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

B2Blain said:
Has it been determine what are "Variable Geometry Winglets" and what they do?
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They reduce drag and improve yaw stability when deployed, and when laid flat they don't contribute much to RCS.

At least that's how I see Boeing using them.


B2Blain said:
Yes, it is usually associated with reducing drag. But why would you need to retract it - going based on the variable geometry verbiage. Better maneuverability for ACM?
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I think it's to clean up RCS. Also, not retracted, but laid flat. Think more "folding wingtips" than "swing wings"
 
Not enough financial & technical development questions be asked. The need is for continual trump (PLEASE NO ALLUSIONS) cards to be created likely in the largely black world.

The usn has a long history of poor decisions on carrier aircraft. No spooky craft on carriers is a disadvantage to the usn.
 
datafuser said:
This is interesting too. From www.airandspaceforces.com/cca-contract-expected-fall-first-version-under-construction/

" It may be that CCA is moving so rapidly that an autonomous version of NGAD—which would likely be far less costly than a piloted version—could be possible on the timelines required by the Air Force. "
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books said:
I hope not, but IMO the Air Force might end up delaying the NGAD/PCA, without cancelling it outright...and then spend the next four years (25-28) developing the CCAs, F-35 block 4 and ECU, and the upgraded Raptors, but without much in the way of further investment in a crewed sixth gen fighter beyond NGAP, which might still be allowed to run to completion.

Then, with some of those costs in the rearview mirror, more info about both the domestic funding environment and Chinese plans, and finalized CCAs and NGAPs, the administration after next, starting in 2029 and definitely making its mark with the budget prepared in spring 2030, could make the final decusion.

Again, I hope not. But I feel like this idea fits the current trendlines uncomfortably closely...
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With basic mission requirements (speed, radius, weapons, avionics/sensors, etc.) held constant, an unmanned aircraft typically sizes out at 20% to 30% lighter TOGW (takeoff gross weight).

Here's how it works: A sophisticated, multidisciplinary design sizing code is used to account for the iterative effect of removing the crew station and all it entails (controls & displays, seats(s), canopy, etc etc), and downsizing the attendant environmental control system. The volumetric and weight reductions due to these subsystem changes allow for less structural weight, which allows for a smaller propulsion subsystem, which then can be wrapped inside of a smaller OML. The smaller, lighter vehicle in this first pass of the iteration has less drag, and therefore uses less fuel, which allows for a smaller fuel subsystem and fuel load. This iterative process continues until the TOGW calculation converges. (In the old days, we did this using Fortran, but I digress).

A 20% to 30% reduction in a vehicle's size and weight is nothing to sneeze at. That translates directly into reduced unit cost.

A possible explanation of recent Air Force statements about looking to shrink the AETP-derived engines? A possible way to stay within the Air Force's fiscal reality? Keep in mind that NGAD is the name of a family of systems, not necessarily a PCA that is a manned 100,000-lb battlecruiser. We don't know anything about unmanned CCAs other than Increment 1 ...
 
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Mind that suitable engines are not on a discretized curve but centered around design points that correspond to the needs and concerns expressed generally (for the larger system) a decade away. Hence, depending on the local variables, a 20 to 30% gain might be nullified by the lack of an available engine in that segment.
 
TomcatViP said:
Mind that suitable engines are not on a discretized curve but centered around design points that correspond to the needs and concerns expressed generally (for the larger system) a decade away. Hence, depending on the local variables, a 20 to 30% gain might be nullified by the lack of an available engine in that segment.
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Right. We used to refer to them as 'rubber engines'.
If you size the vehicle with a fixed propulsion system, then the manned vs. unmanned vehicle iterative weight difference would be appreciably less.

Your point is well taken -- one significant decision for the Air Force is finalizing the NGAP engine requirements. Putting a stake in the ground now for a 75,000-lb unmanned battlecruiser/C3 node, but wanting to leave the door open for a 100,000-lb manned battlecruiser/C3 quarterback, seems to be a bridge too far.

It's feasible to start with a baseline NGAP sized for the unmanned vehicle, and go on to develop a growth version of that NGAP engine for a manned vehicle 'some day'. But USAF would have to accept the fall-out performance of the manned vehicle, which is likely to include a reduction in mission radius compared to the unmanned vehicle. Any roadmap to 'insert' a crew station at a later date into the unmanned airframe configuration necessitates that structural and subsystem provisions are put in place, up front. I'm not sure where the program-wide cost savings are in this scenario, but I'm open to hear the case.

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The converse is also feasible, and straighforward. Start with the manned PCA with NGAP engines sized appropriately, and then down the road develop an unmanned variant of that airframe. In this scenario, NGAP engine growth is not a requisite. The unmanned variant is lighter by stripping out the human-related subsystems and components, analogous to what Northrop did to the F/A-18A to create lighter-cheaper-quicker F/A-18L design. Why the NGAD program would take either a manned/unmanned (or vice versa) design leader/design follower approach is beyond me.
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From the outside, limited to dissecting public statements, it appears like an awful lot of balls are still in the air, especially for a program that released an RFP 14 months ago.

Hard to tell what's CCD (concealment, camouflage, and deception) and what's retrenching (in light of Air Force budget realities).
 
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TomcatViP said:
Mind that suitable engines are not on a discretized curve but centered around design points that correspond to the needs and concerns expressed generally (for the larger system) a decade away. Hence, depending on the local variables, a 20 to 30% gain might be nullified by the lack of an available engine in that segment.
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If we expect a new CCA Increment every few years from a wide variety of suppliers, the major engine manufacturers and engine-manufacturing-adjacent startups like Hermeus and Ursa Major will need to begin offering multiple drone-sized engines to capture market share. Just look at China's mini-turbojet market, where the economies of scale and utility of drones in patrolling large areas of sea or land have driven the prices into the ground.
 
joewee said:
Right. We used to refer to them as 'rubber engines'.
If you size the vehicle with a fixed propulsion system, then the manned vs. unmanned vehicle iterative weight difference would be appreciably less.

Your point is well taken -- one significant decision for the Air Force is finalizing the NGAP engine requirements. Putting a stake in the ground now for a 75,000-lb unmanned battlecruiser/C3 node, but wanting to leave the door open for a 100,000-lb manned battlecruiser/C3 quarterback, seems to be a bridge too far.

It's feasible to start with a baseline NGAP sized for the unmanned vehicle, and go on to develop a growth version of that NGAP engine for a manned vehicle 'some day'. But USAF would have to accept the fall-out performance of the manned vehicle, which is likely to include a reduction in mission radius compared to the unmanned vehicle. Any roadmap to 'insert' a crew station at a later date into the unmanned airframe configuration necessitates that structural and subsystem provisions are put in place, up front. I'm not sure where the program-wide cost savings are in this scenario, but I'm open to hear the case.

From the outside, limited to dissecting public statements, it appears like an awful lot of balls are still in the air, especially for a program that released an RFP 14 months ago.

Hard to tell what's CCD (concealment, camouflage, and deception) and what's retrenching (in light of Air Force budget realities).
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For instance the Unmanned are not supersonic and not the size enough to be a battlecruiser node, they are more like reusable cruise missile, there is a need to keep human in the loop, in battle if all is unmanned and the ennemy is allowed to hacked the fleet what you do ? Human in the fleet is a security and the better captor realy superior to the so famous IA , if it is like Chat GPT it is laughing :D Insteed there is a marvelous UCAV in the black , the NGAD fighter is vital for the fleet.
 
datafuser said:
This is interesting too.

" It may be that CCA is moving so rapidly that an autonomous version of NGAD—which would likely be far less costly than a piloted version—could be possible on the timelines required by the Air Force. "
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Not that much cheaper. You still need a sufficiently-big engine. You still need all the sensors. You still need weapons bays that will proportionally be a larger chunk of the airframe because the stuff that goes in the bays is of fixed size.

I wouldn't expect an "unmanned F-35" to cost more than $10mil less than the manned version.
 
I know there was an airbone small turbo prop filled with people used during the gwot because some spreadsheet genius at dod figured out it was cheaper to have a plane full of people looking at sigint data (and not saving it) versus building some satellite and drone system of systems behemoth

similarly - will adding 'autonomy' to a lethal drone be cheaper than just paying some dude to fly it?

The old catch phrase is to use autonomy for "dull, dirty and dangerous" tasks - but by all accounts manned air-combat (while exceedingly dangerous) is anything but "dull and dirty"
 
Scott Kenny said:
Not that much cheaper. You still need a sufficiently-big engine. You still need all the sensors.
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Agreed.
If NGAD goes with a clean-sheet 75,000-lb unmanned battlecruiser/C3 node, the basic aircraft size and weight may be 20% to 30% less than the manned equivalent, but the flyaway cost reduction may, at best, be half that amount.

The primary cost driver here is the avionics/sensor suite, essentially a fixed cost. As you point out, the engines and other major subsystems may come in a bit cheaper, but nothing too exciting, particularly for a production run of 200 aircraft.

Additionally, unmanned vs. manned comparisons tend to downplay or underestimate the cost of requisite ground- and space-based infrastructure (after all, someone else's program(s) will pay that bill), as well as the cost differences for training and readiness (usually due to a lack of fidelity in the system description, which is all the poor cost estimators have to work with.)
 
When people expect fully high-tier combat-capable and autonomous UCAVs to cost some percent of manned fighters - 30 mil reaper immediately comes to mind.
 
Ainen said:
When people expect fully high-tier combat-capable and autonomous UCAVs to cost some percent of manned fighters - 30 mil reaper immediately comes to mind.
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Yep.
Flyaway cost for the Navy's MQ-4C and MQ-25A are currently at $140M a pop. And the latter's avionics suite is pretty much just Comm/Nav stuff.
Flyaway cost does not include the cost for unique shipboard or shore infrastructure, nor for unique training or readiness.

As a co-worker of mine said 32 years ago, "the design alternative we know the least about is the most attractive".
 
AF leadership has done a lot of analysis and spent a lot of money on the development of NGAD platform including demonstrators the prototypes, and are at this late date unsure about moving forward.

Do you trust that they have done their homework on CCAs? Affordable mass makes sense from a financial perspective? But is the technology mature enough to make unmanned systems a critical component of the AF's strategy for meeting the threat from the PRC? Is there a detailed and well thought out concept of operations? It doesn't seem so. Performance, basing, logistics, payload, sensors, cost, the level of low observability. How much of this has been defined?

If they are having second thought about the NGAD platform because of the threat have they thought about what happens when the Chinese start producing CCAs also? One thing is certain. With their dithering, the AF leadership is losing valuable time. The fleet gets older and the Chinese are moving forward. It seems we no longer have the initiative and are reacting.
 
B2Blain said:
AF leadership has done a lot of analysis and spent a lot of money on the development of NGAD platform including demonstrators the prototypes, and are at this late date unsure about moving forward.

Do you trust that they have done their homework on CCAs? Affordable mass makes sense from a financial perspective? But is the technology mature enough to make unmanned systems a critical component of the AF's strategy for meeting the threat from the PRC? Is there a detailed and well thought out concept of operations? It doesn't seem so. Performance, basing, logistics, payload, sensors, cost, the level of low observability. How much of this has been defined?

If they are having second thought about the NGAD platform because of the threat have they thought about what happens when the Chinese start producing CCAs also? One thing is certain. With their dithering, the AF leadership is losing valuable time. The fleet gets older and the Chinese are moving forward. It seems we no longer have the initiative and are reacting.
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The USAF seems unsure with regards to NGAD but very confident with regards to CCA. I do not have access to sufficient information to judge those outlooks. I would say though that letting the PRC develop UCAV technology in front of the U.S. hardly seems like a war winning idea. The concept of unmanned fighters could fundamentally alter the balance or power or perhaps come to nothing, but the USAF sitting on its ass will not solve anything. I certainly would not want to bet against modern computing power and cognition in this day and age, let alone next decade.
 
Josh_TN said:
The USAF seems unsure with regards to NGAD but very confident with regards to CCA. I do not have access to sufficient information to judge those outlooks. I would say though that letting the PRC develop UCAV technology in front of the U.S. hardly seems like a war winning idea. The concept of unmanned fighters could fundamentally alter the balance or power or perhaps come to nothing, but the USAF sitting on its ass will not solve anything. I certainly would not want to bet against modern computing power and cognition in this day and age, let alone next decade.
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The AF seems unsure about CCAs. They have floated a lot of ideas with regard to capabilities, size, range, etc. You don't do that if you know what you are doing.

What makes it worse is that CCAs are a risky bet on the future. If they get this wrong. If the technology is not mature. If the concept of operations is not well thought out. Then this risks being a boondoggle worse than the Zumwalts and LCS. It comes with greater risks than any manned fighter because it has never been done before. Is being primarily being driven by budgetary considerations? Or will it make the manned fleet more effective. I don't think anyone knows.
 
In case you guys haven´t noticed, the recent video of Boeing manufacturing line for the EX and the MQ-25* shows wings for half a dozen of airframe already completed waiting to be mated to fuselages**.

Hardly a US slow thing.

MQ-25 Screenshot 2024-07-18 190524.png

*The MQ-25 will the first operational carrier borne UAV in world history as the first autonomous air tanker.
** Unless you think those are Boeing P-51EX Cavalier II ones!
 
Hate to be a debbie downer putting a wet blanket over next-gen tacair. After 42 years immersed in the military-industrial complex, half of that in an aeronautical engineering role, my juices still flow when I think of what NGAD, NGAP, PCA, CCA, F/A-XX, etc. could (or should) become. From all appearances, the next-gen technologists have done many great things, for which we should be appreciative.

I fear that there is another obstacle, a solid brick wall, facing the acquisition and fielding of these weapon systems in the timeframe that most of us believe is necessary. The federal national debt is that wall.

In August 2010, Adm. Mike Mullen, Chm of the JCS, famously said:
"I believe that our debt is the greatest threat to our national security".
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/27/debt.security.mullen/index.html
https://ogc.osd.mil/Portals/99/testMullen06152011.pdf

The attached chart shows that we've now at the point where the interest payments on US debt have surpassed US defense spending.

I think Kendall may have overplayed his hand with Congress. He now realizes that a budget plus-up for NGAD/NGAP/CCAs is not going to happen, nor is Congress willing to put out a supplemental appropriation for the nuclear triad.
[The Navy's fiscal situation is not different -- except F/A-XX development took a wave-off last year, and now has been effectively grounded].

Can't come up with any other reason why the Air Force NGAD/PCA flagship program seems to have stalled. The RFP was issued in May 2023 for goodness sake.

Do We Spend More On Interest Than Defense -2024-02-20.png
 
I think the immediate reasons for the NGAD slowdown have pretty clearly been characterized already: externally, from the USAF point of view, the budget capping effects of the Continuing Resolutions and now the Budget Control Act; and internally to the USAF, the massive spike in silo modernization and cabling costs for Sentinel. Together, the CRs, the BCA, and Sentinel overruns ate into the NGAD budget.

All of those also not helped by inflation or glacial clearance approval processes.

No need to assume some outlandish Sci-Fi scenario where Congresspeople actually think about the financial picture instead of blaming the other side's policy preferences!
 
books said:
I think the immediate reasons for the NGAD slowdown have pretty clearly been characterized already: externally, from the USAF point of view, the budget capping effects of the Continuing Resolutions and now the Budget Control Act; and internally to the USAF, the massive spike in silo modernization and cabling costs for Sentinel. Together, the CRs, the BCA, and Sentinel overruns ate into the NGAD budget.

All of those also not helped by inflation or glacial clearance approval processes.

No need to assume some outlandish Sci-Fi scenario where Congresspeople actually think about the financial picture instead of blaming the other side's policy preferences!
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Ok, I don't think we're saying different things.
The CRs and the BCA aren't new, they pre-date when Kendall submitted his FY25 POM last July. The big 'surprise' since then is the ICBM overun, which he has to accomodate in the FY26 POM this July. Kendall would have known this fiscal dilemma was coming months ago.
To me it looks like he kept charging ahead anyway, hoping that the relevant Congressional committees would be receptive to some budgetary relief for NGAD or the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad. I previously wrote that he was 'trying to fit 5 lbs in a 2-lb bag'. I think this gambit was unsuccessful.

Edit: Alphabet soup, sorry. The POM covers the 5-year future year defense plan (FYDP) and presents the Services and Defense Agencies’ proposal on how they will balance their allocation of available resources.
acqnotes.com

Program Objective Memorandum (POM) - AcqNotes

A Program Objective Memorandum (POM) is a recommendation from the Services to the Secretary of Defense concerning how they plan to allocate resources.
acqnotes.com acqnotes.com
 
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B2Blain said:
The AF seems unsure about CCAs. They have floated a lot of ideas with regard to capabilities, size, range, etc. You don't do that if you know what you are doing.
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Have you looked at how many different aircraft designs there were in the Century Series?

There's probably a lot of questions about how far and how much load the CCAs need to carry. USAF has an idea, but is aware that paper plans may not survive contact with the enemy. So they're assuming that the CCA designs may need to change. May prove to need to carry more AAMs or whatever.

But they can fly CCAs with 2x AAMs right now.


B2Blain said:
What makes it worse is that CCAs are a risky bet on the future. If they get this wrong. If the technology is not mature. If the concept of operations is not well thought out. Then this risks being a boondoggle worse than the Zumwalts and LCS. It comes with greater risks than any manned fighter because it has never been done before. Is being primarily being driven by budgetary considerations? Or will it make the manned fleet more effective. I don't think anyone knows.
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We've been flying drones for 30+ years.

We've been flying a hi-low mix of aircraft for 50+ years.
 
I'll say it again, it's not worth designing USAF fighters around extended legs in the Pacific. If we're worried about China, the entirety of their country that is not along the SCS is wide open and available to our current fighters. Leave the Pacific to the Navy to keep the waterways open.
 
In_A_Dream said:
I'll say it again, it's not worth designing USAF fighters around extended legs in the Pacific. If we're worried about China, the entirety of their country that is not along the SCS is wide open and available to our current fighters. Leave the Pacific to the Navy to keep the waterways open.
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Except for having to fly over the pole and over Russian Siberia, or fly over the Himalayans from bases in India etc.

All of the cities and industrial centers are on the ocean side of the country.
 
VTOLicious said:
Haha, looks more of a size that is associated with a stealthy LMF.
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I get the feeling that Allvin may personally want to be an advocate for applying the CCA methodology to future crewed fighters, meaning digital design, short fatigue life, shorter service life, lower tech, avoiding long sustainment costs, avoiding long tech development or fielding, rapid development, etc.

A bit like C.Q. Brown came into office expressing interest in a next gen non-VLO fighter, and making the F-35 the "Sunday fighter" that generally would fly less, avoid the desert, etc, but still be available for high end conflict. I am NOT necessarily trying to link Allvin's ideas to Brown's as specific concepts, just saying that I think both of them were giving voice to personal preferences (which they have probably now talked up to the AS 2050 people) rather than speaking ex officio about finalized official Air Force conclusions.
 

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