Everybody needs to remember that this is our money going down the drain (hopefully, otherwise that'd mean war) optimistically there needs to be less spending for such useless things so anyone competent wouldn't really look for trouble.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk
aviationweek.com
R.6 = 2024
If the rumours of size (cF-111) its probably a 6"2"" guy...
The point is to run a successful program and field a capable platform that can meet requirements then this looks good. If the point was to field something that takes a significant deviation from 5GFA and 5GFA+ concepts then that has to be balanced with risk, funding, technological development and a whole host of other factors. What we're seeing on US NGAD is backtracking on the program being too expensive potentially because it took a rather dramatic deviation from an evolutionary approach to build on fielded 5GFA so there are down sides to that as well.
"Obviously the most important part of a 6th gen is that looks cool and futuristic" I want to nice, but like what? Like 90% of what makes a 6th gen a 6th gen is the internals and size, not the LO shaping of the air frame. Either way we've basically known the best airfoils for LO construction since the late 80s/90s, so it being vaguely reminiscent of a 5th gen proposal means nothing when LO construction has barely shifted since those concepts.
It wouldn't be at all. It wasn't that Japan thought the LM F-X concept was bad. It's that they were absolutely sick and tired of any joint fighter development with LM after they screwed over the F-2 program. Japan could adopt a 1:1 exact copy of that proposal with Italy and Britain and their original goal would be achieved by simply not having any LM execs touching the program.
Carries lot of fuel and weapons, at least they make some sense.
The post above you says that all 3 have identical requirements, so that isn't an issue.
There's zero chance that the British, Japanese or Italians will ever make a 6th gen on their own. It's simply too expensive and they'd never order the number needed to make the project make any economic sense. They'd be better off just buying more F-35s.
Most of that stuff will come through material science rather than radical airfoil changes. This GCAP model is already different enough from the LM concept that any changes that could be made from that core design probably have been already implemented.
Hi Tomcat, why would you ever want to guess the CG location?
I did not say all 3 have identical requirements, I said "because everyone wants and needs something a little different", does not sound like identical to me.
I disagree with that, the F-35 does not fill the same niche that GCAP does, nor does it bring the same industrial benefits. The F-35 would be inferior in terms of size, weight, range and growth potential. Not investing in GCAP would be more or less a death sentence for the military aviation industries of the member states, in addition to the fact that engineering knowledge can be a massive political and economic bargaining chip.
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