A lot of work has been done. XA100 already had a lot of tests.
US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
These programs have a long history as well. The US Air Force has been funding next generation engine technology efforts under various programs since the mid-00’s (Versatile Affordable Advanced Turbine Engine - VAATE).
Haha, I haven't had a good laugh in a long time.
You know I've always wondered why US didn't try to pursue a G2 with China. Dominate the world between just them two. Rule over all others. A geopolitical marriage between the two would have been something.
Last edited:
What's happening to the US military and in turn their MIC is pure criminal.
They've been knee capping themselves by their foolish decisions for the past 3 decades.
They've been knee capping themselves by their foolish decisions for the past 3 decades.
- Not pursuing YF-23.
- Not buying enough F-22.
- Capping the B-2s.
- DDX-1000 program
- Wasting trillions playing in the Sandbox
- Wasteful Army programs
- Forcing Lockheed to terminate their potentially superior NGAD platform due to past dissatisfaction with the F-35.
- Oh and speaking of the Lightning, allowing the marines to join F-35 program.
- Delaying the F/A-XX
- F-35ing the Constellation program
- And now cancelling the E-7 in favor of an inferior platform, the E-2D.
Last edited:
Venus Aerospace successfully completed the first U.S. flight test of a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). Straight Arrow News (SAN - Never heard of them before) has a nice YouTube video that includes flight footage and an interview with the co-founder about their RDRE technology. Venus eventual plan to to combine it with a ramjet for even better performance.
Playing in the sandbox and wasteful spending is a feature, alot of what the US military does is by design a dog and pony show, shock and awe to whip others in submission. Would you rather beat up some half dead, near defenceless middle eastern armies(again) or would you prepare to fight in east asia, where your forces are stumped every single time after WW2. One bad move and you lost the dread factor you've built up for 30+ years.
If you observe US preparation in West pacific, airfield dispersal, downsizing, getting rid of heavy equipment and replacing it with zero armour, high mobility drone platforms or deploying lonely missile sites on isolated islands. These are real work, but these are just that, loss minimisation in an attritional war, not preparing for total victory. Where is the PR value in this, where even a victory is a bad sell?
Don't be fooled by US "reducing" involvment in the middle east, it's being pivoting to Asia pacific for 10 years now. It learned its lessons by not deploying ground troops, but will its airforce and navy will always be there. Low risk assignments with low consequences or high risk assignments with dire consequences, it goes without saying.
I don't need to explain the American MIC much, it makes money first, weapons second. It will nickel and dime the government while delivering a product that meets few of the expections, which to be fair, tends to be quite delusional. Frankly I don't understand the fetishsation of legacy platforms like F22 and B2, they have better successors.
I don't fully understand why this is happening given the relatively marginal (compared to their other programs) costs involved. Is their military budget not going to be as large as expected? Or is it that they want to redirect this funding to other military programs? Or is this for the sake of tax cuts for the rich?
Due to insane procurement cost and timelines, techbros (Musk, Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey) have been trying to shift the culture in the DoD towards more 'agile' programs. AI, Golden Dome, Satellite constellations, moving target indicators, drones that can do everything, are being pitched by these Newspace/Silicon Valley entrants to challenge the Prime contractors (LM, NG etc). But a lot of it is grift and involves using their connections with the Administration to change various DoD requirements to favor their systems - Musk has been doing this with the NRO for example.
TLDR: DoD is trying to adopt a SV approach to their procurement strategy