Boeing F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD)

[VishnuOsiris]

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...

Then, I'm afraid the only cure is more F-47.
"(Don’t Fear) The Reaper" Intensifying

 

[siegecrossbow]

That puts Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury at a disadvantage compared to other contenders for CCA then - it has a single vertical tailfin.

First block CCA are meat shield anyway. Cost is the more important consideration.

 

[In_A_Dream]

That puts Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury at a disadvantage compared to other contenders for CCA then - it has a single vertical tailfin.

Low-threat environments don't need to worry about that.

 

[Hydroman]

Current Anduril YFQ-44s stems from the Blue Force Technologies Fury-A Bandit program originally tied to AFRL for counter-air/adversarial training in which AFRL screwed up an is no longer involved. I was involved in the Fury-A effort with the Blue Force folks related subsystems design for the platform. GA seems to have an advantage since they have a very good pedigree but you never know. The GA YFQ-42 stems from their XQ-67 OBSS which is part of their Gambit modular platform series. XQ-67 and YFQ-42 seems to be the first vehicles utilizing the Gambit approach.

 

[icyplanetnhc (Steve)]

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 only other change from 638 EMD proposal to 645, the final F-22 configuration, is the shape of the LEX, which had a slightly different planform. Otherwise it's practically the same. This post in shows the early 1990s render of the F-22 prior to its first flight; it's nearly identical to the production jets. The external shape of the F-22 was largely final by 1990, which is actually a pretty rapid and drastic refinement from the YF-22 (config 632/1132) that was quite immature since it froze shortly after the complete redesign in summer 1987.

That puts Anduril's YFQ-44A Fury at a disadvantage compared to other contenders for CCA then - it has a single vertical tailfin.

A single vertical tail primarily degrades RCS in the beam aspect, but given the increasingly distributed sensor nodes, that is still a vulnerability. There had been a render of a version of the Fury with V-tail empennage, and we'll see what the final FQ-44 configuration looks like, although it's more than likely the cruciform tail configuration that we saw with the mockup. Conformal carriage of missiles can greatly mitigate the downsides of carrying them externally, if Increment I CCAs really have no further plans than to carry two AIM-120s or in the future, AIM-260s. The CCAs are meant to be rapidly iterated in any case, like Will Roper's "Digital Century" approach.

More interesting is how the subsonic Increment I CCAs (FQ-42 and FQ-44) will be teamed with the F-47, as it is going to be a long range, high-speed sensor-shooter in accordance to the NGAD PCA concept. Perhaps both designs are being modified for supersonic dash. Otherwise, that may be where the future CCA increments come in.

 

[quellish]

Conformal carriage of missiles can greatly mitigate the downsides of carrying them externally,

In what way?

 

[Rhinocrates]

Then, I'm afraid the only cure is more F-47.
"(Don’t Fear) The Reaper" Intensifying

On the Chrisopher Walken connection, check out the new weapon of choice.

 

[Ozair]

More interesting is how the subsonic Increment I CCAs (FQ-42 and FQ-44) will be teamed with the F-47, as it is going to be a long range, high-speed sensor-shooter in accordance to the NGAD PCA concept. Perhaps both designs are being modified for supersonic dash. Otherwise, that may be where the future CCA increments come in.

I doubt Increment one will ever be expected to fly supersonic nor was it a requirement. The CCAs should operate in a cab rank style arrangement. Fly out to specific locations and orbit until either directed to transit to a specific location at which point it meets up with the parent or be picked up by the parent at the orbit. Could also see them operating effectively in a kill box, essentially fly within the box and prosecute any target within that.

Increment two and subsequent CCA may have supersonic capability but I am not holding my breath. I don't think the value is there compared to other areas that might better suit their respective missions, like greater magazine depth, heavier sensors, external payloads, stealthier airframes etc.

 

[Joint Soviet Fighter]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1GgyzCyJ6Y

Is she toxic, though?

 

[Joint Soviet Fighter]

Sure, Jan .

What The F-47's Canards Say About The Rest Of Its Design

The most surprising feature on the F-47 Next Generation fighter are canard foreplanes that aren't conducive to extreme degrees of stealth.

www.twz.com

 

[HIBEX]

Just correcting some mis-infos

The fact that the canards and main wings aren’t parallel, doesn’t prove that it’s dihedral.

Even if two lines are in the same plane, if they aren’t parallel, from any viewpoint it will still be remained unparallel

 

[Scott Kenny]

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

Supposedly, the 3-stream engines burn on the order of 30-40% less fuel than F119/F135.

I certainly wasn't expecting that level of improved fuel economy, which is why I was assuming a monster of a plane. I was running off of TF30 fuel economy, and doubling the amount of fuel an F111 carried to get the range.

Hm, why would USN name its carrier-based fighter after the USAF one? Hellcat/Wildcat II would be more suitable, no?

Not sure if Boeing wins, but if Northrop-Grumman wins it'll definitely be a cat of some kind.

Wildcat was when the USN was struggling against the Japanese, Hellcat was when the USN was winning. So I'm going to go with Hellcat II if they're recycling names.

The real question is whether F-47 has bays sized for 1,000 lbs or 2,000 lbs bombs tbh.

You mean sized for AARGM-ER/SiAW and JASSM.

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?

The 3-stream engines burn some 30-40% less fuel than the F119 or F135. So a lot of the increased range is strictly from better engines. Instead of needing some 30klbs of fuel, the plane only needs 20klbs to go that far.

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.

Note that the program name for the USN 6th generation plane is F/A-XX. Fighter-slash-Attack. Just like the F/A-18, and not too far off the A/F-X A-6/A-12 and Tomcat replacement program that was ground down into the Super Hornet.

So I am expecting a plane more optimized for hauling bombs than fancy maneuvering in a dogfight. Using older terminology for aircraft, it's an Interceptor that can haul bombs (etc).

 

[Sundog]

Are they keeping 3-stream or dropping it on NGAD?

I haven't seen anything mentioned, but IIRC, NGAD is getting 3-stream, F/A-XX isn't.

 

[Sundog]

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.

The USN has stated that the F/A-XX is a strike-fighter, with the emphasis on strike. Strike is primary, fighter is secondary. It makes me think of the A/FX follow up designs to the cancelled ATA (A-12) program.

 

[quellish]

View attachment 764291

Sure, Jan .

What The F-47's Canards Say About The Rest Of Its Design

The most surprising feature on the F-47 Next Generation fighter are canard foreplanes that aren't conducive to extreme degrees of stealth.

www.twz.com

Think the author knew about the 1995 study before he read about it in this thread?

And yet there is no attribution.

 

[icyplanetnhc (Steve)]

In what way?

It's not as ideal as internal carriage, but from a drag and signatures perspective, it's typically better than the alternative of pylon and adapter.

 

[quellish]

It's not as ideal as internal carriage, but from a drag and signatures perspective, it's typically better than the alternative of pylon and adapter.

From a signatures perspective, not really. Conformal carriage was seen as a possible solution back in the 1980s but didn't pan out very well for many reasons, including signature. The external weapons still have to work with the geometry of the parent aircraft, which is actually somewhat harder with conformal vs. a pylon. A pylon with a "stealth pod" like what was proposed for the F-18E is generally superior to conformal carriage for a number of reasons including signature. There were also solutions that involved putting low observable "facades" on the weapons that would be mounted to pylons, I believe there was a patent on that (Northrop?).

 

[Scott Kenny]

The USN has stated that the F/A-XX is a strike-fighter, with the emphasis on strike. Strike is primary, fighter is secondary. It makes me think of the A/FX follow up designs to the cancelled ATA (A-12) program.

Agreed. I'm expecting the FAXX to be able to carry 2-4x LRASMs, or a pair of AARGM-ERs plus a pair of shorter ranged AGMs. This does mean fecking hyoooge main bays, however. LRASMs are ~25" wide, and AARGM-ERs are at least 22" wide, so I'm expecting each main weapons bay to be on the order of 55" wide.

 

[Rhinocrates]

Agreed. I'm expecting the FAXX to be able to carry 2-4x LRASMs, or a pair of AARGM-ERs plus a pair of shorter ranged AGMs. This does mean fecking hyoooge main bays, however. LRASMs are ~25" wide, and AARGM-ERs are at least 22" wide, so I'm expecting each main weapons bay to be on the order of 55" wide.

This looks like it has some substantial interior volume. I expect the design's moved on a lot since this was published, but still...

 

[raptor82]

There were also s that involved putting low observable "facades" on the weapons that would be mounted to pylons, I believe there was a patent on that (Northrop?).

IIRC Lockheed had some patents like these:






Northrop's solution is.....eh...weird......





Airbus and BAE also had some similar designs：

 

[Halcyon66]

So just to confirm China fly's a 6-gen aircraft and the whole world can see the videos.

100's maybe 1000's of links to relentless analysis of the airframe on the web.

And the US just shows a poster?

Regards,

 

[B2Blain]

Here are some thoughts on the F-47....

Artist renders: historically, at some point for highly classified programs the renders have been pretty accurate, specifically the B-2 and B-21. I don't remember this being the case for the ATF or JSF so I might be contradicting myself, but my guess is that there would be a greater desire to show a little leg during a high level announcement like this. I am not sure they would go to the lengths of purposely altering features when these features can be just obscured. That doesn't discount an accidental alteration to the image. Does it really matter what the size of the nose gear or what type of planform the F-47 uses, its length or wingspan, or the location of inlets? The AF already admitted that it will have greater range and speed than its current 5th gen fighters. The requirements are more important and dictate a limited number of choices. Certainly, there are some physical features you would want to keep hidden for as long as possible, especially those that may point to RCS. But at this point the Chinese can already make guesses as to it size and performance and its CONOPS. What matters more is under the hood, especially its mission systems.

Payload: there hasn't been much a discussion of payload for the F-47. They discussed speed, range, and stealth but not payload. Magazine depth would be great, specifically carrying more A2A missiles than the F-15/22 especially carrying a missile larger than the AMRAAM form factor, but it doesn't look like that is a possibility based on previous Boeing NGAD concept renders. I would be happy with 8 AMRAAM sized weapons. You could offload the weapons to CCAs, but at this point is it worth the risk? The USAF hasn't even settled on what it wants from its Penetrating Counter Air loyal wingman. Increment 1 seems to straddle between attritable and exquisite. At $30 million it might be the worse of both worlds - not an especially low RCS with a very light payload. What happens when all the non stealthy CCAs get shot down?

The F-47's weapons doesn't need to accommodate 2,000 lbs bomb or SiAW. The AMRAAM form factor is not that large. I am not sure you save a lot by dropping from 8 to 6 weapons.

Low Cost NGAD: The affordability selling point gave me pause. Was this a lower cost option? I am not sure how it went from costing $300 million to be less than the F-22 over a span of six months. There wasn't really time to redesign. I know there was speculation about canceling the adaptive engine. I just don't think there was enough time for anyone to shrink their proposal without any guidance with regard to requirements. I also don't buy that the AF chose Boeing over LM because it was the less expensive approach. As far back as 2023 it was leaked along with the Voodoo II patch that Boeing was favored to win the competition - long before Frank Kendall got cold feet. Vago Mauradian said Boeing had a fresher approach while LM was more evolutionary. In the early artist renders from the primes LM seemed to portray something closer to the J-36 while Boeing seemed to be similar in size to the F-22. There is a lot of contradictory information out there form official and official sources so things may change.

 

[Ainen]

There's also broad "qui prodest" sort of argument.

LM benefits from a type of aircraft as different from F-35 as possible, as to shield it as the main source of revenue.
This points to larger aircraft, ideally not really suitable to mundane work, but supplementing in such a way to reassure customers that F-35 remains on top.

Boeing benefits from replacing F-35, either altogether, or partially.
If it can paint Lightning the same way Rafale/Eurofighter get when compared to F-35 - ideal. F-47 is exportable.

 

[Elysium]

With regards to canards..

 

[yeetmahboi]

Though why the straight trailing edge on these fan CGIs? One would recall the A-12 debacle.

 

[Manuducati]

Just correcting some mis-infos

The fact that the canards and main wings aren’t parallel, doesn’t prove that it’s dihedral.

Even if two lines are in the same plane, if they aren’t parallel, from any viewpoint it will still be remained unparallel
View attachment 764295

True, except that, assuming parallel lines, the further the line, the closer to horizontal it should look.
On the B-21 picture, the blue trailing edge is "flatter" than the red leading edge, their vanishing point being somewhere on the left of the image.
As for the F-47, the blue line is "steeper", and their vanishing point (not sure if it's the right technical word, as as in "point de fuite" en français) is in the opposite direction.
So either thet are not parallel (unlikely but possible), or there is indeed a dihedral.

 

[had]

some more ex-fighter pilots having a good time with this topic

View: https://www.youtube.com/live/o_0XSm8LRcc?t=2295s

 

[TomcatViP]

If we remove the shadows that inherently create the segmentation that we understand is a canard, wouldn't someone end-up with a CRANE type of wing?

IMO we can make a distinction b/w a void in black and, on the right of it, a surrimposed line that cuts the continuity b/w what we identify as a canard and the wing behind. Remove that and you have a tandem wing as illustrated above.

That would explain the aggravated camber of the said so canard that matches that of the section of the wing seen behind.

 

[BlackBat242]

space: above and beyond? Surprised there are people who still remember that show.

I've got the full series on DVD.

 

[flateric]

Think the author knew about the 1995 study before he read about it in this thread?
And yet there is no attribution.

I love credentials...

 

[NMaude]

I've got the full series on DVD.

I bought a copy for $100 late last year.

 

[joewee]

The only other change from 638 EMD proposal to 645, the final F-22 configuration, is the shape of the LEX, which had a slightly different planform. Otherwise it's practically the same. This post in shows the early 1990s render of the F-22 prior to its first flight; it's nearly identical to the production jets. The external shape of the F-22 was largely final by 1990, which is actually a pretty rapid and drastic refinement from the YF-22 (config 632/1132) that was quite immature since it froze shortly after the complete redesign in summer 1987.

Your summary and dates line up with my memory perfectly. However, I do not recall any change in EMD to the "LEX" as you describe, and I was in a position to know, with the caveat that it was more than 30 years ago.

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 ....

For completeness (i.e., for the aviation aficionado/nerds out there -- you know who you are), I remembered three other minor changes in EMD, additive to my prior listing: a minor tweak of the radome lines; a change to the ECS inlet inside the BL diverter; a non-trivial re-lofting of the primary engine intake duct(s).

 

[bring_it_on]

The 3-stream engines burn some 30-40% less fuel than the F119 or F135. So a lot of the increased range is strictly from better engines. Instead of needing some 30klbs of fuel, the plane only needs 20klbs to go that far.

Right. A clean F-22A right now has a combat radius of about 450 nautical miles with a 100 nmi supercruise. Assuming 1000 nmi is a requirement (that's a number made up by me so feel free to change it to something else) then you are looking at a slightly more than doubling of combat radius [Of course they could present a different scenario for NGAD requirements like a 200-300 nm supercruise dash given the greater distances involved].

Engine efficiency and a lower drag design could perhaps get them a major boost in endurance but difficult to see how that alone gets them 2x the radius with marginal increase in fuel (like the 10% increase you propose)..A 40% increase in fuel (25K lbs) coupled with 38% more efficient engines and other aero improvements can probably get you there more easily. My question was how much does that extra 7000 lbs fo fuel add to design weight and size (relative to F-22A) and how much of that can you claw back by making other trades (relaxing maneuverability and/or weapon carriage capacity).

IMHO if you made some trades the resultant design does not need to be truly massive (relative to F-22A) to be able to throw those numbers. Something in the +10-15% could probably do it. The only problem with that is that at the White House event, POTUS referenced manueverability and payload as being better so perhaps those weren't relaxed..

There's never been anything even close to it from speed to maneuverability to what it
can have to payload and this has uh been in the works for a long period of time..

 

[joewee]

Payload: there hasn't been much a discussion of payload for the F-47. They discussed speed, range, and stealth but not payload. Magazine depth would be great, specifically carrying more A2A missiles than the F-15/22 especially carrying a missile larger than the AMRAAM form factor, but it doesn't look like that is a possibility based on previous Boeing NGAD concept renders. I would be happy with 8 AMRAAM sized weapons. You could offload the weapons to CCAs, but at this point is it worth the risk? The USAF hasn't even settled on what it wants from its Penetrating Counter Air loyal wingman. Increment 1 seems to straddle between attritable and exquisite. At $30 million it might be the worse of both worlds - not an especially low RCS with a very light payload. What happens when all the non stealthy CCAs get shot down?

Lacking any inside knowledge, I'm in total agreement with the highlighted point you make. The F-22 requirements, above all else, were to bring forth the capability to achieve air dominance without the use of other assets, with the exception of the impressive synergy provided by a second F-22 as wingman. Referencing the 80/20 rule, the F-22 was designed for the stressing 20% of possible wartime scenarios. I'd bet NGAD has a similar mandate.

 

[bring_it_on]

The affordability selling point gave me pause. Was this a lower cost option? I am not sure how it went from costing $300 million to be less than the F-22 over a span of six months.

Two things on the 'cost vs f-22' point :

i. At the WH event, they said that they would not release the cost of the aircraft because it would give away other details like size/weight etc. This sets NGAD apart from say LRS-B where they shared actually cost data with reporters present at the Pentagon event, and had some idea of fleet size they were willing to share (80-100 IIRC).

ii. While SecDef and CSAF mentioned lower cost on F-22, they did not go into what it was referencing. For all we know it could well end up costing much lower than the F-22A fleet in terms of life cycle cost due to lower O&S cost and faster and cheaper upgrades and technology refreshes. Both Kendall's $300 a pop, and CSAF's, lower cost vs F--22A can thus be true. We know what the F-22 costs adjusted for inflation..stating that this would be lower while also claiming that we don't want to divulge details on cost so as to not give away other secrets seems contradictory to me.

It is going to be extremely rare, if not outright impossible for you to have a huge cost gap between two aircraft proposals that are designed around the same requirement (unless of course you've kept the RFP vague enough for OEM's to bring their own flavors and optimized designs to what they think is the best fit) so if Kendall referenced $300 a pop benchmarked to what the service was asking of Boeing and Lockheed then that's probably a good ballpark for APUC (at least this early into the program). He for example wouldn't be speaking of the larger or more expensive of the two as they would likely be similarly sized to meet a similar requirement (2023 RFP).

In the early artist renders from the primes LM seemed to portray something closer to the J-36 while Boeing seemed to be similar in size to the F-22. There is a lot of contradictory information out there form official and official sources so things may change.

The "early" designs were basically artist renderings based on ICE/FATE designs or heavily based on them. Boeing just threw out versions of what it had been showing for a long time..

 

[Michel Van]

This Video is year old
The maker thinks that F-47 could be based on X-36

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icuuMaf7l44

 

[Rhinocrates]

Just a thought. Have a look at this picture of a Mercedes. The little trapezoids you see are apertures for cameras. The shapes are determined by field of view - think of a pyramid extending from the camera lens and whatever shape you see is where the pyramid intersects with the plane of the glass/polycarbonate. Sure, the canopy of the F-47 - as we've seen it - appears proportionally large, implying that the aircraft might be smaller than anticipated (or at least its front end). However, maybe the canopy is designed not only to allow good field of view for the pilot, but also for optical sensors. Software could compensate for any distortion caused by a curved surface. The flat planes of the blister on the F-35 shown are meant to reduce the number of spikes in the radar return of the glass around the IRST, but maybe the next stage of development is to have flush, aerodynamic ports. The 'J-36' is headed in this direction by matching the planes of the windows with contours of the chines.

 

[Elysium]

If we go with these 2 pictures/drawing of alleged NGAD prototypes, there's credence to the idea that they planned NGAD to be a smaller aircraft

 

[Jacky]

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.

Although both the Navy and the Air Force need medium theater attack/strike capabilities and platforms(the best replacement for the A-6 and F-111). But it is hard to imagine that the Navy and the Air Force have additional budget to invest in this at this stage.

PS: Now it seems that the Navy’s decision to cancel ATA instead of re-selecting a plan was a very wrong decision.

 

[joewee]

Thought it might be time to check the scorecard.
Here's a (shocking) slide from the briefing at Farnborough in July 2010 by a former Sr VP at Boeing Defense, named Shelley Lavender. The "Proprietary" bar is Boeing-speak for a black program ... Can't believe the AF approved this for public release. I've never come across anything nearly as inappropriate from LM or NG. I do know for a fact that Boeing has routinely referred to at least one other unacknowledged DoD program as Proprietary in a unclassified setting.



Be that as it may, Boeing Defense has been incredibly successful at capturing new business in accordance with their coherent roadmap.

• UCLASS > CBARS > MQ-25....check
• USN NGAD > F/A-XX > ?........ tbd
• T-X > T-7........................................check
• NGAD PCA > F-47......................check
• LRS-B > B-21 ................................nope
• "Proprietary" ................................check

The black program, aka Proprietary, appears to have entered LRIP about the time this slide was presented. I have a thought as to what that aircraft is, but my mother taught me that two wrongs don't make a right. Regardless, St Louis has quietly gotten very busy even before the F-47 award. And this week we are likely hear that they won F/A-XX too. Who would have guessed such a turnaround? Mr. Mac is probably hootin' and hollerin' from his grave.