A-XX’s expected maximum combat radius at roughly 837.5 nautical miles (just over 1,551 kilometers)

They're supposedly forgoing adaptive engines from the start so that leaves room for a future upgrade. That could bring about another 20-25% range improvement. Im curious what the fuel fraction is and how much payload capacity it has. USN has been saying F/A-XX is a strike fighter so id imagine a larger IWB that ate into space for fuel tanks

 

[cdj20]

They're supposedly forgoing adaptive engines from the start so that leaves room for a future upgrade. That could bring about another 20-25% range improvement. Im curious what the fuel fraction is and how much payload capacity it has. USN has been saying F/A-XX is a strike fighter so id imagine a larger IWB that ate into space for fuel tanks

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Aviation Week claimed that it is the F/A-18 that the increase in range is 25% relative to.

 

[Atomicfrog]

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Aviation Week claimed that it is the F/A-18 that the increase in range is 25% relative to.

So they are going for 25% range increase relative to F/A-18 range without external tank ??? If it's the case it's not really an improvement.

 

[sheogorath]

So they are going for 25% range increase relative to F/A-18 range without external tank ??? If it's the case it's not really an improvement.

NCD twitter says its totally fine!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1909549352101490826

 

[sevrent]

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Aviation Week claimed that it is the F/A-18 that the increase in range is 25% relative to.

Now im very curious what the weight/fuel fraction is. USN carrier elevators support up to 200,000lbs, with two aircraft per elevator that leaves a top end of 100,000 lbs per aircraft. The F-35C alone is 70,000lbs MTOW. The A-3 Skywarrior was the heaviest aircraft the USN ever put into service at around 82,000 lbs, and that beast is MUCH larger than an F-35, being in the same league as the J-36 in terms of size.

Stealth aircraft seem to be much more ''dense'' for their size compared to previous gen fighters. One can imagine a larger strike oriented stealth aircraft easily encroaching upon the weight limits. Given that you have to tradeoff to some degree fuel capacity and payload capacity, since the USN wants F/A-XX to be a strike fighter, one can guess what direction they went.

 

[SlothmanAllen]

25% increase in range doesn't really say much because it leaves out the other parameters of the aircraft. We are missing payload and speed for example. Kind of a meaningless stat by itself.

 

[AndrewJ]

Could use J-35 instead of twin-engine F-35D for F/A-XX.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1909510465450819845

 

[pokepara]

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F/A-XX Will Have Just 25% More Range Over Existing Navy Fighters​

...

Donnelly did not offer any specifics, but the F-35C carrier-based variant of the Joint Strike Fighter has the longest combat radius of any tactical jet in the Navy’s current carrier air wings, which U.S. military sources put at around 670 nautical miles (close to 1,241 kilometers). This, in turn, would put the F/A-XX’s expected maximum combat radius at roughly 837.5 nautical miles (just over 1,551 kilometers)

...isn't that a J-20's max combat range? lol those meme makers of J-20 - canards = F/A-XX and J-20 - tail = F-47 got more ammo.

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Now im very curious what the weight/fuel fraction is. USN carrier elevators support up to 200,000lbs, with two aircraft per elevator that leaves a top end of 100,000 lbs per aircraft. The F-35C alone is 70,000lbs MTOW. The A-3 Skywarrior was the heaviest aircraft the USN ever put into service at around 82,000 lbs, and that beast is MUCH larger than an F-35, being in the same league as the J-36 in terms of size.

Stealth aircraft seem to be much more ''dense'' for their size compared to previous gen fighters. One can imagine a larger strike oriented stealth aircraft easily encroaching upon the weight limits. Given that you have to tradeoff to some degree fuel capacity and payload capacity, since the USN wants F/A-XX to be a strike fighter, one can guess what direction they went.

Carrier-based fighters always get fueled-up and armed with missiles and bombs while on the flight deck, not inside the hangar deck (except for maintenance purposes), which is mainly to avoid the same fate that doomed the Kido Butai carriers in June 1942.

Hence, I don't think the elevator deck weight capacity is much of an issue here. The elevator decks will rarely, if ever, carry fighters that are at MTOW.

 

[no_name]

Could use J-35 instead of twin-engine F-35D for F/A-XX.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1909510465450819845

Pretty sure that's not how software works. Also why would you use 5 gen software and systems, and if you could why would you use it on a twin engine F-35 than a clean design?