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

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
T-X Experience Key To Boeing’s Future Fighter Bids
Apr 4, 2017
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| Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
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    Boeing Phantom Works says new airframes packed with the latest available technology for Penetrating Counter-Air and F/A-XX, along with Eagle and Super Hornet upgrades, will ensure U.S. air superiority for decades to come: Boeing

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    Phantom Works sees its joint development of the T-X next-generation training aircraft with
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    as the No. 1 example of how it would approach the development of future front-line fighters for the U.S. Air Force and Navy.

    The advanced prototyping arm of Boeing Phantom Works is leading the company’s development of future military aircraft and armaments, chiefly for the Air Force Penetrating Counter-Air (PCA) and Navy F/A-XX programs.

    David Bujold, the organization’s director of fixed-wing and weapons, singled out the T-X program—which rapidly designed and prototyped two production-conforming models—as an example of how the company will bid for PCA and F/A-XX.

    The “BT-X” trainer brings together technologically mature subcomponents in a high-performance fuselage that is optimized by design for producibility. Phantom Works chief Darryl Davis told reporters during the aircraft’s unveiling last September that the T-X clean-sheet requires far less touch labor than traditional military aircraft, and the design is mature enough to roll straight into assembly without a drawn out engineering and manufacturing development program.

    T-X is a $ 16 billion Air Force program to replace the Northrop T-38 Talon. Boeing and Saab joined forces to capture the 350-aircraft order in 2013. The service published its requirements in March 2015, and the first Boeing/Saab model took flight from Boeing’s fighter facility in St. Louis one year and nine months later, on Dec. 20, 2016.

    Bujold tells Aviation Week that T-X is an incremental innovation, bringing together the latest aircraft and training technology available within the military supply base in a quick and risk-managed way. Spooked by the high cost and protracted development of the
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    and
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    stealth fighters, the government is approaching PCA and F/A-XX cautiously.

    Boeing sees demand shifting in favor of high-speed future fighter production programs with low technical risk over exotic “next-generation” designs. It also sees some subsystem upgrades to current-generation aircraft—such as mission systems, sensors, and electronic warfare suites, among others— being carried forward into future airframes.

    “No one is comfortable anymore with long development programs or unaffordable single-shots,” Bujold says. “There’s been a notion until recently that the next one always has to be so much better than the last one because you’re only going to get a shot at it every decade-and-a-half. Many of our customer communities are done with that.”

    Air Combat Command is especially disenchanted with long development programs. It took 14-15 years to go from contract to initial operational status for the F-22A and F-35A. Since the F-22 Advanced Tactical Fighter development contract was awarded in 1991, the service has averaged about 20 aircraft per year. Its last fourth-generation
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    and Lockheed
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    orders were delivered in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The Air Force says it must now begin buying fighters at a rate of 100 aircraft per year to begin rejuvenating its legacy inventory, which averages 27-28 years old.

    The Air Force is considering whether to remove its 235 remaining Boeing F-15C Eagles as it brings PCA online because of the high structural life extension cost. The F-22 could assume the F-15’s homeland defense role, while PCA assumes the F-22’s combat duties. But Boeing is not so sure, saying the F-15C is still a viable asset and has “lots of runway in front of it” with upgrades.

    “It’s not ‘either-or,’ it’s ‘and’,” Bujold says. “Our focus is to deliver PCA as a purpose-built aircraft while at the same time updating, modernizing and responding to customer needs on the platforms they’ve already got in their inventory.

    “The Eagle is an essential part of the dominance and air superiority for the U.S. To the extent [that] current capability cannot evolve to address the threats, we can backfill it with technology plays like Penetrating Counter-Air.”

    The F-35C Lightning II has been designed to stop the buying of new Boeing
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    Super Hornets already. But loading orders continue because the carrier-based F-35C Lightning II variant is taking longer to develop and deliver than expected. It will not be fielded in operationally significant numbers until the early 2020s.

    The F-35C succeeds the Navy’s legacy F/A-18A/B/C/D Hornets, and F/A-XX could someday replace the F/A-18E/F and its
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    Growler electronic warfare variant. Boeing still sees an enduring place for the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and is now pitching an advanced Block III version to keep the line going.

    Boeing will not provide details about its future fighter concepts, citing security classification and the competitive environment. Nor would it release any details about future weapons concepts, other than to say cyber resilience and GPS independence are key technology focus areas.

    Phantom Works confirms it is developing clean-sheet aircraft designs, as well as Super Hornet and Eagle upgrade packages.

    The company’s F-22 Raptor mission systems will work in play, but Bujold says life-cycle costs and low technical risk will be key discriminating factors in Boeing’s bid, as well as its manufacturing prowess.

    “Economic quantities are beneficial in some respects, but we’ve also looked at strategies to gain affordability and not just rely on huge economic quantities,” he says. “I think we’re in a great position.”
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TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
NG-6th-Gen-fighter.jpg

Air Force Has Begun Experimentation, Planning and Investments for a 6th Generation Fighter to Come After the F-35
1ce18e0.jpg

SCOUT WARRIOR
12:09 AM

The Pentagon's 6th Generation Fighter may be stealthy and will likely have next-generation computers, electronic warfare technology, speed, weapons and sensors

The Air Force has begun experimenting and conceptual planning for a 6th generation fighter aircraft to emerge in coming years as a technological step beyond the F-35, service leaders said.

"We have started experimentation, developmental planning and technology investment," said Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition.

The new aircraft, engineered to succeed the 5th-generation F-35 Joint StrikeFighter and explode onto the scene by the mid 2030s, is now in the earliest stages of conceptual development with the Air Force and Navy. The two services are now working together on early conceptual discussions about the types of technologies and capabilities the aircraft will contain. While the Air Force has not yet identified a platform for the new aircraft. The Air Force characterizes the effort in terms of a future capability called Next-Gen Air Dominance.

While Bunch did not elaborate on the specifics of ongoing early efforts, he did make reference to the Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan which delineates some key elements of the service's strategy for a future platform.

Fighter jets in 20-years may likely contain the next-generation of stealth technoology, electronic warfare, sophisticated computer processing and algorithms, increased autonomy, hypersonic weapons and so-called "smart-skins" where sensors are built into the side of the aircraft itself.

Some of these characteristics may have been on display more than a year ago when Northrop Grumman's SuperBowl AD revealed a flashy first look at its rendering of a new 6th-generation fighter jet.

Northrop is one of a number of major defense industry manufacturers who will bid for a contract to build the new plane - when the time is right. While there are not many details available on this work, it is safe to assume Northrop is advancing concepts, technology and early design work toward this end. Boeing is also in the early phases of development of a 6th-gen design, according to a report in Defense News.

The Navy's new aircraft will, at least in part, replace the existing inventory of F/A-18 Super Hornets which will start to retire by 2035, Navy officials said.

The Navy vision for a future carrier air wing in 2040 and beyond is comprised of the carrier-launched variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35C, and legacy aircraft such as the EA-18G Growler electronic jamming aircraft.

Also, around this time is when Navy planners envision its 6th generation aircraft to be ready, an aircraft which will likely be engineered for both manned and unmanned missions.

Technologies are rapidly advancing in coatings, electromagnetic spectrum issues, artificial intelligence, maneuvering, superiority in sensing the battlespace, communications and data links, Navy leaders have said.



NGAD%201.jpg
Northrop Grumman

Navy officials also add that the Navy is likely to develop new carrier-launched unmanned air vehicles in coming years as well. For instance, Northrop's historic X-47B demonstrator aircraft was the first unmanned system to successfully launch and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Analysts have speculated that as 6th generation developers seek to engineer a sixth-generation aircraft, they will likely explore a range of next-generation technologies such as maximum sensor connectivity, super cruise ability and an aircraft with electronically configured “smart skins.”

Super cruise technology would enable the new fighter jet to cruise at supersonic speeds without needing afterburner, analysts have explained. As a result, super cruise brings a substantial tactical advantage because it allows for high-speed maneuvering without needing afterburner, therefore enable much longer on-location mission time. Such a scenario provides a time advantage as the aircraft would likely outlast a rival aircraft likely to run out of fuel earlier. The Air Force F-22 has a version of supercruise technology.

Maximum connectivity would mean massively increased communications and sensor technology such as having an ability to achieve real-time connectivity with satellites, other aircraft and anything that could provide relevant battlefield information.The new aircraft might also seek to develop the ability to fire hypersonic weapons, however such a development would hinge upon successful progress with yet-to-be-proven technologies such as scramjets traveling at hypersonic speeds. Some tests of early renderings of this technology have been tested successfully and yet other attempts have failed.

The Air Force Chief Scientist, Dr. Geoffrey Zacharias, has told Scout Warrior that the US anticipates having hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, hypersonic drones by the 2030s and recoverable hypersonic drone aircraft by the 2040s. There is little doubt that hypersonic technology, whether it be weaponry or propulsion, or both, will figure prominently into future aircraft designs.

Smart aircraft skins would involve dispersing certain technologies or sensors across the fuselage and further integrating them into the aircraft itself, using next-generation computer algorithms to organize and display information for the pilot. We see some of this already in the F-35; the aircraft sensor fusion uses advanced computer technology to collect, organize and display combat relevant information from a variety of otherwise disparate sensors onto a single screen for pilots. In addition, Northrop's Distributed Aperture System is engineered to provide F-35 pilots with a 360-degree view of the battlespace. Cameras on the DAS are engineered into parts of the F-35 fuselage itself to reduce drag and lower the aircraft's radar signature.



NGAD%202.jpg
Northrop Grumman
Smart skins with distributed electronics means that instead of having systems mounted on the aircraft, you would have apertures integrated on the skin of the aircraft, analysts have said.

This could reduce drag, increase speed and maneuverability while increasing the technological ability of the sensors.

It is also possible that the new 6th-generation fighter could use advanced, futuristic stealth technology able to enable newer, more capable air defenses. The air defenses of potential adversaries are increasingly using faster computing processing power and are better networked together, more digital, able to detect a wider range of frequencies and able to detect stealthy aircraft at farther distances.

The new 6th-generation fighter will also likely fire lasers and have the ability to launch offensive electronic attacks.
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Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
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Very Generic, and I would point out that Kris Osborne is a CNN alum, and writes about Defense News through a filter of reporter/anchor! His take on six gen is extremely generic to the point of taking super-bowl commercials and building his story from that, and that friends is very poor sourcing indeed.

Kris is sadly lacking any serious aviation experience or credentials, and any real knowledge of aviation.

For instance when he mentions the F-22 has a "version" of supercruise?? that sounds like a sixth grader writing a school book report??

Super cruise is a function of very low aerodynamic drag, and very high dry thrust, you either have it, or you don't, its not an option on a list for a specific aircraft. I highly doubt the USAF/USN will get together on another aircraft, Navy has "opted out" of every specific high end five gen opportunity.... and is "DRAGGING ITS FEET" over the F-35B and F-35C.
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
Very Generic, and I would point out that Kris Osborne is a CNN alum, and writes about Defense News through a filter of reporter/anchor! His take on six gen is extremely generic to the point of taking super-bowl commercials and building his story from that, and that friends is very poor sourcing indeed.

Kris is sadly lacking any serious aviation experience or credentials, and any real knowledge of aviation.

For instance when he mentions the F-22 has a "version" of supercruise?? that sounds like a sixth grader writing a school book report??

Super cruise is a function of very low aerodynamic drag, and very high dry thrust, you either have it, or you don't, its not an option on a list for a specific aircraft. I highly doubt the USAF/USN will get together on another aircraft, Navy has "opted out" of every specific high end five gen opportunity.... and is "DRAGGING ITS FEET" over the F-35B and F-35C.

Well it seems as if Jura made the last 6th gen post in June, mine the second to last, anyway,, somebody get busy and update some of these links over the Holidays, time to get serious about sixth gen? 9 more days and we will "slide" into 2018 as unprepared and unaware as we slid into 2017,,, LOL!
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
Yes we definitely need an F-22C, we'll see how the F-35 matures, but you are no doubt right, it will be upgradable.

The old dog just rolled over, and I gotta admit I love the concept bird,,,, as long as we have a manned aircraft,,,, I am warming up to tailess tactical aircraft....stealth is still the way to go, look at the recent F-35 Red Flag 17-1, very kool, and very effective, LOVE IT!

OK, the Boeing is growing on me, the LockMart chick with tails?? not so much
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
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The F-35 Is Old News: U.S. Military Has Big Plans for a 6th Generation Fighter
f-35b_made_its_first_transatlantic_flight_cropped.jpg

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December 17, 2017

The Air Force Chief Scientist, Dr. Geoffrey Zacharias, has told Scout Warrior that the US anticipates having hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, hypersonic drones by the 2030s and recoverable hypersonic drone aircraft by the 2040s. There is little doubt that hypersonic technology, whether it be weaponry or propulsion, or both, will figure prominently into future aircraft designs.

The Air Force has begun experimenting and conceptual planning for a 6th generation fighter aircraft to emerge in coming years as a technological step beyond the F-35, service leaders said.

"We have started experimentation, developmental planning and technology investment," Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, Acquisition, told Scout Warrior in an interview earlier this year.

The new aircraft, engineered to succeed the 5th-generation F-35 Joint StrikeFighter and explode onto the scene by the mid 2030s, is now in the earliest stages of conceptual development with the Air Force and Navy. The two services are now working together on early conceptual discussions about the types of technologies and capabilities the aircraft will contain. While the Air Force has not yet identified a platform for the new aircraft.

While Bunch did not elaborate on the specifics of ongoing early efforts, he did make reference to the Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan which delineates some key elements of the service's strategy for a future platform.

Fighter jets in 20-years may likely contain the next-generation of stealth technology, electronic warfare, sophisticated computer processing and algorithms, increased autonomy, hypersonic weapons and so-called "smart-skins" where sensors are built into the side of the aircraft itself - according to expert aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, with the Teal Group.

Some of these characteristics may have been on display more than a year ago when Northrop Grumman's SuperBowl AD revealed a flashy first look at its rendering of a new 6th-generation fighter jet.

Northrop is one of a number of major defense industry manufacturers who will bid for a contract to build the new plane - when the time is right. While there are not many details available on this work, it is safe to assume Northrop is advancing concepts, technology and early design work toward this end. Boeing is also in the early phases of development of a 6th-gen design, according to a report in Defense News.

The Navy's new aircraft will, at least in part, replace the existing inventory of F/A-18 Super Hornets which will start to retire by 2035, Navy officials said.

The Navy vision for a future carrier air wing in 2040 and beyond is comprised of the carrier-launched variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35C, and legacy aircraft such as the EA-18G Growler electronic jamming aircraft.

Also, around this time is when Navy planners envision its 6th generation aircraft to be ready, an aircraft which will likely be engineered for both manned and unmanned missions.

Technologies are rapidly advancing in coatings, electromagnetic spectrum issues, artificial intelligence, maneuvering, superiority in sensing the battlespace, communications and data links, Navy leaders have said.

Navy officials also add that the Navy is likely to develop new carrier-launched unmanned air vehicles in coming years as well. For instance, Northrop's historic X-47B demonstrator aircraft was the first unmanned system to successfully launch and land on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Analysts have speculated that as 6th generation developers seek to engineer a sixth-generation aircraft, they will likely explore a range of next-generation technologies such as maximum sensor connectivity, super cruise ability and an aircraft with electronically configured “smart skins.”

Super cruise technology would enable the new fighter jet to cruise at supersonic speeds without needing afterburner, analysts have explained. As a result, super cruise brings a substantial tactical advantage because it allows for high-speed maneuvering without needing afterburner, therefore enable much longer on-location mission time. Such a scenario provides a time advantage as the aircraft would likely outlast a rival aircraft likely to run out of fuel earlier. The Air Force F-22 has a version of supercruise technology.

Maximum connectivity would mean massively increased communications and sensor technology such as having an ability to achieve real-time connectivity with satellites, other aircraft and anything that could provide relevant battlefield information.The new aircraft might also seek to develop the ability to fire hypersonic weapons, however such a development would hinge upon successful progress with yet-to-be-proven technologies such as scramjets traveling at hypersonic speeds. Some tests of early renderings of this technology have been tested successfully and yet other attempts have failed.

The Air Force Chief Scientist, Dr. Geoffrey Zacharias, has told Scout Warrior that the US anticipates having hypersonic weapons by the 2020s, hypersonic drones by the 2030s and recoverable hypersonic drone aircraft by the 2040s. There is little doubt that hypersonic technology, whether it be weaponry or propulsion, or both, will figure prominently into future aircraft designs.

Smart aircraft skins would involve dispersing certain technologies or sensors across the fuselage and further integrating them into the aircraft itself, using next-generation computer algorithms to organize and display information for the pilot. We see some of this already in the F-35; the aircraft sensor fusion uses advanced computer technology to collect, organize and display combat relevant information from a variety of otherwise disparate sensors onto a single screen for pilots. In addition, Northrop's Distributed Aperture System is engineered to provide F-35 pilots with a 360-degree view of the battlespace. Cameras on the DAS are engineered into parts of the F-35 fuselage itself to reduce drag and lower the aircraft's radar signature.

Smart skins with distributed electronics means that instead of having systems mounted on the aircraft, you would have apertures integrated on the skin of the aircraft, analysts have said.

This could reduce drag, increase speed and maneuverability while increasing the technological ability of the sensors.

It is also possible that the new 6th-generation fighter could use advanced, futuristic stealth technology able to enable newer, more capable air defenses. The air defenses of potential adversaries are increasingly using faster computing processing power and are better networked together, more digital, able to detect a wider range of frequencies and able to detect stealthy aircraft at farther distances.

The new 6th-generation fighter will also likely fire lasers and have the ability to launch offensive electronic attacks.
but it's mostly old hash.

Boeings latest concept art.
updated-ngad-sunset.jpg
 
Well I could post this
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but it's mostly old hash.
...
LOL I recalled Equation had posted that article ... (through yahoo though) Monday at 5:08 PM
I then commented Monday at 5:26 PM
inside:
Up next 6th Gen fighters.


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a journalist went hypersonic and fired lasers, while in the real world Yesterday at 9:33 AM
Friday at 8:06 AM

to watch:

"However, the raise and the entire defense budget is caught up in the perennial battle in Congress over continuing resolutions and tradeoffs between military and domestic spending.

The military currently is operating at 2017 spending levels under a continuing resolution that expires on Dec. 22, raising another possibility of a government shutdown.

Congressional leaders have proposed another continuing resolution into next year that would fund the military at 2018 levels of nearly $700 billion, while keeping domestic spending at 2017 levels. It was unclear whether the administration had the votes in the Senate to pass the proposal."
Trump Touts Military Pay Raise That Congress Has Yet to Pass
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