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

[antiterror13]

I would lay money though that the F47 EMD is closer to a production prototype than the J36 and J-XDS. The U.S. does a lot of its early demonstration in the black. We have known for years something was brewing in the Navada desert and it wasn’t Klingon Blood wine. The F47 flying a prototype in 2028 would also work for full mission capability in the mid 2030s.

How much money you'd prepare to lose?

 

[manqiangrexue]

What I am getting at is the “secret sauce” of advanced modern combat aircraft. Building a stealthy airplane even a flying wing isn’t that difficult. It’s been done now multiple times in multiple countries. The First “Stealth fighter” the F117 remember lacked any radar, electronic warfare equipment, defense was built with off the shelf technology and its only means of survival was just being a hole in the sky.
It is the avionics. The mission systems. The radars, EW, attack capability and engines that are what makes a 5th generation fighter and it’s the next generation of those and MUMT that will likely make the 6th.
The Prototypes we have seen flown don’t showcase any of that at least on the surface J36 is probably the closest to reality yet it seems likely to be porting technology from J20 making it more a 5th gen than a 6th gen. It’s aim being more a long range Very heavy fighter kludging 3 existing engines to get a bigger bird.
Then we have what looks like a very slick aircraft but we don’t know what’s under the proverbial hood.

Naawwwww, the pictures of F-47 prototypes we have seen don’t showcase any of that at least on the surface F-47 is probably the closest to a 6th gen attempt in the US yet it seems likely to be porting technology from F-35 making it more a 5th gen than a 6th gen. It’s aim being more a long range heavy fighter kludging 2 existing engines to the F-35's 1 get a bigger bird. Then we have what looks like a very slick aircraft on paper but we don’t know what’s under the proverbial hood...

 

[ougoah]

Westoids are falling into 3 camps with this development.

1. pure copium - denial, ignore, excuses, pick you poison.

2. "we have area 51 supa dupa flying sawsarrr!"

3. the tiniest, atom sized portion with at least a semi-functioning brain who concede the US has been a declining nation for a LONG fcking time and the obvious signs of previous decline and lost lead are only beginning to be obvious now ... to the tiny minority. The true intellectual challenge to this elite group is becoming aware that the current real state of the US is even worse than what is showing.

 

[siegecrossbow]

I would lay money though that the F47 EMD is closer to a production prototype than the J36 and J-XDS. The U.S. does a lot of its early demonstration in the black. We have known for years something was brewing in the Navada desert and it wasn’t Klingon Blood wine. The F47 flying a prototype in 2028 would also work for full mission capability in the mid 2030s.

We’ll know in four years max.

 

[jospence]

I think in the end, the US will probably produce a top of the line 6th generation aircraft that is roughly on par with Chinese 6th gen's if not just as good, but the program will be plagued by a ton of problems and crucial elements delayed several times, leading to astronomical cost overruns which cause acquisition of the aircraft to be halted before 2045 and an air fleet which is even smaller and poorly structured than it is right now. Unless they export the F-47 to other countries like Australia, I'm not confident the US will be able to financially bear the load for the aircraft for just themselves.

 

[Atomicfrog]

F22 is getting a major overhaul with Raptor 2.0 just entering launch.

Even with a 2.0 update that is more a catch up feature because of capabilities gaps and F-35 that is not delivering enough... F22 in airframe age and numbers are nowhere close to J-20 state of operation.

Would have needed these upgrades 10 years ago but with the number of airframes no one was thinking about updating them... earlier plans was to retire the fleet early. We are talking about updating a combat-ready fleet in the double digits.

Thats a lot of money and I hope for them that it will deliver some subsystems that could be used in the F47.

 

[GTI]

I wonder if Polymarket has any odds on this even taking its first flight in 2028 as planned.

 

[BoraTas]

Thinking retrospectively, I was wrong for expecting Lockheed to get this aircraft. Lockheed is famously 7 years behind the schedule on the F-35 Block 4 with this being mostly related to the avionics integration and software related problems. Unmanned fighter jets (designed either for standalone operations or as CCAs) and the F-47 will be more intensive in these. We memed about it but Boeing may have been the sensible choice.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I think in the end, the US will probably produce a top of the line 6th generation aircraft that is roughly on par with Chinese 6th gen's if not just as good, but the program will be plagued by a ton of problems and crucial elements delayed several times, leading to astronomical cost overruns which cause acquisition of the aircraft to be halted before 2045 and an air fleet which is even smaller and poorly structured than it is right now. Unless they export the F-47 to other countries like Australia, I'm not confident the US will be able to financially bear the load for the aircraft for just themselves.

In the end, several years later, the US may produce something comparable to what China debuted, by which time China would have moved on to A/B/C variants. This is not the same US as before; this US has insulted and repelled foreign talent and ridicules academic/scientific prowess for neanderthalic war cries and bravado. China is also not the same as before; it is now an highly attractive modern society rife with the best research institutes in the world and returning diaspora of the highest education, some of them disillusioned with the life they thought they could get in the US.

 

[manqiangrexue]

I think in the end, the US will probably produce a top of the line 6th generation aircraft that is roughly on par with Chinese 6th gen's if not just as good, but the program will be plagued by a ton of problems and crucial elements delayed several times, leading to astronomical cost overruns which cause acquisition of the aircraft to be halted before 2045 and an air fleet which is even smaller and poorly structured than it is right now. Unless they export the F-47 to other countries like Australia, I'm not confident the US will be able to financially bear the load for the aircraft for just themselves.

Now that I think about it, I don't even think the F-47 will come to fruition. Trump is out in 2028. Most likely, a democrat with a bone to pick larger than a T-Rex femur will come into the White House. His team will absolutely tear up the design of the Trump Mega MAGAtard battleship and they will make changes to the F-47 that will "scrap" the project and carry over all usable designs to the "F-48" project or something just to make sure Trump doesn't get his number on it. I believe that the US will still come up with a 6th gen fighter in the 2030's, but the presidential transition will further delay it from current plans and put China further ahead in the race.