PLA 6th generation fighter thread

latenlazy

Brigadier
I guess the Air Force must be lying

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Or reporters are overhyping something that they don’t have any details for? The USAF hasn’t even formalized a program or determined the contractor yet. I’m sure they flew something to prototype technologies for the next generation plane but its extremely unlikely, without a formalized program, that anything about what they flew is going to be anywhere close to what the actual design will be.
 

sinophilia

Junior Member
Registered Member
Or reporters are overhyping something that they don’t have any details for? The USAF hasn’t even formalized a program or determined the contractor yet. I’m sure they flew something to prototype technologies for the next generation plane but its extremely unlikely, without a formalized program, that anything about what they flew is going to be anywhere close to what the actual design will be.

“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the
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Will Roper is the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics aka the Air Force czar

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latenlazy

Brigadier
“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the
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.

Will Roper is the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics aka the Air Force czar

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I know what he said. I read the article. Sometimes you have to read between the lines. Context matters.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
How did your reading between the lines give you the confidence to say that it's fake.

Genuinely curious.

I already explained it here:
Or reporters are overhyping something that they don’t have any details for? The USAF hasn’t even formalized a program or determined the contractor yet. I’m sure they flew something to prototype technologies for the next generation plane but its extremely unlikely, without a formalized program, that anything about what they flew is going to be anywhere close to what the actual design will be.
 

sinophilia

Junior Member
Registered Member
I already explained it here:

That explanation includes the implication that reporters are "overhyping" the news, when in reality the so-called overhyping came from the US Air Force.

I assume it is possible that part of the program is classified so it has been more funded than we realize.

Not sure if that's the case but the way the USAF is speaking about it, you'd have to say they are intentionally lying or they have a flying prototype.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
That explanation includes the implication that reporters are "overhyping" the news, when in reality the so-called overhyping came from the US Air Force.

I assume it is possible that part of the program is classified so it has been more funded than we realize.

Not sure if that's the case but the way the USAF is speaking about it, you'd have to say they are intentionally lying or they have a flying prototype.
The USAF said they flew something. The reporting is making it sound like this must be *the* fighter design. That they flew *something* isn’t what I’m discounting. What I’m discounting is that what flew was a “prototype” of a 6th gen fighter. It could easily just be a small scale demonstrator to test a few concepts. For example, Japan flew the X-2 as part of their program to develop a fifth generation fighter. Does that mean they have a fifth generation fighter design already flying? No. The X-2 isn’t the design that’s mean to be developed and procured, it’s just a technology demonstrator, even though it’s part of that program.

Given the size and significance of a mainstay fighter program, there’s no way the Pentagon would be able to classify such a program if a design has been locked down and a contractor has been selected, for budgetary oversight reasons. At the very least some decision would have to be announced and documented that a program is preceding with a particular design and a particular contractor. That’s how this process works in the US. If there’s no news of a design and contractor being committed to, then an actual fighter meant to be a production design does not yet exist.
 
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sinophilia

Junior Member
Registered Member
The USAF said they flew something. The reporting is making it sound like this must be *the* fighter design. That they flew *something* isn’t what I’m discounting. What I’m discounting is that what flew was a “prototype” of a 6th gen fighter. It could easily just be a small scale demonstrator to test a few concepts. For example, Japan flew the X-2 as part of their program to develop a fifth generation fighter. Does that mean they have a fifth generation fighter design already flying? No. The X-2 isn’t the design that’s mean to be developed and procured, it’s just a technology demonstrator, even though it’s part of that program.

Given the size and significance of a mainstay fighter program, there’s no way the Pentagon would be able to classify such a program if a design has been locked down and a contractor has been selected, for budgetary oversight reasons. At the very least some decision would have to be announced and documented that a program is preceding with a particular design and a particular contractor. That’s how this process works in the US. If there’s no news of a design and contractor being committed to, then an actual fighter meant to be a production design does not yet exist.

Didn’t many programs as early as the 1980s start flying before they were declassified or any notion of procurement was widespread?

Also, it is incorrect to say they only admitted to flying ‘something’.

The acquisition chief of the US Air Force, along with leading other leading officials have said it was a full scale 1:1 prototype.

Now I certainly don’t pretend to know the likelihood about any of this stuff, but that is what they said.

The only way it’s not true is if they are outright lying.
 

latenlazy

Brigadier
Didn’t many programs as early as the 1980s start flying before they were declassified or any notion of procurement was widespread?
Not for fighters.

Also, it is incorrect to say they only admitted to flying ‘something’.

The acquisition chief of the US Air Force, along with leading other leading officials have said it was a full scale 1:1 prototype.
A prototype of *what* is the question. "Prototypes" aren't all meant to reflect production designs.


Now I certainly don’t pretend to know the likelihood about any of this stuff, but that is what they said.

The only way it’s not true is if they are outright lying.
They don't have to be lying for claims to be ambiguously presented or misinterpreted. Either way, statements don't get ahead of facts, and given that fighter development and procurement works with a regular and predictable set of sequences, the facts tell us that whatever they flew isn't likely to be the actual intended fighter design.
 
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