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

[Brumby]

Here's the thing Bumby. the Only Nation on earth that can knock the US from being a super power is the US. and it's a matter of Attitude if the US quits and rests on it's laurels it might as well pack up and go home.
If that is the case then the only way to keep that dominance is to keep ahead. In the Cold war that was easy. there were only two real cutting edge suppliers the US and it's Allies picked and chose who they sold to, and only released enough super cutting edge to keep there allies well supported well the russians picked and chose who they sold there cutting edge stuff to and passed off there junk to everyone else.
Today that's no longer the case. Don't invade your neighbors or I'll hit you with cruise missiles is no longer relevant if the party your trying to keep inline is capable of striking back. What we see today is something we have not seen since the days of World war 2 when even the smallest militaries stood as equals in fire power. the number of fighter makers, tank builders and naval ship builders is expanding rapidly. and some of the nations and companies are the make the deal now and maybe ask questions later types. given that a lot of these are modern to super modern rather then junk with a new paint job. In order to keep ahead the leading nations need to push the hyper modern, and that is not just for the US but any nation who has ambitions to be a Global or regional power broker and any nation that feels it needs to at least keep equilibrium against a Global or regional power.
In other words. Sixth Generation is aimed to be driven by its mission sets based on future and perceived threats it need to operate in. because the World is Changing and Insurgencies are not the only threats. because sometimes the better mouse trap is just what you need.

I am not saying the US should abdicate its leadership position in technology development. As you have noted, the world is getting increasingly complex but future solutions are not necessarily clear cut. The reality is that fighter plane development cycles are getting longer and exponentially more expensive. Getting it wrong is just not costly but strategically malfeasance. Building a better mouse trap might be a good answer but is it a better answer?

Technology is producing asymmetric threats but opportunities exist in every threat. When I see cost overruns and timeline slippages in the various programs like LCS, JSF and CVN78, I see a common issue across all these programs of self inflicted concurrency development. Builds are made when the design is 30% complete and/or with major design maturity issues. Can the US continue to build Billion dollar planes and ships in the quantities that it needs? We already know the answer from the truncated F-22 program. Reality unfortunately is a tough master. It is not business as usual if the US wants to maintain a comparative advantage.

In short I am saying, technology cuts both ways, programs can be better managed and technology application be more selective.

 

[Scratch]

Quick side note. Isn't the definition of service ceiling (at least in civilian terms) the altitude at which an aircraft at full (dry) power is able to achieve a 500ft/m climb rate?

Going ever higher will decrease engine output and require greater AoA to cope with thinner air.

 

[no_name]

You mean 500ft/sec?

edit: just noticed you mean minute not metres.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Quick side note. Isn't the definition of service ceiling (at least in civilian terms) the altitude at which an aircraft at full (dry) power is able to achieve a 500ft/m climb rate?

Going ever higher will decrease engine output and require greater AoA to cope with thinner air.

Actually for piston engined aircraft it is a min climb rate of 100' per minute. This old Spook was on the ramp at Litchfield, a couple of years ago, they invited us along for an airshow, but we had to decline. A very nice M-16 was hanging on the back of the Cockpit partition, I did give myself a 30 minute cockpit check-out. Nice contrast with the thread and well off topic??

 

[Scratch]

OK some news again on this topic. Besides Boeing and Lockheed, Northrop is now also officially in the race. They, too, are indicating a tailless, supersonic design as the likely outcome. Will be interesting to see what technology will be there besides conventional 3D TVC to overcome the issues of a tailless design. Some kind of active flow controll next to / within the engine maybe. I think that's hot gas injection?

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LOS ANGELES — Northrop Grumman has stood up a team dedicated to developing a "sixth-generation" fighter, years before the US Navy or Air Force intends to issue requests for information on potential replacements for current aircraft.

It's an aggressive move that Tom Vice, president of Northrop's aerospace division, hopes will pay off in a big way for his company.

"Northrop Grumman will compete for the next generation fighter," Vice flatly declared, noting that there is a program manager already leading a team of Northrop staffers on the program.

When asked whether he envisioned Northrop acting as a prime contractor on a future fighter, he added "of course."

[...]

Vice indicated that Northrop is looking at a supersonic, tailless airplane design as a potential solution, something he noted no one has ever done before. ...

 

[strehl]

Back in the 50's it was thought that missiles had rendered fighters obsolete. With the technology of that time, that turned out to be wildly premature. However, with todays microprocessors and sensors, the idea of dogfighting is looking like a good way to get shot down. I really don't see any airplane (with a human on board) ever outmaneuvering a missile that has a wide field of regard sensor/data-link/image tracking algorithms and vectored thurst. If you are close enough to be in the "high energy" envelope of the missile (residual turning/speed reserves), you won't be able to dodge it. The Vietnam era of waiting till the last moment and then turning into the flight path requires a stupid missile or one that is out of gas. I haven't seen any indication you can pull that trick on an Aim 9x.

Just as a wild blue speculation, I would project a future fighter to be extremely stealthy and have a very high power DIRCM to not merely blind a sensor (optical/IR) but actually to destroy it. Eventually, even a radar guided missile might be engaged for a body kill rather than a sensor kill. Stealth to avoid being targetted by radar band missiles, super DIRCM to counter optical band missiles, and a boatload of super smart, stealthy missiles carried internally. For intercept missions, high speed would still be needed but for air superiority, hanging around a long time might be more important.

In any event, the machines are at the door and will eventually take over. I think full AI might still be way out but an immersive, vitual cockpit would let human pilots stay on the ground and engage in 100G dogfights with the UCAVs of the future.

 

[Brumby]

Back in the 50's it was thought that missiles had rendered fighters obsolete. With the technology of that time, that turned out to be wildly premature. However, with todays microprocessors and sensors, the idea of dogfighting is looking like a good way to get shot down. I really don't see any airplane (with a human on board) ever outmaneuvering a missile that has a wide field of regard sensor/data-link/image tracking algorithms and vectored thurst. If you are close enough to be in the "high energy" envelope of the missile (residual turning/speed reserves), you won't be able to dodge it. The Vietnam era of waiting till the last moment and then turning into the flight path requires a stupid missile or one that is out of gas. I haven't seen any indication you can pull that trick on an Aim 9x.

I initially had similar sentiments but maybe it was simply out of ignorance because the facts don't support that narrative. The best statistics out there only has a PK of 0.59 and on bad days only 0.15. Against a well trained adversary with up to date ECM and counter measures, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of missiles especially BVR.

In any event, the machines are at the door and will eventually take over. I think full AI might still be way out but an immersive, vitual cockpit would let human pilots stay on the ground and engage in 100G dogfights with the UCAVs of the future.

Remote control dogfights is subject to latency and battlefield disruption to communications. It is pure fiction at the moment and will be for sometime - I think.

 

[Air Force Brat]

Back in the 50's it was thought that missiles had rendered fighters obsolete. With the technology of that time, that turned out to be wildly premature. However, with todays microprocessors and sensors, the idea of dogfighting is looking like a good way to get shot down. I really don't see any airplane (with a human on board) ever outmaneuvering a missile that has a wide field of regard sensor/data-link/image tracking algorithms and vectored thurst. If you are close enough to be in the "high energy" envelope of the missile.
In any event, the machines are at the door and will eventually take over. I think full AI might still be way out but an immersive, vitual cockpit would let human pilots stay on the ground and engage in 100G dogfights with the UCAVs of the future.

Whut?? I think you're projection of pilots staying on the ground and 100G dogfights with a UCAV are extremely unlikely to come to pass in the near future. As the high loss rate of UCAV continue to raise eyebrows, we find many of the accident reports, contain Remotely Piloted inability to make an accurate assessment of the actual failure on board. and a 100G dogfight is a very long shot.
To defeat the other guys missles, the idea is to find him and shoot him before he can launch, and an F-22 is still the most survivable platform in the event that somebody does manage to get off a shot against you??? its the one fighter aircraft that has the right combination of stealth, and supermaneuverabilty that allow it to go places others fear to tread.

 

[Air Force Brat]

I initially had similar sentiments but maybe it was simply out of ignorance because the facts don't support that narrative. The best statistics out there only has a PK of 0.59 and on bad days only 0.15. Against a well trained adversary with up to date ECM and counter measures, the jury is still out on the effectiveness of missiles especially BVR.



Remote control dogfights is subject to latency and battlefield disruption to communications. It is pure fiction at the moment and will be for sometime - I think.

You are correct again sir, and Brumby sounds like the helmsman on some attack submarine,,,Mr. Brumby, take her down to 400 meters, steer right to a heading of 040, and rig for silent running!

 

[strehl]

Regarding latency: I would stipulate that ground based pilots would still be in-theater and 1 "bounce" away from the aircraft or in direct line of sight (say the pilot is actually a passenger in a high flying communication node). I have heard of classified simulators (TAC Brawler) being able to network dozens of remote simulators across the continental US. This was done in order to actually devise new tactics as well as for training. I would guess latency would be a problem in such a setup as well but realtime communications is an engineering issue which should be manageable as long as there are not too many pass through nodes.

I would agree that a good countermeasure is electronic jamming. I would guess the same discussion occured during the inception of GPS. My assumption is that any jammiing source would draw immediate hostile interest. Also, even in an era of UCAV platforms there will be still be redundancy and support from ECCM systems as well as dedicated weapons designed to seek out and destroy emitters (a good application for a hypersonic missile). For a physical solution, a laser based communication system would require the jamming source to be inside the attack envelope of the UCAV it was trying to disrupt. And yes I know: what about weather? Again, there will always be weak points for any system.

As far as current kill probability for combat tested missiles, I would be interested in the breakdown of cause for failure. I would speculate a majority is due to launching outside the acceptance cone or range (too short/too far) of the missile. That is sheer guessing on my part. But the test will be actual combat data accrued from the new generation of high off-boresight dogfighting missiles. Not just the design function but also the ever increasing reliability of the electronics. I recall there was an analysis done way back called Aceval/Aimval. One of the conclusions was that even with Aim-9L type missiles, a fight between an F-15 and a low performance 60's vintage fighter would end up in mutual shoot down. The main thing is, the missiles keep getting better and one day the damn things will work as predicted.

In any event, this is all arm chair conjecture on my part and should be treated as such.