Boeing F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD)

joewee said:
The forebody's incidence angle was tweaked
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What do you mean by incidence angle? Meaning the nose radome "cone" angle? Also I thought it was 637, thought I read that was where the big changes to the wing sweep angles and fuselage shapes from the YF-22 to the F-22 shape today.

Also, I notice that all US stealth fighter radomes since the F-22 has been chiseled, like the F-35 and now F-47, and so did the F-23 actually. Is there a reason for this? I read on F-23 it's to help generate vortices for high AOA, not sure if that's why F-35 and F-47 is doing that.
 
DWG said:
It occurs to me that YFQ-42 and YFQ-44 may argue F-47 is part of a new series of related designs, though 'The Forty Series' doesn't have quite the same ring as 'the Century Series'.
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I think it's almost certainly what they're going for, following on from the century, teen, and twenty-series, which all arose organically for aircraft of their generations, and the thirty-series, which was somewhat accidental.

That the forty-series then puts them in prime position to give the P-47 a nod and to throw a bone to Trump all works out quite nicely.
 
Too early to be giving out tributes?

Rich Nastasi, a really smart stability & control engineer, conceived of the idea depicted below in 1987 or 1988 1985 or 1986 in a classified environment in Bethpage NY -- I'm an eyewitness. I believe his concept predates any similar notion in St Louis, but we'll never know for sure.

See: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/boeing-bird-of-prey-demonstrator.996/#post-700061

Don't know how to contact Rich, but I hope he enjoys the satisfaction knowing that at least one of his colleagues remembers him and his idea -- one of the best innovations to ever come out of the stodgy Grumman Iron Works. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s, Grumman had already come down with a terminal illness.

Edit: I just looked at some old notes. My dates for Nastasi's innovation seem to be 2 years earlier than I have written previously.


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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.

In the image we are looking down on the aircraft; in fact you can even find the vanishing point by using the gaps in the slabs and the ceiling lights in the hangar.

Because we are looking down on the aircraft, the rear of the aircraft appears higher than the front of the aircraft.
If the wing has significant sweep (near certainly) the wing tips should appear higher in the image than the leading edge wing root, without any dihedral.
Compare to this image of the Typhoon, for example, also taken from above.
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Maybe, at first, it appears to be taken from front on, based on the angle of the flag. But then I realized, the flag, or the entire background could be photoshopped in, resulting in a forced perspective.

A dihedral may still be possible, because if you look at the canopy, it appears to be shorter than on the picture of the typhoon. because the canopy would have a smaller cross-section from a frontal view, which could indicate a frontal view.

Either way, it’s just an artist’s impression, which might not reflect the actual design, and most of the aircraft isn’t even visible anyways. But it is fun to speculate.
 
RadicalDisconnect said:
What do you mean by incidence angle? Meaning the nose radome "cone" angle? Also I thought it was 637, thought I read that was where the big changes to the wing sweep angles and fuselage shapes from the YF-22 to the F-22 shape today.

Also, I notice that all US stealth fighter radomes since the F-22 has been chiseled, like the F-35 and now F-47, and so did the F-23 actually. Is there a reason for this? I read on F-23 it's to help generate vortices for high AOA, not sure if that's why F-35 and F-47 is doing that.
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Incidence angle of the chine line, from nose to the inlet BL diverter. Config No. may have been 637 or 638 -- too long ago. The wing sweep angle was reduced to 42-deg prior to EMD proposal submittal.

1742833460803.png

Edit: the YF-22 and F-22A have very very little in common, other than the basic general arrangements, which kinda look the same to Mr/Ms J.Q. Public. As I've written before, Lockheed's ATF flight vehicle tested in the Dem/Val phase was/is not much more than a hand-built, integrated flight sciences demonstator (aerodynamics, propulsion, controls). It was truly the XF-22. [Would love to hear a Northrop or McAir expert, shot full of sodium pentothol, chime in on how much or little the YF-23 was a 'prototype'.] BTW, L-B-GD spent over $800M of corporate cash (not including reimbursable IR&D/B&P) on Dem/Val and N-MD reportedly spent over $650M.

Responses to your other questions would violate my self-imposed rule of not getting into technical stuff on this (otherwise terrific) open forum.
 
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Sevrent said:
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
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The same way they would have dealt with it had the President Biden's FY2025 request materialized? The funding levels sought, which had NGAD in them, are not that dramatically different. They've already used up four to five months of FY25 due to the pause with that time likely costing them just enough to keep teams intact as opposed to EMD level spending (as the down select would have happened in FY24 equating to basically full year of EMD spending).
 
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Hydroman said:
In regards to the Adaptive Engine program, GE had a nice start with the YF-120 during the YF-22/YF-23 Dem/Val. It was a variable-cycle design and it seemed GE was thinking in the right direction. Our PAV#2 YF-23's supercruise performance was outstanding and still classified. It can see where the YF-120 was not selected for the F-22, it needed more refinement but was an excellent start and again it seems GE capitalize with its design moving towards adaptive tech. PAV#2 only needed one engine to refuel, too much power using both, this is from Paul Metz's book and from personal experience. GE has a good chance of being selected or has been selected for the F-47 engine.
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I'm kind of hoping both engines go into production. Just to avoid a monopoly and if a problem shows up with one that would ground the program, the other can keep it flying (I'm looking at you F-100). At least if I was the USAF, I would look at both contractors and say, "Here's the attach points, here's the engine bay, and here's the mass flow the inlet can handle. Here's the I/O. Make sure your engine fits."
 
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.
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A horizontal tail is better for trimming an aircraft in the circuit. Look at the high alpha the Rafale needs when landing on a carrier, it's much higher than an SH. I still think the Boeing design has fixed canards and a separate tail at the rear (three surface design) or TV to keep the approach flat.
 
joewee said:
Too early to be giving out tributes?

Rich Nastasi, a really smart stability & control engineer, conceived of the idea depicted below in 1987 or 1988 in a classified environment in Bethpage NY -- I'm an eyewitness. I believe his concept predates any similar notion in St Louis, but we'll never know for sure.

See: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/boeing-bird-of-prey-demonstrator.996/#post-700061

Don't know how to contact Rich, but I hope he enjoys the satisfaction knowing that at least one of his colleagues remembers him and his idea -- one of the best innovations to ever come out of the stodgy Grumman Iron Works. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s, Grumman had already come down with a terminal illness.


View attachment 764212
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That wing design goes back to Germany in WW2. IIRC, it's the Weissman wing. Not the forward swept part, the tailless gull shape.
1742838573085.png 1742838594063.png
 
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@Sundog : the He162, instead of being an aspirational project, went into production and was sent into the fight in 1945, even gaining, at least, a victory (Tempest)...

iu


Downward canted wing tips were added to reduce the wing dihedral after earlier flight w/o that section proved unsatisfactory (Dutch roll). This solution prevented from having to make more drastic change to the airframe while it was already in full production.

From wiki:
[...] the stability problems proved to be more serious, and were found to be related to phenomenon known as Dutch roll.[46] While this tendency could be resolved by reducing the dihedral, however, as the He 162 was supposed to enter production within weeks, there was no time to implement major design changes. Instead, a number of small changes were made, such as the addition of lead ballast in the nose to move the centre of gravity towards the front of the aircraft while the tail surfaces were also slightly increased in size.[citation needed] Despite these measures, some figures, such as Alexander Lippisch, declared the flying characteristics of the He 162 to be unsuitable for inexperienced pilots.[47]

The third and fourth prototypes, which used an "M" for "Muster" (model) number instead of "V" for "Versuchs" (experimental) number, as the He 162 M3 and M4, after being fitted with the strengthened wings, flew in mid-January 1945.[48][49] These versions also included – as possibly the pioneering example of their use on a production-line, military jet aircraft – small, anhedraled aluminium "drooped" wingtips, reportedly designed by Alexander Lippisch and known in German as Lippisch-Ohren ("Lippisch Ears"), in an attempt to cure the stability problems via effectively "decreasing" the main wing panels' marked three degree dihedral angle
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lancer21 said:
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:
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When we have a good understanding of the shape of the aircraft, endless repetitions of the same CGI model by the same CGI artist in different angles or colours is just noise.

For the scenario like this, where the shape of the F-47 is very unclear, posting user-created CGI visualisations is allowable for the purpose of trying to understand the shape in the official artwork. We can analyse the visualisation and see if it is consistent with the artwork.

Even then, one set of pictures per CGI artist /model is plenty.
 
Sundog said:
That wing design goes back to Germany in WW2. IIRC, it's the Weissman wing. Not the forward swept part, the tailless gull shape.
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Very cool.
With all due credit to the Luftwaffe's impressive stable of brilliant aircraft designers and builders, Nastasi came up with his idea in 1987 or 1988 to simultaneously satisfy three tough technical challenges -- very low RCS and effective tail-less stability & control while retaining fighter-like low-speed maneuverability. In fact, his gull-wing concept stemmed from his initial idea (1986?) to put a crank in the vertical tail of Grumman's abortive, embarrassing "stealthy A-6", the one mentioned in Stevenson's classic book, The 5 Billion Dollar Misunderstanding.

Edit: I just scanned my scribble in Stevenson's book, pg. 47. My dates for Nastasi's innovations seem to be 2 years earlier than I have written previously. So he came up with the gull-wing concept in 1985 or 1986, and the cranked vertical tail in 1984.
 
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Josh_TN said:
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.
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What relationship do the demonstrators have to the two respective service programs? Other than they were used to de-risk and mature technologies broadly applicable to next gen fighters? I mean, Boeing would have bid on NGAD with a proposal sized and spec'd to meet USAF's requirements as specified in the 2023 RFP. Same for Lockheed. Same for both on the Navy effort. Even if Boeing built a smaller demonstrator to reduce risk for future fighters, it would have offered something that could actually meet or exceed AF's requirements for the formal program requirements. If they've backtracked on all this just to go build "whatever Boeing demonstrated" and not "what was sought in the RFP", then the protest, if it comes, would be very interesting to follow.
 
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.
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If the (shown) chines of the F-47´s shovel-like nose are in reality as horizontal as those of e.g. the noses of YF-23 and X-36, dihedral is probably minimal.
 
had said:
former fighter pilots take on it
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From the video you shared:
"Their 6th is 5th, their 5th is 4th etc."

On what basis? This is just a statement that 'Chinese designs are always worse by one generation"... even if it weren't true, without grounding it in any evidence it is just attitude - and an attitude which is far too complacent, dangerously so.
 
Avimimus said:
From the video you shared:
"Their 6th is 5th, their 5th is 4th etc."

On what basis? This is just a statement that 'Chinese designs are always worse by one generation"... even if it weren't true, without grounding it in any evidence it is just attitude - and an attitude which is far too complacent, dangerously so.
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The Chinese call their 5th gen fighters (J-20, J-35) 4th gen. They use a different method of numbering their generations. When a PLAAF officer says "4th gen" and a USAF officer says "5th gen," they are using different words to refer to the same thing.

This might not be what anyone that you were responding to was saying. Perhaps someone was denigrating Chinese fighters. I don't know. What I do know is that the Chinese describe their generations using one less number.
 
Reviewing a few assumptions discussed earlier in the prior thread [again] in light of statements made by CSAF, POTUS and in the AF press-release.

The F-47 will have significantly longer range, more advanced stealth, be more sustainable, supportable, and have higher availability than our fifth-generation fighters (CSAF)
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This would mean a greater subsonic radius over the F-35A (665 Nmi) , and an increase in overall (Supercruise thrown in) vs F-22A (470 Nmi on internal and 730 Nmi with 2 600 gal tanks). Let's assume a 1,000 nautical mile combat radius requirement on internal fuel with a 100 nautical mile supercruise (or 1200+ nmi without the supercurising element). That's basically 2x the combat radius with Supercruise relative to F-22A and a little less than 2x increase in subsonic combat radius over F-35A.

My guess is that to achieve that, F-47 would need to have somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 lbs of internal fuel. Now looking at a Raptor, weapons and fuel..that's what 62,000-63,000 lbs?..Can you design a high performance, highly stealthy and fast (Mach 2+) air vehicle that includes say 10,000 lbs of additional fuel relative to the F-22A while keeping this within +5-10% of the F-22's weight?
 
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Avimimus said:
From the video you shared:
"Their 6th is 5th, their 5th is 4th etc."

On what basis? This is just a statement that 'Chinese designs are always worse by one generation"... even if it weren't true, without grounding it in any evidence it is just attitude - and an attitude which is far too complacent, dangerously so.
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Marketing, because that’s what “5th” “6th” whatever generation is. Marketing.
 
Jacky said:
NG already has the B-21. If Boeing is selected as the F/A-XX contractor, will there be another new attack aircraft project( advanced strike you mentioned) designated for NG? I doubt the Navy and Air Force have the budget to undertake a new project.
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One thing both the USAF and USN are missing, medium theater attack/strike capability and platforms. The USAF had F-111 and the USN had A-6 and A-7. The USN used to have a great mix of platforms for the various missions when I was on CVN-65. F/A-XX will handle CAP and protecting the strike group. The F/A-18s are very good aircraft but you need attack jet-class payloads, even if the USN uses unmanned attack platforms, still gives them that capability that was lost.
 
Sundog said:
I'm kind of hoping both engines go into production. Just to avoid a monopoly and if a problem shows up with one that would ground the program, the other can keep it flying (I'm looking at you F-100). At least if I was the USAF, I would look at both contractors and say, "Here's the attach points, here's the engine bay, and here's the mass flow the inlet can handle. Here's the I/O. Make sure your engine fits."
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Are they keeping 3-stream or dropping it on NGAD?
 
Dreamfighter said:
If the (shown) chines of the F-47´s shovel-like nose are in reality as horizontal as those of e.g. the noses of YF-23 and X-36, dihedral is probably minimal.
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I swore that I wouldn't do this, but here I am doing it. If there was no dihedral, the lines on the attached picture that track the nose chine and canard would be parallel, assuming the sweep angle of the two are identical. Obviously they are not parallel, thus, the canard has dihedral. Since the canard pretty much overlays the wing, the wing probably has dihedral. Of course I am analyzing artwork. If the artwork is artist subjective, my analysis mean nothing.
 

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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.

In the image we are looking down on the aircraft; in fact you can even find the vanishing point by using the gaps in the slabs and the ceiling lights in the hangar.

Because we are looking down on the aircraft, the rear of the aircraft appears higher than the front of the aircraft.
If the wing has significant sweep (near certainly) the wing tips should appear higher in the image than the leading edge wing root, without any dihedral.
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Aware that USAF would have had to strike a balance among credibility, vagueness, and disinformation/psyops, I still have to play along -- I can't help myself, I've got the F-47 fever...

1742852024615.png
B-21 rollout photo, 02Dec2022 and F-47 CGI, 21Mar2025

To my untrained, aging eyes the B-21 photo seems to have been taken at a steeper lookdown angle than the F-47 CGI rendering. So my guess is the F-47 inboard wing does have dihedral, but not as pronounced as the Bird of Prey.

Late add: the USAF/Northrop B-21 external configuration is beautiful, and looks right too. Form follows function, well done.
 
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djfawcett said:
I swore that I wouldn't do this, but here I am doing it. If there was no dihedral, the lines on the attached picture that track the nose chine and canard would be parallel, assuming the sweep angle of the two are identical. Obviously they are not parallel, thus, the canard has dihedral. Since the canard pretty much overlays the wing, the wing probably has dihedral. Of course I am analyzing artwork. If the artwork is artist subjective, my analysis mean nothing.
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I drew those lines (for myself) too (in red instead of blue). If the chine and canards have the same sweep (for L.O.) and are in the same horizontal position, the lines should of course be completely parallel with one another.
I did not mean mean there is no dihedral at all, but probably to a lesser degree then one might think and certainly not as much as is the case on e.g. BoP.
 
gjbox said:
found the artist's X account link:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1904269703222083633
View: https://x.com/tomcat_fans/status/1904269703222083633
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Well, obviously the artist did a great job with what info he has, but i would surprised if the wing is that humongous, although the GCAP has such a grotesque wing, and one of the Boeing canard concepts has a sort of diamond wing as well. I guess it might need to be that shape to get in as much fuel as possible. But i would still expect a wing more like on J-50 or like one of the older concepts shown earlier, with or without BoP curved tips (which imo is an unnecessary luxury and expense in a series production aircraft that is supposed to keep costs down).
 
Canards are helpful for STOL:
1. because they can act directly as flaps without creating trim drag, with both the canards and the elevons providing extra lift.
2.because they can act as vortex generators independent of wing AOA, allowing for strong vortex effects over the wing at reasonable approach AOA (compared to eg: LERX) , increasing Cl and lowering approach speeds.

The Rafale actually has lower carrier approach speeds than the hornet, and obviously the Gripen and Viggen use this to great effect for STOL.

Another thing that Canards can do which I think is highly relevant for the F-47, is that they can provide additional means of directional (Yaw) control, even without dihedral or Anhedral.
Differential deflection allows you to use them as a rudder brake, through lift induced drag (or more directly as a rudder if they have dihedral/Anhedral), using ailerons to counter unwanted roll.
You can also differentially alter vortex effects on the wing to create directional control.
For the F-47 this could mean a wider aerodynamic envelope compared to a pure delta design as sufficient directional control could be maintained at higher AOA.

It's worth noting that TVC is not a panacea for controlling otherwise uncontrollable aircraft.
Thrust vectoring is most effective at low effective airspeeds, on aircraft and missiles, because the control forces are fixed; unlike an aerodynamic control surface, a TVC nozzle is providing the same amount of angular force at 500 knots as it is at zero.
This is great for post stall maneuvers where aerodynamic forces are weak, but at corner speed, the 0.3Gs of angular acceleration being provided by a deflected nozzle is chump change compared to the 9Gs being created by the wings.
A pure delta aircraft that relies heavily on thrust vectoring or differential thrust is going to have very restricted sideslip roll and alpha limits at higher dynamic pressure.
 

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Hydroman said:
One thing both the USAF and USN are missing, medium theater attack/strike capability and platforms. The USAF had F-111 and the USN had A-6 and A-7. The USN used to have a great mix of platforms for the various missions when I was on CVN-65. F/A-XX will handle CAP and protecting the strike group. The F/A-18s are very good aircraft but you need attack jet-class payloads, even if the USN uses unmanned attack platforms, still gives them that capability that was lost.
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If Lockheed's NGAD demonstrator is what some of us think it is, it is tailored made for the regional high-speed bomber mission. A USAF F-111 replacement has been talked about and worked on (in fits and starts) since 1976. It was one of the earliest mission applications of the initial Senior High studies. At Lockheed it was categorized as ATA-A (45Klb) and ATA-B (90Klb), the former leading to Senior Trend (F-117). I'm sure Northrop had AP designations for these categories too.

For the Navy, A-12/ATA (no relation to Senior High ATA) was its one shot at replacing the A-6 in the deep strike mission. That ship has not only sailed, it has sunk.

Unless Trump is successful in minting Bitcoin to allow for an unlimited defense budget, the AF will be hard-pressed to fund a regional bomber which is undoubted technologically doable and militarily useful. The Navy, no way no how. Not sure how they're going to pay for F/A-XX after the initial EMD ramp-up which the present CR should cover.

Edit: Not sure how they're going to pay for F/A-XX and CCA aka MUM-T. The latter is billions and billions more, as Carl Sagan used to say.
 
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joewee said:
Aware that USAF would have had to strike a balance among credibility, vagueness, and disinformation/psyops, I had to play along -- I can't help myself, I've got the F-47 fever...

View attachment 764254
B-21 rollout photo, 02Dec2022 and F-47 CGI, 14Mar2025

To my untrained, aging eyes the B-21 photo seems to have been taken at a steeper lookdown angle than the F-47 CGI rendering. So my guess is the F-47 inboard wing does have dihedral, but not as pronounced as the Bird of Prey.
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From a greater altitude and a very wide angle lens - note how the painted lines on the ground converge. Even though the F-47 image is a render, I suppose one might be able to use the lines on the ground as a grid. The perspective field of view is narrower, with less distortion, but there are factors confusing interpretation such as the apparent dihedral.
 
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
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I thought that this was a very good point.

Stealth: the F-22 and F-35 are classic applications of bowtie stealth design, their vertical tails causing stronger radar reflections when viewed from the side than from in front or behind. (A graph of this looks like a bowtie.) The problem in the Western Pacific is China’s numerous long-range airborne radars and air-warfare destroyers, which make it next to impossible to avoid being illuminated from all angles.
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