Boeing F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD)

Our old friend Bill Sweetman:
www.aspistrategist.org.au

Bolt from the blue: what we know (and don’t know) about the US’s powerful F-47 fighter | The Strategist

When the F-47 enters service, at a date to be disclosed, it will be a new factor in US air warfare. A decision to proceed with development, deferred since July, was unexpectedly announced on 21 ...
www.aspistrategist.org.au www.aspistrategist.org.au


Defying decades of practice, the F-47 was launched by an empty Pentagon C-suite: nominees for the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), Air Force secretary, and undersecretaries for acquisition, and research and engineering, are all awaiting confirmation. Defense secretary, infantry major and TV host Pete Hegseth was the sole source selection authority.

Air force leaders had lobbied Trump personally to get his approval for the project, which Kendall put on hold in July. With no CJCS, the lead defense adviser to Hegseth is the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appointed last May: Grynkewich, the author of that NGAD-defining Air Superiority 2030 study.

Was this a Machiavellian plan by Kendall? Delaying the NGAD decision last year looks like a coup, allowing the air force to dazzle the president with secret technology, while talking up the threat of China’s new J-36 to inspire a sense of urgency, permitting Trump to present it as his own idea and calling it F-47. Conveniently, the sceptical Elon Musk, usually omnipresent at big occasions, was busy at a briefing at the Pentagon.
Click to expand...
 
NGAD decision being made is great but I cant help but feel odd about how exactly they're going to deal with a CR for nearly the rest of the year, and seemingly no increase to the defense budget other than inflation adjustments for the foreseeable future? Especially that it now looks like they're sticking with their original NGAD plans and decided against the smaller affordable alternative.
 
Sevrent said:
Especially that it now looks like they're sticking with their original NGAD plans and decided against the smaller affordable alternative.
Click to expand...
I'm curious about this "smaller, affordable alternative". NGAD has undergone restructuring and major requirements revisions according to some commentary in the previous NGAD topic. Parts of the commentary briefly lifted the veil on how renewed insight into force mass and some emerging technologies has affected the design of the F-47.
 
yeetmahboi said:
I'm curious about this "smaller, affordable alternative". NGAD has undergone restructuring and major requirements revisions according to some commentary in the previous NGAD topic. Parts of the commentary briefly lifted the veil on how renewed insight into force mass and some emerging technologies has affected the design of the F-47.
Click to expand...
Could the shown F-47 be the "smaller, affordable alternative" because when we go trought the thread we mostly see conceptional designs closer to J-36 design than what we can assume based of the artist renderings. Maybe not the the smallest or cheapest alternative but it could be just that.
 
kqcke for you said:
Could the shown F-47 be the "smaller, affordable alternative" because when we go trought the thread we mostly see conceptional designs closer to J-36 design than what we can assume based of the artist renderings. Maybe not the the smallest or cheapest alternative but it could be just that.
Click to expand...
The thing is did they have enough time to rescope everything and the designs to be smaller and affordable? Id imagine they'd have to go through an entire process for that and the fact they just handed out an EMD contract tells me they did not. So they've seemingly stuck with their original RFP.

To be fair I think the idea of NGAD being a massive F-111 sized aircraft was just speculation, there was no reason to believe that was something DoD was actually pursuing. My guess is NGAD as originally planned was somewhere in the ballpark of ATF sized
 
Stargazer said:
Actually I was discussing those designations the other day with Andreas (before the F-47 reveal) and we agreed that QF- and FQ- were not equivalent. "QF-" has always signified fighters that had been turned into target drones. "FQ-" on the other hand, is for unmanned aircraft that are used as fighters". It's an important difference!
Click to expand...
But given recent abominations like EA-37 for electronic attack and the OA-1K anything is possible! It's not likely that a new unmanned fighter FQ designation (if they created one) would start at FQ-1 given the current mess.

It would make sense in some way for the fighters and their LCAs to have designations within a similar block, something like a "forty-somethings series" rather than a "Century series".
I guess we'll see when F/A-XX becomes a reality and what number it gets.
 
kqcke for you said:
Could the shown F-47 be the "smaller, affordable alternative" because when we go trought the thread we mostly see conceptional designs closer to J-36 design than what we can assume based of the artist renderings. Maybe not the the smallest or cheapest alternative but it could be just that.
Click to expand...
I don"t think so , difficult to see the size on a artist rendering of the F-47.
 
Lockheed Martin made the US NGAD demonstrator.
Boeing made the US Navy F/A-XX demonstrator.

The Lockheed demonstrator was the big, long ranged, F-111 sized aircraft everyone was talking about. Most likely powered by two 45,000lb thrust XA100 engines. This was the aircraft that was going to cost "hundreds of millions of dollars"

6 months ago the USAF was talking about buying a cheaper NGAD or an "F-35 Follow-on". The USAF then selected the Boeing demonstrator that was originally designed for the US Navy. This is why this aircraft has canards. Canards are needed to provide lift at the nose so the aircraft stays flat at low speeds during carrier landings. Thrust vectoring is a much better and more stealthy way of improving agility so there is no other reason to add canards besides for carrier landings.

Boeing will then win the US Navy contract so both aircraft will have high commonality and a very large production run that will further reduce unit cost. I would not be surprised if the aircraft costs only $150 million each. People have mentioned that it would be dangerous to out all the eggs in the Boeing basket. But any delays would be covered by extra F-35A and F-35C.
 
raptor82 said:
Our old friend Bill Sweetman:
www.aspistrategist.org.au

Bolt from the blue: what we know (and don’t know) about the US’s powerful F-47 fighter | The Strategist

When the F-47 enters service, at a date to be disclosed, it will be a new factor in US air warfare. A decision to proceed with development, deferred since July, was unexpectedly announced on 21 ...
www.aspistrategist.org.au www.aspistrategist.org.au
Click to expand...
"Defense secretary, infantry major and TV host Pete Hegseth was the sole source selection authority."

Miaow!!!!!

Though I worry the prophetic quote may be "[Boeing] has a painful history of underbidding".
 
insidersource said:
Lockheed Martin made the US NGAD demonstrator.
Boeing made the US Navy F/A-XX demonstrator.

The Lockheed demonstrator was the big, long ranged, F-111 sized aircraft everyone was talking about. Most likely powered by two 45,000lb thrust XA100 engines. This was the aircraft that was going to cost "hundreds of millions of dollars"

6 months ago the USAF was talking about buying a cheaper NGAD or an "F-35 Follow-on". The USAF then selected the Boeing demonstrator that was originally designed for the US Navy. This is why this aircraft has canards. Canards are needed to provide lift at the nose so the aircraft stays flat at low speeds during carrier landings. Thrust vectoring is a much better and more stealthy way of improving agility so there is no other reason to add canards besides for carrier landings.

Boeing will then win the US Navy contract so both aircraft will have high commonality and a very large production run that will further reduce unit cost. I would not be surprised if the aircraft costs only $150 million each. People have mentioned that it would be dangerous to out all the eggs in the Boeing basket. But any delays would be covered by extra F-35A and F-35C.
Click to expand...
Says who?
 
Scar said:
Hm, why would USN name its carrier-based fighter after the USAF one? Hellcat/Wildcat II would be more suitable, no?
Click to expand...
You are totally right... but since they are making a complete mess of the entire designation system, who knows? Plus the Navy didn't have those F- designations in those days, anyway.
 
insidersource said:
Lockheed Martin made the US NGAD demonstrator.
Boeing made the US Navy F/A-XX demonstrator.

The Lockheed demonstrator was the big, long ranged, F-111 sized aircraft everyone was talking about. Most likely powered by two 45,000lb thrust XA100 engines. This was the aircraft that was going to cost "hundreds of millions of dollars"

6 months ago the USAF was talking about buying a cheaper NGAD or an "F-35 Follow-on". The USAF then selected the Boeing demonstrator that was originally designed for the US Navy. This is why this aircraft has canards. Canards are needed to provide lift at the nose so the aircraft stays flat at low speeds during carrier landings. Thrust vectoring is a much better and more stealthy way of improving agility so there is no other reason to add canards besides for carrier landings.

Boeing will then win the US Navy contract so both aircraft will have high commonality and a very large production run that will further reduce unit cost. I would not be surprised if the aircraft costs only $150 million each. People have mentioned that it would be dangerous to out all the eggs in the Boeing basket. But any delays would be covered by extra F-35A and F-35C.
Click to expand...
What is this? And your name? Your source?
 
Sears Haacker said:
Some people seem to think that the aircraft has significant dihedral, similar to the Bird of Prey, but I'm not convinced.
I think this is mainly an illusion caused by the perspective and the deliberately obfuscatory shadows in the render.
Click to expand...
Same with the giant nose.
 
NMaude said:
Heh:D! It would be funny if the F-47 when it's fully unveiled reveals this;):D:

Hammerhead-600x211.jpg


Maybe when the F-47 is officially named it could be called the "Hammerhead".
Click to expand...

space: above and beyond? Surprised there are people who still remember that show.
 
yeetmahboi said:
I'm curious about this "smaller, affordable alternative". NGAD has undergone restructuring and major requirements revisions according to some commentary in the previous NGAD topic. Parts of the commentary briefly lifted the veil on how renewed insight into force mass and some emerging technologies has affected the design of the F-47.
Click to expand...

F-47 is almost certainly the same aircraft Boeing proposed last summer. At most, the contractor changed from LM to Boing!, but the NGAD design and requirements never changed. A low cost NGAD was I believe idle speculation from a quote by Kendal and was not an official decision made.

Quellish indicated that he was aware of two LM X planes for NGAD and two more for FAXX from Boeing. It seems more likely that the Boeing submission was always a smaller aircraft, perhaps based on carrier MTOWs, and that people who thought the range requirement would drive the program to an F-111 sized platform were simply wrong, myself included.

ETA: the LM submission might also have been of a similar size. But if Boeing was working on FAXX demonstrators, that might explain the decision to use canards, as a previous post noted. I think it likely Boeing wins both contracts as well and that there is some commonality among the two platforms, though I would presume FAXX trades fuel for payload and we know it will not use a three stream power plant.
 
Last edited:
Josh_TN said:
Ironically it seems to be the U.S. that is more secretive of its weapons programs as of late. We have still have not seen an AIM-260 photographed yet, and it appears to be in LRIP. Zero pics of the B-21 until only a couple months before it flew. No idea what HACM or HAWC look like, other than presumably superficially similar to X-51.
Click to expand...

F-35 really soured them on public demos I guess? Easier to argue for funding when half the constituents aren't badgering Senators.

Josh_TN said:
One thing I find most interesting is that F-47 does not seem to be the battlestar that sacrifices agility for range which some of us (including me) were expecting…this seems like a more fighter sized aircraft with potentially a high degree of maneuverability. Ironically “J-36” seems much more like I envisioned NGAD, outside the triple engine arrangement.
Click to expand...

I will not be shocked if F-47 is a "landized" version of the Boeing F/A-XX. Would deffo explain the canards. Really funny the Navy went its own way now.

Josh_TN said:
Either NGAD range or payload requirements must be a lot lower than I anticipated, or a combination of both. I’m leaning towards payload being 6-8 AIM-120 sized weapons rather than any oversized weapon carriage, which probably changes the fuel fraction a lot. But it is still hard to imagine much more than a thousand mile combat radius.
Click to expand...

Still double Raptor's but it's gonna hurt on the margins without NGAS for stand-in tanking. DAF will appreciate a close-to quadruple digit combat radius regardless. ADVENT almost certainly helps with the SFC and mileage too but I'd agree there's probably not doubling of range alone. How much fuel did Raptor lose after EMD again? F-47 might be north of 20,000 lbs internal fuel I guess.

Finally, an American PFI appears.

Josh_TN said:
One thing that occurs to me is that the B-21 could stand in as a heavy weapons carrier if oversized weapons became absolutely necessary, and that AIM-260 is seen as enough to reach out to practical sensor ranges for the foreseeable future. That would take heavy weapons bays off F-47s plate and reserve more volume for fuel.
Click to expand...

The real question is whether F-47 has bays sized for 1,000 lbs or 2,000 lbs bombs tbh.
 
Jackonicko said:
Says who?
Click to expand...
The member who registered here after the award and has this as their only post.:rolleyes:

The assertion being that the USAF set aside its own RFP which apparently required a large aircraft costing hundreds of millions of dollars..and without re-competing or pushing a new set of requirements out to industry, just chose a Navy design for a strike fighter. Let's ignore previous reporting of the AF actually liking what Boeing had proposed vs the "evolutionary" approach LM was claimed to have been taking.

Those are big claims that need some substantiation.
Kat Tsun said:
Still double Raptor's but it's gonna hurt on the margins without NGAS for stand-in tanking.
Click to expand...
I am not sure we can begin estimating the actual range and efficiency given the rendering that was shared. The combat radius improvement over the F-22A could still be substantial allowing for a fighter with a 1000-1500 nautical mile combat radius.
 
insidersource said:
Lockheed Martin made the US NGAD demonstrator.
Boeing made the US Navy F/A-XX demonstrator.

The Lockheed demonstrator was the big, long ranged, F-111 sized aircraft everyone was talking about. Most likely powered by two 45,000lb thrust XA100 engines. This was the aircraft that was going to cost "hundreds of millions of dollars"

6 months ago the USAF was talking about buying a cheaper NGAD or an "F-35 Follow-on". The USAF then selected the Boeing demonstrator that was originally designed for the US Navy. This is why this aircraft has canards. Canards are needed to provide lift at the nose so the aircraft stays flat at low speeds during carrier landings. Thrust vectoring is a much better and more stealthy way of improving agility so there is no other reason to add canards besides for carrier landings.

Boeing will then win the US Navy contract so both aircraft will have high commonality and a very large production run that will further reduce unit cost. I would not be surprised if the aircraft costs only $150 million each. People have mentioned that it would be dangerous to out all the eggs in the Boeing basket. But any delays would be covered by extra F-35A and F-35C.
Click to expand...

are you the same person who posted this on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/1jhlgys/a_long_shot_prediction_about_ngad_faxx_ngas_and
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/1jhlgys/a_long_shot_prediction_about_ngad_faxx_ngas_and/
 
Hydroman said:
Not a true statement; Boeing along with Vought bailed out Northrop on the B-2 development program. Boeing did not bail us (Northrop) out. I was on B-2 from 1986 to 1996, Boeing was a pain in the ass and always thought they should be the B-2 prime, LTV was great to work with. Boeing during this time period and to my knowledge (anyone welcome to chime in), Boeing no LO programs going, Northrop and Lockheed had the king's share of advanced programs. Programs like X-45A/C and Bird of Prey came after.
Click to expand...
I hear ya. Keeping in mind that I'm generalizing, I too found Boeing-Seattle to be a rigid PITA on two big programs, one being the F-22. I also worked there (767) for a couple of years....

Nevertheless, again generalizing, the AF hierarchy involved in F-22 believed what they believed about B-2. [It's possible the AF's collective view was clouded over lingering hard feelings about Thomas Jones' F-20 campaign vis-a-vis the F-16.]

As a wise guy once said, Perception is Reality.
 
RadicalDisconnect said:
But wasn't the F-22 shape practically unchanged since submitting to EMD in 1990? I know the F-22 changed quite a bit from YF-22 but I think I read on this forum in other threads that F-22 outer shape was pretty much final by late 1990, and I would think the weight estimates should be pretty close at that point too?

If no co-__cpLocation was one of core issues with F-22, maybe the F-47 can avoid these problems since its all St. Louis, but then again it sounds like NGAD demonstrators flying since 2019 is much like YF-22 or X-35 and still a ways off from the EMD design, which risks quite bit of weight growth and Boeing track record hasn't been great.
Click to expand...
Yes, the F-22 external lines hardly changed from the EMD proposal design (config 638 if memory serves). The forebody's incidence angle was tweaked; some wing LE real estate was fixed, no longer a full-span LE flap; the wing and rudder actuator bumps grew; the sensor bump behind the canopy grew. I think that's covers it ....

The F-22 proposal weight estimate, not so close. Very controversial/emotional topic with many, so no more to say.

For aircraft development, physical co-location of the engineering team is a must-have IMO. Even splitting a co-located team into separate offices, esp. scifs vs non-scif, can and does lead to communication breakdown.
 

Attachments

  • boeing_f_47a_ngad___sixth_generation_fighter_jet__by_indowflavour_djfbr33-414w-2x.jpg
    boeing_f_47a_ngad___sixth_generation_fighter_jet__by_indowflavour_djfbr33-414w-2x.jpg
    63 KB · Views: 251
FlyGuy369 said:
I seen that! You see this?
Click to expand...
Where is that from, are there more angles?

Anyway, one can count on the chinese artists to release some stunning artwork.

On another note, aren't the admins here opposed to posting artwork/CGI in other than a dedicated thread in the User Artwork and Models section? Or this only applies for chinese aircraft or ships CGI/artwork, not US/western ones?:rolleyes:
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom