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

Brumby

Major
USAF backs off sixth-gen 'fighter' in quest for air supremacy

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


The US Air Force will begin an extensive campaign of prototyping and experimentation relating to new air superiority technologies, including new aircraft types, after completing a wide-ranging examination of future air battle concepts and weaponry.

According to service officials, there’s no “silver bullet” or “exquisite” next-generation fighter jet that will single-handedly evade and counter the types of surface-to-air, air-to-air, anti-satellite, electronic attack and cyber threats that are springing up around the world, particularly if going up against a nuclear-armed state like Russia or China.

Instead, the air force will proceed with many parallel technology development efforts, like new propulsion systems, airframes, directed energy weapons and hypersonic missiles, to develop a “family of systems” – including longer-range, higher-payload platforms to launch volleys of weapons at targets from “standoff” distances and others that will swoop in for direct attacks.

Lt Gen James “Mike” Holmes, USAF deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, says his team is moving away from terms like “fighter” and “next-generation” and will instead look at completely different ways of doing air warfare in the future.

His personal ambition would be to have an “operationally representative configuration” of this future air superiority network in place by 2025. The service has even delayed by one year its F-X or Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) analysis of alternatives to avoid ending up with requirements for another generation of fighter.

“F-X would have been most likely like a sixth-generation fighter and would have had a 20 or 30-year development programme,” Holmes said at an Air Force Association forum in Washington DC on 7 April. “What we want to try to do is solve the problem faster than that by looking out across the range of options and building what we’re capable of building instead of waiting for the next generation.”

getasset.aspx


Northrop Grumman's future fighter concept

Northrop Grumman

For the past year, an air force “enterprise capability collaboration team” has been processing over 1,500 submissions from 14 organisations on 220 different initiatives related to achieving air superiority in 2030.

Of those submissions, almost half proposed new equipment, while others pushed modernisation of existing hardware, new battle concepts or tactics, techniques and procedures.

Based on that information, the air force has concluded that only a highly networked collection of weapon systems will be capable of tackling future threats, not just one or two new platforms with long development cycles. By contrast, it has taken more than 16 years for the service to produce its first war-ready combat squadron of Lockheed Martin F-35As, and the F-22 also took longer than planned.

The F-35 isn't outdated, says Holmes, but the technology demanded was so complex that "it took longer than we hoped to achieve".

“Exquisite capabilities ended up being late-to-need,” says USAF chief of strategic planning and integration Col Alex Grynkewich, who led the Air Superiority 2030 effort. “This generational paradigm is outdated. We needed that integrated network of capabilities; there is no silver bullet.”

Grynkewich says range and payload are critical, but some studies show that speed, manoeuvrability and some level of low-observable shaping or stealth still have their place.

There’s also a place for automation and human-machine teaming, through concepts like “loyal wingman” that pair manned and unmanned combat jets.

getasset.aspx


USAF officials won't rule out derivatives of the Northrop B-21

US Air Force

Grynkewich also wants to operationalise combat-focused space and cyber forces, since cyber warfare is now a weapon of war and because so many weapon systems rely on vulnerable space assets.

Money has been included in the air force's fiscal year 2017 budget to begin advance prototype efforts, but some members of the family of systems are already under development or being matured.

Holmes says a meeting will be convened with US Air Force Materiel Command leadership in May to examine ways of moving faster through the acquisition process. USAF will also involve rapid acquisition organisations within US Special Operations Command as well as its secretive Big Safari office.

The planning chiefs did not rule out building derivatives of existing aircraft or even the Northrop Grumman B-21 bomber. Modest investments will also be made to upgrade and life-extending fourth-generation aircraft and modernise the F-22 Raptor.
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
USAF backs off sixth-gen 'fighter' in quest for air supremacy

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!


USAF backs off sixth-gen 'fighter' in quest for air supremacy

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

I hate being right about this KRAP! Good Grief, and that ignorant B-21, I told you it would suck the life out of the sixth gen, Stopid, STOPID!

The USAF is completely "tailless and unmanned"! quote me on this!
 

Brumby

Major
I hate being right about this KRAP! Good Grief, and that ignorant B-21, I told you it would suck the life out of the sixth gen, Stopid, STOPID!

The USAF is completely "tailless and unmanned"! quote me on this!
I think you are drawing too much and prematurely from an initial article. The main theme to me is a shift in emphasis from a singular platform i.e. 6th gen to a set of capabilities that are important in dominating a 2030 battlespace. What that might eventually mean absent of a road map will be highly speculative. Let's wait to see some more meat out of this before forming any set ideas.
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
I think you are drawing too much and prematurely from an initial article. The main theme to me is a shift in emphasis from a singular platform i.e. 6th gen to a set of capabilities that are important in dominating a 2030 battlespace. What that might eventually mean absent of a road map will be highly speculative. Let's wait to see some more meat out of this before forming any set ideas.

Yes, you are correct, as I have been telling forum brothers for some time, there are NO six gens setting in hangars at area 51 waiting for the other "shoe to drop"? and honestly the smart thing to do would be to reopen production of a 5.1 or 5.3 Raptor or at least the center fuse/wing boxes for rebuilding or SLEPing at some future date.

They are planning on bringing the F-35 and F-22 into the same circle as far as communication and sensor fusing which is a no brainer, but not nearly as easy as it sounds.

I do think the B-3 is basically the B-2, 5.5 gen, but 500 million per copy??? with our track record, it could be the first "billion dollar airplane" and NO it is not worth it. We have managed to get ourselves into a situation here, and its not a good situation where our "strategic reach", is sadly lacking, but that is behind my call for a "heavy Raptor" with far more fuel capacity?
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
I do think the B-3 is basically the B-2, 5.5 gen, but 500 million per copy??? with our track record, it could be the first "billion dollar airplane" and NO it is not worth it. We have managed to get ourselves into a situation here, and its not a good situation where our "strategic reach", is sadly lacking, but that is behind my call for a "heavy Raptor" with far more fuel capacity?

Maybe in limited numbers like say 12 B-3 at a billion dollar each (at high cost scenario) is equivalent to building a single Ford Class aircraft carrier, so it's not so bad.
 

Ultra

Junior Member
I do think the B-3 is basically the B-2, 5.5 gen, but 500 million per copy??? with our track record, it could be the first "billion dollar airplane" and NO it is not worth it. We have managed to get ourselves into a situation here, and its not a good situation where our "strategic reach", is sadly lacking, but that is behind my call for a "heavy Raptor" with far more fuel capacity?



The B-2 already broke that record. It is $2.2 billion per plane.



.
 

Brumby

Major
An evolving landscape. Third offset and air dominance.
upload_2016-4-14_8-37-22.png
upload_2016-4-14_8-39-8.png
upload_2016-4-14_8-39-50.png
The full article can be found in the April edition of the Air Force Mag.
 

Brumby

Major
Navy Seeking ‘Family of Systems’ to Replace Super Hornets, Growlers; Sheds F/A-XX Title
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

The Navy’s replacement for its Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fleet may not just be a single aircraft but several systems to fill the strike and air warfare missions in the carrier air-wing.

In January, the service kicked off its requirements study for the Next Generation Air Dominance program — the effort formerly known as F/A-XX – that could produce a family of NGAD systems to replace the capability of the Super Hornets and the electronic attack EA-18-G Growler in the 2030s, service officials told USNI News in a Thursday statement.

Additionally, the Navy is moving out on the Super Hornet replacements separate from the Air Force’s F-X program to replace its fleet of Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor air superiority fighters.

The Navy director of air warfare (N98), Rear Adm. Mike Manazir, told USNI News last year the service was considering partnering with the Air Force’s for a joint Air Force-Navy analysis of alternatives
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.

On Thursday the service said while it would share information with the Air Force, it wouldn’t be conducting a joint AoA for F-X and NGAD.

“The two services intend to utilize common analytical tools and methods, and will share information across the studies,” read the statement provided to USNI News.
“This approach is designed to ensure interoperability and leverage opportunities for common technology investments.”

In a Wednesday written statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Department of the Navy aviation heads said January’s start to NGAD AoA – which followed approval of the initial capabilities document by the Joint Chiefs of Staff — would consider not only manned, but unmanned and optionally manned airframes.

The effort is also evaluating modifications “evolutionary or incremental” aircraft in inventory, derivations of legacy platforms and all-new designs with an emphasis on replacing the capability of the Super Hornets and the Growlers instead of wedding itself to a one-for-one replacement of the airframes.

The break with the Air Force in a joint development of NGAD’s system speaks to a lingering cultural difference between the Air Force and the Navy in tactical air development.

The Air Force has traditionally favored faster and stealthier manned platforms – like the F-22. The Navy focuses development on the ability of tactical aviation to field and deliver payloads.

In early 2015, then-Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said the follow-on to the Super Hornets would likely rely less on stealth and speed and would ideally be expandable to include evolving weapons systems.

“I don’t want to necessarily say that [stealth is] over but let’s face it, if something moves fast through the air and disrupts molecules in the air and puts out heat – I don’t care how cool the engine can be – it’s going to be detectable,” he said.
The Super Hornet follow-on “has to have an ability to carry a payload such that it can deploy a spectrum of weapons. It has to be able to acquire access probably by suppressing enemy air defenses… Today it’s radar but it might be something more in the future.”

The Navy has also been more vocal than the Air Force on pushing unmanned systems in the realm of tactical aviation.

At last year’s 2015 Navy League Sea-Air-Space symposium, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said that the Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter could be the last purely manned strike fighter.

“Unmanned systems, particularly autonomous ones, have to be the new normal in ever-increasing areas,”
Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
.
“For example, as good as it is, and as much as we need it and look forward to having it in the fleet for many years, the F-35 should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.”

Manazir has said the lessons of the F-35Cs integration onto the carrier air wing and the enhanced sensor capability will inform the service’s replacement to the Super Hornets and Growlers.
The thinking seems to be a shift towards a family of systems rather than a singular 6th gen platform even for the Navy.
 
Top