USAF/US NAVY 6th Generation Fighter Programs - F/A-XX, F-X, NGAD, PCA, ASFS news

forgot the corporate majors (in effect socialists w/ their gov capture tactics) will not add innovations such as forward canards to a NGAD prototype..(Thank you Low Observable.)
 
jsport said:
forgot the corporate majors (in effect socialists w/ their gov capture tactics) will not add innovations such as forward canards to a NGAD prototype..(Thank you Low Observable.)
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You don't add something to an aircraft unless it will make it better. You don't add features just because they're in style.
 
Style has nothing to do w/ the enhanced capabilities mentioned..and none of the capabilities is in style except maybe forward canards in Euroland.. Swing wing and its capabilities have been all but been forgotten. very sad. STOVL isn't even style w/ many folks on this forum.

Would further add forward and leading edge concepts which likely continue to languish and will not be explored.

if youre a pilot you'd like to live wouldn't you?
 
jsport said:
Style has nothing to do w/ the enhanced capabilities mentioned..and none of the capabilities is in style except maybe forward canards in Euroland.. Swing wing and its capabilities have been all but been forgotten. very sad. STOVL isn't even style w/ many folks on this forum.

Would further add forward and leading edge concepts which likely continue to languish and will not be explored.

if youre a pilot you'd like to live wouldn't you?
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Depends what the tradeoffs are. So far canards have been found wanting, all things considered, in the US.
 
To be accurate:

The LM JSF design went tail-aft because the requirements (CV approach speed and LH-compatible dimensions) meant a large wing span and area difference. On a highly swept delta this is quite difficult because the root chord becomes a limiting factor.

Boeing moved away from the delta because the necessary control power for CV was driving the elevons and actuators to embarrassingly large proportions.
 
The picture above feel like a F-19 Dejavu. It's like the 80s all over again
 
LowObservable said:
To be accurate:

The LM JSF design went tail-aft because the requirements (CV approach speed and LH-compatible dimensions) meant a large wing span and area difference. On a highly swept delta this is quite difficult because the root chord becomes a limiting factor.

Boeing moved away from the delta because the necessary control power for CV was driving the elevons and actuators to embarrassingly large proportions.
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(Relatively) far be it from me to be thin-skinned, but what part of, "... because they felt that their canard design would not be able to meet the Navy's requirements for carrier approach. This, BTW, is the same reason Boeing changed their JAST/JSF design..." was inaccurate, he asks puzzledly?
 
AeroFranz said:
This conversation is presenting some good points and I would like to see it continued - but it is true it should be somewhere else. We're not adding anything to NGAD, and if it were in its own thread it'd be easier to search. I'll ask SOC to move the relevant discussion to its own topic.
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Sorry about that, I was offline for a couple of days. Let me get to splitting this up.
 
Interesting article on F/A-XX, might just be an F-35C+!

http://defense.aol.com/2012/07/13/navy-may-buy-more-f-35s-not-fewer-under-f-a-xx-initiative/
 
Navy May Buy More F-35s, Not Fewer, Under F/A-XX Initiative

By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Published: July 13, 2012

PENTAGON: The Navy's F/A-XX initiative has been depicted as an ultra-advanced "sixth generation" aircraft that the Navy would prefer to buy instead of Lockheed Martin's F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. But AOL Defense interviews with Navy and industry sources strongly suggest that the service has little appetite for another expensive development program and that the most likely candidate for the F/A-XX is, in fact, an upgraded F-35.

"We're not chasing the next shiny object," a Navy official told AOL Defense. "We're looking to what is the art of the possible with regard to affordable warfighting capability."

So while the Navy is considering an all-new design for F/A-XX, he said, "the answer might be a continued buy of whatever legacy platforms are out there at the time." And the only existing fighter that will still be in production in 2030, he acknowledged, will be the F-35.

The driver here isn't some Navy desire for a sixth-generation super-plane: It's the Navy's need to replace Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets that will start reaching the end of their projected service life after 2025. F/A-XX is simply the Navy's name for whatever aircraft comes next. The service's Request For Information sent out to aerospace companies this spring explicitly solicited concepts – no one is at the stage of submitting actual proposals – both for "new design aircraft" and for "concepts derived from legacy aircraft."

AOL Defense has learned that Lockheed Martin has submitted one of each: an all-new, advanced, "sixth-generation" design and a derivative of its F-35C.

"If I had to bet," said an industry source, "[I'd say] what the Navy would do is an F-35C-plus."

It's not that the Navy is uninterested in cutting-edge technologies. "We're pulsing industry currently with the RFI to find out what they are seeing as the art of the possible," said the Navy official: directed-energy weapons such as lasers, supersonic tailless airframes, advanced fuel-efficient engines able to provide better speed or range, improved forms of stealth, even making the plane "optionally manned" so it can sometimes fly without a pilot aboard. But "you have to sprinkle affordable in there," he emphasized. "Affordability is a huge concern."

So can the Navy afford a major new development program for the F/A-XX? Presumably the current budget crunch will end sometime.

"There are people who think that sometime in the next ten years that the R&D cash can be found for a sixth-gen fighter, and technologically there's a lot you can do," Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia told AOL Defense. But until F/A-XX actually becomes an item in the budget, he said, "I wouldn't actually take it seriously from a cash standpoint."

Loren Thompson – consultant, analyst, and frequent contributor to AOL Defense – put it more bluntly: "I doubt F/A-XX will ever get beyond the advanced PowerPoint stage," he said. "A sixth-generation fighter is unlikely to be operational before mid-century, assuming a time lag similar to that between F-15/16 and F-22/35."

It's not impossible to field an all-new fighter design by 2030 if the Navy starts soon – but that would require finding significant funding in the next few years, when budgets are tightening. And while some in the Navy would love to raid the F-35 budget to launch a new program, the political odds are against them.

"I don't think it's any secret that the Department is committed to F-35," said the Navy official. "It's a given: Some level of F-35 inventory at this point has to be assumed." That's where planning for the F/A-XX has to start.

So the easiest course, politically and fiscally, is not to launch a new program but to let the F-35 evolve. Not everything envisioned for a "sixth-generation" fighter could fit onto a future version of the F-35, but a lot could. Lockheed has studied making an unmanned F-35, for example. Northrop Grumman explored concepts for putting a laser weapon in the Joint Strike Fighter. Perhaps most important, the existing airframe could be outfitted with more advanced, fuel-efficient engines to get the extra range that's critical to the Navy's AirSea Battle concept.

For now, the Navy is simply exploring its options. There are plenty of hurdles to get a program off the ground. Currently, staffers are finishing the draft of an F/A-XX Initial Capabilities Document (ICD) for Navy leaders to review. If the admirals approve, the ICD gets to go before the inter-service Joint Requirements Council; if the JROC approves, then F/A-XX goes before the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Frank Kendall; and if Kendall approves, the Navy can launch a formal "analysis of alternatives" (AOA) – one set of alternatives being a new design versus an F-35 derivative.

"We're shooting to get to an AOA by this fall or winter," said the Navy official. When would that analysis be finished, and the Navy ready to decide which alternative to pursue? Given the complexities, he said, "our initial guess is a couple of years right now."
 
Ta.


At last someone publicly saying what many in the industry have predicted for a long time.


Regards,


Greg
 
A stretched F-35C with 60,000lbs thrust might be interesting.
 
sferrin said:
A stretched F-35C with 60,000lbs thrust might be interesting.
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With a huge internal weapons bay holding about 20 AMRAAMs and AIM-9Xs or a dozen or so 250 lbs JDAMs :D
 
TBlue - I wouldn't worry about it.

Named sources are a LockMart consultant whom the author fails to identify as such, and a bloke who is good at getting quoted but has a rather miserable track record when it comes to technological predictions, particularly on the defense side.

Anyone who wants the Super F-35 to happen, though, will first have to deal with obstructionism from the prime engine contractor, who has enlisted his home Senator to make sure that the advanced fuel-efficient engine never gets funded to the TRL level where it will be ready for development.

Also, anyone talking about an optionally manned F-35 is smoking mushrooms. Why carry the weight, volume and complexity of a cockpit and life-support system? Why carry sensors on board that can't be used by a remote operator? Why have the aircraft stressed for combat agility that you won't use? There's a reason UCAVs are subsonic and look like manta rays.

The bit that the author does get right is this: "Some in the Navy would love to raid the F-35 budget to launch a new program." This has LockMart and PW scared silly, particularly in view of the CNO's comments in Proceedings, because, some day in the not too distant future, those "some" officers might be in charge. Hence this story.
 
LowObservable said:
TBlue - I wouldn't worry about it.

Named sources are a LockMart consultant whom the author fails to identify as such, and a bloke who is good at getting quoted but has a rather miserable track record when it comes to technological predictions, particularly on the defense side.

Anyone who wants the Super F-35 to happen, though, will first have to deal with obstructionism from the prime engine contractor, who has enlisted his home Senator to make sure that the advanced fuel-efficient engine never gets funded to the TRL level where it will be ready for development.

Also, anyone talking about an optionally manned F-35 is smoking mushrooms. Why carry the weight, volume and complexity of a cockpit and life-support system? Why carry sensors on board that can't be used by a remote operator? Why have the aircraft stressed for combat agility that you won't use? There's a reason UCAVs are subsonic and look like manta rays.

The bit that the author does get right is this: "Some in the Navy would love to raid the F-35 budget to launch a new program." This has LockMart and PW scared silly, particularly in view of the CNO's comments in Proceedings, because, some day in the not too distant future, those "some" officers might be in charge. Hence this story.
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Anybody who thinks unmanned aircraft are going to replace manned are smoking mushrooms, period. And "scared silly" is wishful thinking. What *does* have EVERYBODY "scared silly" though is Sequestration going through. Dimwitted politicians are far more threatening to military programs of every stripe than either the Russians or Chinese.
 
sferrin said:
LowObservable said:
TBlue - I wouldn't worry about it.

Named sources are a LockMart consultant whom the author fails to identify as such, and a bloke who is good at getting quoted but has a rather miserable track record when it comes to technological predictions, particularly on the defense side.

Anyone who wants the Super F-35 to happen, though, will first have to deal with obstructionism from the prime engine contractor, who has enlisted his home Senator to make sure that the advanced fuel-efficient engine never gets funded to the TRL level where it will be ready for development.

Also, anyone talking about an optionally manned F-35 is smoking mushrooms. Why carry the weight, volume and complexity of a cockpit and life-support system? Why carry sensors on board that can't be used by a remote operator? Why have the aircraft stressed for combat agility that you won't use? There's a reason UCAVs are subsonic and look like manta rays.

The bit that the author does get right is this: "Some in the Navy would love to raid the F-35 budget to launch a new program." This has LockMart and PW scared silly, particularly in view of the CNO's comments in Proceedings, because, some day in the not too distant future, those "some" officers might be in charge. Hence this story.
Click to expand...

Anybody who thinks unmanned aircraft are going to replace manned are smoking mushrooms, period. And "scared silly" is wishful thinking. What *does* have EVERYBODY "scared silly" though is Sequestration going through. Dimwitted politicians are far more threatening to military programs of every stripe than either the Russians or Chinese.
Click to expand...

Ditto. UCAVs are essentially recoverable ALCMs.
 
LowObservable said:
Named sources are a LockMart consultant whom the author fails to identify as such, and a bloke who is good at getting quoted but has a rather miserable track record when it comes to technological predictions, particularly on the defense side.
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And your credentials are?

LowObservable said:
Anyone who wants the Super F-35 to happen, though, will first have to deal with obstructionism from the prime engine contractor, who has enlisted his home Senator to make sure that the advanced fuel-efficient engine never gets funded to the TRL level where it will be ready for development.
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Proof please!
 
GTX said:
LowObservable said:
Named sources are a LockMart consultant whom the author fails to identify as such, and a bloke who is good at getting quoted but has a rather miserable track record when it comes to technological predictions, particularly on the defense side.
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And your credentials are?
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Good luck. ;)
 
Credentials?

I became self-aware in January 2004 and inhabit multiple sites on the web. That's eight years in which I should have been able to incriminate myself if I really did not know what I was talking about.

And that, around the intertubez, is about as good as credentials get.

GTX - http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_05_28_2012_p24-461473.xml&p=1
 
let's see which one passes the reality check:


-Beltway Bandit - Pardon, "consultant" - Loren Thompson's objectivity MIGHT be partially clouded by a bi-monthly check courtesy of Lockmart


or


-The Euro-Canard socialist mafia, which was never able in twenty years to get together to agree to build one fighter as opposed to three, but has no problems coordinating efforts to throw mud at their main rival, cleverly uses a blog written by a saboteur journalist who's been planted in the US and worked in the field for the past thirty-plus years (Those scheming cheese-eating bastards!). His payment comes in the form of Ikea stock in order to not arouse suspicion. To make things more believable, he writes some fifty books to lend himself some credibility .
 
The Internet is the embodiment of all that is evil, but this part's funny. (LO's credentials include 11 dead tree versions on my bookshelf alone, by the way.)
 
AeroFranz said:
let's see which one passes the reality check:


-Beltway Bandit - Pardon, "consultant" - Loren Thompson's objectivity MIGHT be partially clouded by a bi-monthly check courtesy of Lockmart


or


-The Euro-Canard socialist mafia, which was never able in twenty years to get together to agree to build one fighter as opposed to three, but has no problems coordinating efforts to throw mud at their main rival, cleverly uses a blog written by a saboteur journalist who's been planted in the US and worked in the field for the past thirty-plus years (Those scheming cheese-eating bastards!). His payment comes in the form of Ikea stock in order to not arouse suspicion. To make things more believable, he writes some fifty books to lend himself some credibility .
Click to expand...

European author writes so many books touting the merits of stealth that he's taken the moniker "LowObservable" and then tries to tell us, "wait, uh, I meant non-stealth eurocanards are the way to go" when Europe doesn't build it's own stealth fighter. Yeah, credability.
 
Sorry, I'll admit that was douchy of me. (sound of goosestepping in the background).
 
You could have pointed out the possessive "it's" as well, so you really let him off lightly.
 
Now, now girls!

Going back to the FA-XX, is there a shiny pdf or Powerpoint out there on the plane?
 
LowObservable said:
GTX - http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_05_28_2012_p24-461473.xml&p=1
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That is pretty interesting. I'm always up for more research in creating better engines. I (like most people) was just sick and tired of GE's bitching about getting into the F-35. There is plenty work for them to be had with the F110, F404 and F414 & derivatives. I'm already predicting a win for the KAI/Lockheed T-50 in the USAF's T/X program which means a solid order of planes (possibly up to 1000) all powered by either an F404 or hopefully an F414 EDE.
 
Nusna - It was not really "bitching". The second engine was part of the program from the get-go, and given that PW's goal price appears to be well over the price of two F414s (which offer more thrust and less weight) there might be a case for competition.

The basic concept behind the new-tech engine has been around for some time. In some incarnations it can take you through most of the tactical-air cycle with minimal or no use of burner, which gives you a big range increase and saves a lot of money in training.
 
LowObservable said:
... given that PW's goal price appears to be well over the price of two F414s (which offer more thrust and less weight) there might be a case for competition.
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Are you sure about this? According to wiki:
2x F414: 4,890lb weight & 44,000lb thrust
F135: 3,750lb weight & 43,000lb thrust
 
LowObservable said:
Nusna - It was not really "bitching". The second engine was part of the program from the get-go, and given that PW's goal price appears to be well over the price of two F414s (which offer more thrust and less weight) there might be a case for competition.

The basic concept behind the new-tech engine has been around for some time. In some incarnations it can take you through most of the tactical-air cycle with minimal or no use of burner, which gives you a big range increase and saves a lot of money in training.
Click to expand...

If the engine is derived from the F120 (which I understand it is), there certainly is quite a bit of potential. The idea behind the F120 certainly is superior to the F119, but execution is another, especially since a variable cycle engine is pretty much guaranteed to be more expensive. While I also know the YF120 was used in high AoA tests with the YF-22, I do wonder about how stable the engine is and it's reliability in extreme maneuvers.

AdamF said:
LowObservable said:
... given that PW's goal price appears to be well over the price of two F414s (which offer more thrust and less weight) there might be a case for competition.
Click to expand...


Are you sure about this? According to wiki:
2x F414: 4,890lb weight & 44,000lb thrust
F135: 3,750lb weight & 43,000lb thrust
Click to expand...

Though to be fair:

2x F414-EPE (no data on it's weight but it's probably close to standard F414): ~5,000lb weight & 52,800lb thrust
 
NUSNA_Moebius said:
If the engine is derived from the F120 (which I understand it is), there certainly is quite a bit of potential. The idea behind the F120 certainly is superior to the F119, but execution is another, especially since a variable cycle engine is pretty much guaranteed to be more expensive. While I also know the YF120 was used in high AoA tests with the YF-22, I do wonder about how stable the engine is and it's reliability in extreme maneuvers.
Click to expand...


If you are referring to the F-136' then it was NOT a derivative of the F120 but rather an entirely new engine developed jointly by Rolls-Royce and GE.
 

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