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

[Forest Green]

For air superiority, USAF must pursue effective, rather than 'affordable,' mass - Breaking Defense

"The USAF might win with standoff-centric theories of victory," write two Air Force officers here. "However, with air superiority, the odds of victory increase drastically."

breakingdefense.com

 

[FighterJock]

That is so true Forest Green, I would want the USAF to go for the full up NGAD instead of going for a cheeper half baked variant with less range and poorer avionics.

 

[FlyGuy369]

That is so true Forest Green, I would want the USAF to go for the full up NGAD instead of going for a cheeper half baked variant with less range and poorer avionics.

"Mom can we get NGAD?" "No, we have NGAD at home."

 

[FighterJock]

Got that in one FlyGuy369.

 

[Josh_TN]

I think people need to start considering the fact that most every platform is going to be detectable in the medium term. The Space Force already has access to more cheap lift to LEO than it could use. SDA plans to launch 200 plus satellites every two years starting next year and that will only go up. NRO has already placed 80 recon satellites in orbit since May in four launches with two more expected before Christmas, and those satellites were contracted just in 2021. Detection technology cycles are literally already down to several years, and global radar satellite networks are coming this decade (the USAF GMTI program looks to put test satellites up in several years). A large fast aircraft likely is going to be visible from orbit by the time it enters service, possibly in multiple wavelengths. Putting all your eggs in one expensive basket is likely not a viable solution. I think this is also one of the reasons the USAF has not shown enthusiasm for dramatically accelerating B-21 production - they are concerned its stealth has a shelf life, even at subsonic speeds.

 

[bring_it_on]

Worth asking the question that if detection technologies will negate stealth in the mid term, and folks with no special knowledge of either side know that it will, how did the NGAD advance to source selection? Why are we buying stealthy B-21's through this decade and most of next decade?

 

[FighterJock]

So where will we next go then Josh_TN? A return to speed? Especially Hypersonic speeds above Mach 10 that was considered the holly grail of military aircraft and indeed missiles a decade ago.

 

[Josh_TN]

Worth asking the question that if detection technologies will negate stealth in the mid term, and folks with no special knowledge of either side know that it will, how did the NGAD advance to source selection? Why are we buying stealthy B-21's through this decade and most of next decade?

NGADs requirements date from circa 2018 I think. So the environment has changed, and in particular the advances of the PLAs space efforts: two hundred remote sensing satellites were orbited by the PRC in 2022-2023 and a half dozen medium lifters are due to have their first launch in the next two years. The U.S. has dominance in this field, but the PRC will have sufficient lift such that it can just dedicate its space industry only to military applications to close the gap.

Stealth will not be useless but it will have more limitations. Decentralizing your air capabilities onto more, less expensive aircraft is a reasonable hedge.

 

[Josh_TN]

So where will we next go then Josh_TN? A return to speed? Especially Hypersonic speeds above Mach 10 that was considered the holly grail of military aircraft and indeed missiles a decade ago.

As with all complex problems, a mix of solutions: super high performance aircraft, super low signature aircraft, ECM, etc. IMO the overall the solution will involve fewer manned platforms , more attrition, and disaggregating capability over all platforms. More cheaper stuff. Radically expensive star destroyers is likely not the answer. If you want extreme speed it’s best to make it unmanned.

 

[zevets]

I think people need to start considering the fact that most every platform is going to be detectable in the medium term. The Space Force already has access to more cheap lift to LEO than it could use. SDA plans to launch 200 plus satellites every two years starting next year and that will only go up. NRO has already placed 80 recon satellites in orbit since May in four launches with two more expected before Christmas, and those satellites were contracted just in 2021. Detection technology cycles are literally already down to several years, and global radar satellite networks are coming this decade (the USAF GMTI program looks to put test satellites up in several years). A large fast aircraft likely is going to be visible from orbit by the time it enters service, possibly in multiple wavelengths. Putting all your eggs in one expensive basket is likely not a viable solution. I think this is also one of the reasons the USAF has not shown enthusiasm for dramatically accelerating B-21 production - they are concerned its stealth has a shelf life, even at subsonic speeds.

If the DoD is willing to put out budget requests for satellites that can track a hypersonic glide vehicle - then anything using afterburners is soon to be at risk.

 

[Josh_TN]

If the DoD is willing to put out budget requests for satellites that can track a hypersonic glide vehicle - then anything using afterburners is soon to be at risk.

It’s far beyond requests; the test satellites are in orbit and first three dozen production platforms are scheduled for launch next year. The next batch is on contract already as well. A separate MEO tracking layer has also been ordered.

Presumably the PRC is not far behind, though they are still working to develop launch capacity.

 

[FighterJock]

I would rather have an unmanned hypersonic aircraft than a manned one any day for Hypersonic, so that scene with Tom Cruise in the SR-72 is soon going to be only something that was only in Top Gun. The real SR-72 was always going to be unmanned anyway for that very reason Josh_TN.

 

[kqcke for you]

If the DoD is willing to put out budget requests for satellites that can track a hypersonic glide vehicle - then anything using afterburners is soon to be at risk.

I doubt that fkr anytime soon as we neither achieve the temperature nor the altitude of those systems.

 

[Josh_TN]

T

I doubt that fkr anytime soon as we neither achieve the temperature nor the altitude of those systems.

]

NASA’s FIRMS satellite is used to track forest fires on the ground (and has been used to track fighting in Ukraine). A fuel dump above the majority of the atmospheric interference seems if anything less problematic to me.

 

[bring_it_on]

NGADs requirements date from circa 2018 I think.

When in 2018 were the requirements set? When did the RFP drop? Does the DOD have a process to validate requirements before pushing a RFP and source selection for a multi billion dollar program? I'm not talking about classified capability here. Apparently the DOD can find out how survivability requirements of NGAD would be negated in the mid-term by simply browsing forums online yet they seem to have plans in place to buy the $700 Million B-21 through the next 15 years. They should be pushing to cancel the B-21 program as soon as the original contract for 21 aircraft winds up. Build non-stealthy bombers at half the cost or less because its key survability attributes won't last even before production is expected to end. The same would be true for F-35, RQ180 and some of the higher end CCA's.

 

[Josh_TN]

When in 2018 were the requirements set? When did the RFP drop? Does the DOD have a process to validate requirements before pushing a RFP and source selection for a multi billion dollar program? I'm not talking about classified capability here. Apparently the DOD can find out how survivability requirements of NGAD would be negated in the mid-term by simply browsing forums online yet they seem to have plans in place to buy the $700 Million B-21 through the next 15 years. They should be pushing to cancel the B-21 program as soon as the original contract for 21 aircraft winds up. Build non-stealthy bombers at half the cost or less because its key survability attributes won't last even before production is expected to end. The same would be true for F-35, RQ180 and some of the higher end CCA's.

My posts are OSINT guesses; I cannot speak for DoD. But given that manned aircraft development is a decade plus project and that satellites and UCAVs have a several year development cycle, you can see how USAF might get cold feet developing an air superiority solution worth half as much as a stealth bomber with projected production in only marginally larger numbers…in a decade. B-21 has the huge advantage of being in LRIP right now, with all development and most test costs paid or budgeted.

 

[bring_it_on]

If its survivability its highly questionable, then its the best example of sunk cost fallacy you can put together. Of course assuming that its survivability is basically going to be zeroed out before it even enters large inventory numbers. I call BS on that.

 

[Josh_TN]

If its survivability its highly questionable, then its the best example of sunk cost fallacy you can put together. Of course assuming that its survivability is basically going to be zeroed out before it even enters large inventory numbers. I call BS on that.

I am guessing, just like you, but my guess is that survivability of a multi hundred million dollar platform is non negotiable, and anything that threatens that survivability over the next decade or two makes the platform a non starter. My feelings, based on the very limited input (in fact we known nothing about the initial requirements or rethinking of them).

Your mileage may differ, but I think the biggest problem for manned NGAD is not cost in production but cost in time: the entire nature of air warfare will likely change before it can be fielded.

 

[Blitzo]

My posts are OSINT guesses; I cannot speak for DoD. But given that manned aircraft development is a decade plus project and that satellites and UCAVs have a several year development cycle, you can see how USAF might get cold feet developing an air superiority solution worth half as much as a stealth bomber with projected production in only marginally larger numbers…in a decade. B-21 has the huge advantage of being in LRIP right now, with all development and most test costs paid or budgeted.

Even assuming that satellites do proliferate to the degree that traditional signature reduction is no longer effective, it does not necessarily mean it is not useful during wartime, specifically I don't think anyone knows what ASAT warfare may look like between two major powers -- if ASAT occurs, it may potentially reduce or negate the ability to detect and track each side's aircraft from orbit and thus return traditional signature reduction back to prominence in an actual conflict.

In the very long term it may become such that orbit becomes so crowded that you're virtually guaranteed a sensor providing real time AMTI/GMTI/SAR/EO over any place on the globe which may truly make traditional signature reduction more obsolete, but until that happens, it seems to be jumping the gun a little to design an aircraft that is a bit too "ahead of its time" if it is dealing with an evolution of aerial warfare which has yet to actually occur.

 

[Josh_TN]

Even assuming that satellites do proliferate to the degree that traditional signature reduction is no longer effective, it does not necessarily mean it is not useful during wartime, specifically I don't think anyone knows what ASAT warfare may look like between two major powers -- if ASAT occurs, it may potentially reduce or negate the ability to detect and track each side's aircraft from orbit and thus return traditional signature reduction back to prominence in an actual conflict.

In the very long term it may become such that orbit becomes so crowded that you're virtually guaranteed a sensor providing real time AMTI/GMTI/SAR/EO over any place on the globe which may truly make traditional signature reduction more obsolete, but until that happens, it seems to be jumping the gun a little to design an aircraft that is a bit too "ahead of its time" if it is dealing with an evolution of aerial warfare which has yet to actually occur.

I think universal coverage over the globe will happen before NGAD deployment, let alone its operational life of at least a couple decades. I have already noted the development cycle of new orbital sensors from contract to orbit even within the U.S. procurement system is basically 3-5 years. UCAVs already have a similar life cycle if you look at CCA increment plans. There will be 2-3 satellite/UCAV life cycles before any manned NGAD of any type enters service in the U.S. And that is ignoring China’s propensity to cut through red tape to achieve its military requirements.

As I said, the biggest cost in manned aircraft likely is less money and more time at this point.

 

[Josh_TN]

As to ASAT warfare: the new SDA satellites are about 20 million dollars per, including several million dollars for launch. It is hard to imagine that the costs to kinetically engage those satellites is significantly less, even if one accepted massive cloud of orbital debris. There may be non kinetic means, but it still is challenging to disrupt several hundred satellites. Low altitude and laser cross links make ECM much, much more difficult: optical links are practically unjamable and your downlink/uplink can happen almost anywhere on the surface of the earth.

I do not think people understand how much space warfare will influence everything in the near term. The Russian development of a nuclear ASAT was a recognition that anyone who can own space will put Russia at a nearly unstoppable disadvantage, and thus drastic measures are needed to deny space supremacy to the other side, regardless of political or economic cost.

 

[Blitzo]

I think universal coverage over the globe will happen before NGAD deployment, let alone its operational life of at least a couple decades. I have already noted the development cycle of new orbital sensors from contract to orbit even within the U.S. procurement system is basically 3-5 years. UCAVs already have a similar life cycle if you look at CCA increment plans. There will be 2-3 satellite/UCAV life cycles before any manned NGAD of any type enters service in the U.S. And that is ignoring China’s propensity to cut through red tape to achieve its military requirements.

As I said, the biggest cost in manned aircraft likely is less money and more time at this point.

I am more iffy about the timelines for now, specifically to see about how the proliferation of satellites go, in terms of the resolution and ability to detect and track aircraft (for high revisit times for land based targets or even maritime, I can see them getting their earlier), whether it's in terms of EO or if it is AMTI.
(E.g.: is Starshield a sensible approximate benchmark for what we should expect out of satellites in the future that are actually capable in the AMTI role)

I do agree that satellite and UAV development and fielding cycles is shorter than that of big ticket manned aircraft. Whether satellite proliferation will occur at such a pace and at a sufficient capability, that results in signature reduction being reliably obsolete, imo is a whole other matter.

 

[Josh_TN]

If an aircraft has a thermal signature the size of a hypersonic missile at its normal operating altitude, I think it’s safe to say the writing is on the wall now. Radar observation is probably much further down the road, but then so NGAD IOC. The time to think about obsolescence is not at the point of introduction.

 

[Blitzo]

If an aircraft has a thermal signature the size of a hypersonic missile at its normal operating altitude, I think it’s safe to say the writing is on the wall now. Radar observation is probably much further down the road, but then so NGAD IOC. The time to think about obsolescence is not at the point of introduction.

If the bolded part is true, I would agree with you, but I don't think there is currently any impression that would be the case (certainly, at this stage I don't think anyone expects the next generation to be hypersonic capable).

If there has been indications to the contrary then I'd be happy to be corrected.

 

[Josh_TN]

If the bolded part is true, I would agree with you, but I don't think there is currently any impression that would be the case (certainly, at this stage I don't think anyone expects the next generation to be hypersonic capable).

If there has been indications to the contrary then I'd be happy to be corrected.

A hypersonic glider might be traveling faster at a higher altitude, but it is physically smaller. If you have to climb to 50,000 feet for a super cruise with a pair of engines that are producing tens of thousand pounds of dry thrust, are you a dramatically smaller thermal target than a thousand pound glider or scramjet at higher altitude? Is the thin air at that altitude doing anything and does the slower velocity of the aircraft make up for the much larger surface area and exhaust? And even if it does…is that still true in five years? Ten?

I also have a hard time believing NASA can watch forest fires and the old DSP constellation could watch Scud launches in 1991 from GEO but detecting highly supersonic aircraft at high altitude is not easily accessible now or in the near future.

 

[Blitzo]

A hypersonic glider might be traveling faster at a higher altitude, but it is physically smaller. If you have to climb to 50,000 feet for a super cruise with a pair of engines that are producing tens of thousand pounds of dry thrust, are you a dramatically smaller thermal target than a thousand pound glider or scramjet at higher altitude? Is the thin air at that altitude doing anything and does the slower velocity of the aircraft make up for the much larger surface area and exhaust? And even if it does…is that still true in five years? Ten?

I also have a hard time believing NASA can watch forest fires and the old DSP constellation could watch Scud launches in 1991 from GEO but detecting highly supersonic aircraft at high altitude is not easily accessible now or in the near future.

The bolded part imo is exactly where the question should lie, and I think the answer to it at this stage is "we don't know".

The bigger question is even if that does end up being true in say, 5-10 years, does that actually make our expectations of manned fighter aircraft obsolete, and whether the possibility of such orbital capabilities mean present pursuits of manned fighter platforms should be revised to such a high extent where "detectability" is enough to make it an actual non-starter versus just one of many procurement initiatives.


As for factors which may have caused the original USAF NGAD pursuits to be revised between the mid/late 2010s to now, aside from budget, going from public USAF statements it seems to me the proliferation of PLA systems -- including the scale and pace of procurement of their own long range air superiority contesting capabilities like J-20, long range strike systems like DF-26 that are capable of credibly reaching out to Guam and beyond at scale, and overall pursuit of their own advances in all domains of technology (networking, sensors, weapons) -- seem to be the bigger factors at play rather than the threat of a persistent, real time orbital sensing capability for air breathing platforms. The tying in of the manned NGAD fighter with the NGAS air refueller and the vision of CCAs all seems to be cognizant of the fact that range and basing viability are of paramount concerns for the westpac conflict scenario.

Edit: of course it's possible that all of the statements they've been putting out are deliberately meant to mislead the public and adversaries, and what they're truly worried about is orbital sensing... but that's hard to prove or disprove currently.

 

[Josh_TN]

There’s probably a dozen reasons at work; agree. And I do not think that the end of manned aircraft is here. But I think that the spiral of ever higher performance and expense for fighter aircraft has become unsustainable and has come to an end.

 

[Blitzo]

I do agree that I think distributing/dispersal of air combat capability is going to happen, in pursuit of greater combat effectiveness and also in pursuit of greater survivability.

What I'm somewhat less certain on is whether the re-evaluation of the manned NGAD (potentially to a smaller, "more affordable" aircraft) is primarily driven by a new threat environment or if it is more driven by budgetary limitations causing the USAF to try and "make the best of a bad situation". Putting it another way, if they had a higher budget to pursue perhaps their original vision (of what sounds like may have been a larger, more costly aircraft), would such a capability be more effective if combined with the same kind of system of systems they're pursuing wrt CCAs and NGAS etc.

Alas I'm sure only the people doing this NGAD review know the answers to that.

 

[Ozair]

I do agree that I think distributing/dispersal of air combat capability is going to happen, in pursuit of greater combat effectiveness and also in pursuit of greater survivability.

I expect they also don't want to be caught prepping for the last war and not the next one.

What I'm somewhat less certain on is whether the re-evaluation of the manned NGAD (potentially to a smaller, "more affordable" aircraft) is primarily driven by a new threat environment or if it is more driven by budgetary limitations causing the USAF to try and "make the best of a bad situation". Putting it another way, if they had a higher budget to pursue perhaps their original vision (of what sounds like may have been a larger, more costly aircraft), would such a capability be more effective if combined with the same kind of system of systems they're pursuing wrt CCAs and NGAS etc.

I wonder if the USAF has conceded early based on if they try for expensive manned NGAD and they have to change course because of budget/threat they won't have the time...

I don't see a difference between NGAD sizes and interaction with CCA/NGAS. Manned NGAD likely has to happen for a host of reasons but the point of CCA is not only platform mass but also being able to iterate faster via unmanned platforms where the risk of failures means a lot less.

lAas I'm sure only the people doing this NGAD review know the answers to that.

Indeed but most of the fun for us is trying to figure it out from our limited perspective.

 

[Blitzo]

I expect they also don't want to be caught prepping for the last war and not the next one.

Yes, though I think dispersing of capabilities is something everyone is looking into.

I wonder if the USAF has conceded early based on if they try for expensive manned NGAD and they have to change course because of budget/threat they won't have the time...

I don't see a difference between NGAD sizes and interaction with CCA/NGAS. Manned NGAD likely has to happen for a host of reasons but the point of CCA is not only platform mass but also being able to iterate faster via unmanned platforms where the risk of failures means a lot less.

I think the size of the manned NGAD airframe could influence the way the overall "system of systems" fights assuming we hold the CCA fleet procurement and complexity and sophistication constant.

The analysis of alternatives for the "manned NGAD fighter" probably lies on a spectrum, but for the sake of argument we can say one extreme is a large (say, 24m long), twin engine (adaptive cycle) design with significant onboard organic sensors and a large weapons bay for carrying weapons (a large number of AIM-120/260 sized weapons, or even say a number of LRAAMs like AIM-174 or future successor, as well as larger/longer air to ground powered weapons), and a long range/combat radius -- another extreme could be a small (think F-35 sized), single engine design with minimal onboard weaponry (say, two AIM-120/260 sized weapons only carried internally), with only minimal onboard sensing capability, with much of its small airframe prioritized to fuel to enable it to have a relevant range/combat radius (essentially sacrificing weapons, sensors, to maximize fuel).

Obviously the larger options on the spectrum will be more expensive than the smaller options on the spectrum. My question is if budget was less of a constraining factor, and lets say that the USAF was able to buy same CCA fleet in the same quantity and sophistication, and they were able to buy the "large NGAD" in the numbers that they wanted (i.e.: their total "NGAD budget" is greater) -- then how would that effect the way the overall "NGAD system of systems" operates and what would their relative combat effectiveness be?

Note -- I'm not implying one outcome over the other btw, for all we know it may be that the "small NGAD" option happens to be less expensive and more capable than the "large NGAD" option. But I do think the "bigger/expensive" versus "smaller/affordable" debate in defense media and think tanks seems to imply whether a "small NGAD" option will be compromising/losing out on certain capabilities even if the CCAs remain constant, relative to a "large NGAD".

 

[Josh_TN]

I agree we do not know into know anything. But I think the fact that one USAF official seemed to voice reservations about the long term viability of the B-21 makes me think it is as much related to future proofing as it is to money. B-21 is already locked in and paid for outside actual production; NGAD is a future expense in every way.

 

[Blitzo]

I agree we do not know into know anything. But I think the fact that one USAF official seemed to voice reservations about the long term viability of the B-21 makes me think it is as much related to future proofing as it is to money. B-21 is already locked in and paid for outside actual production; NGAD is a future expense in every way.

Out of interest, which article/statement were those reservations made regarding B-21's long term viability?

It's probable that I missed an article or two, but it seems to me that if anything the more recent remarks about B-21 have been the desire to buy more of them (albeit this is from Northrop directly)?

Northrop: Air Force Weighs More B-21s in Force Structure Study

Northrop Grumman officials said the Air Force is considering its long-term B-21 fleet size as part of a force structure review.

www.airandspaceforces.com

The only thing I could find, is if you mean something like this (below), it seems to be about sticking to the 100 airframe target and to see what new technologies may emerge by the mid 2030s that could potentially result in platforms that are more effective than B-21, rather than about B-21's viability per se.

Allvin: USAF Sticking to 100 B-21s as It Considers Something New

USAF may not buy more than 100 B-21s as something better may be developed by the time those aircraft are built, CSAF Gen. David Allvin said.

www.airandspaceforces.com

 

[Scott Kenny]

Worth asking the question that if detection technologies will negate stealth in the mid term, and folks with no special knowledge of either side know that it will, how did the NGAD advance to source selection? Why are we buying stealthy B-21's through this decade and most of next decade?

Because F15s are running out of airframe life, as are the B1s. B2s are struggling because of how their stealth coatings work, requiring climate-controlled hangars and a crapton of maintenance hours per flight hour, and because of the stupidly low number purchased forcing a relatively high operational tempo per aircraft.

All 3 need replacements, full stop. (As much as it hurts me to see Bones go...)

B52s have enough life left in the airframes to make it past 2060, 100 years service for those specific airframes, averaging ~350 hours a year per plane.

A hypersonic glider might be traveling faster at a higher altitude, but it is physically smaller. If you have to climb to 50,000 feet for a super cruise with a pair of engines that are producing tens of thousand pounds of dry thrust, are you a dramatically smaller thermal target than a thousand pound glider or scramjet at higher altitude? Is the thin air at that altitude doing anything and does the slower velocity of the aircraft make up for the much larger surface area and exhaust? And even if it does…is that still true in five years? Ten?

You're forgetting that just because you can detect a plane via space-based radar or thermals, that you can't necessarily get a missile there to engage the plane.

Most radars capable of detecting a stealthy aircraft can tell you "hey, I found something over thataway" gesturing vaguely at a couple thousand cubic KM of air volume to search with IR sensors.

The stealthy aircraft is still hard-to-impossible for an S-band or X-band fighter radar or active missile guidance radar to track.

I also have a hard time believing NASA can watch forest fires and the old DSP constellation could watch Scud launches in 1991 from GEO but detecting highly supersonic aircraft at high altitude is not easily accessible now or in the near future.

IIRC, the old DSP satellites had a pretty simple sensor that was "if IR signal is more than X strong, sound the alarm." Just like those stupid fire alarm sensors that can't tell the difference between a lit match or lighter and an entire wall of flame. So things like a forest fire or an oil well or refinery on fire would be detected, and alarms would sound till someone cross-checked alarm location with known missile dispersal sites. "Hot location matches an oil rig in Siberia, and heat patch is moving with the prevailing winds. Looks like Ivan needs to call Red Adair."

Forest fires you can be okay with one pass per day or so (well, not really, but for top view it's acceptable. The actual incident commanders need much more up to date data, which is why ER-2s and even USAF U-2s have been voluntold for orbiting overhead the fires at 70kft). And IIRC most earth-facing resource satellites are lower orbits than the usual sun-synchronized orbits that spy satellites use.

 

[NMaude]

IIRC, the old DSP satellites had a pretty simple sensor

Weren't they a simple non-imaging conical-scan IR-sensor similar to that of a sidewinder's?

 

[Ainen]

What I'm somewhat less certain on is whether the re-evaluation of the manned NGAD (potentially to a smaller, "more affordable" aircraft) is primarily driven by a new threat environment or if it is more driven by budgetary limitations causing the USAF to try and "make the best of a bad situation". Putting it another way, if they had a higher budget to pursue perhaps their original vision (of what sounds like may have been a larger, more costly aircraft), would such a capability be more effective if combined with the same kind of system of systems they're pursuing wrt CCAs and NGAS etc.

Budget limitations are most certainly there.
And IMHO it's a good thing - unlimited budgets and attempts to have it all never lead to the best capability, only to inflation eating industry from inside.

If anything, original silver bullet NGAD wasn't a sign that US recognized China as a peer threat. Revised NGAD is in fact such a sign.

 

[Ozair]

I think the size of the manned NGAD airframe could influence the way the overall "system of systems" fights assuming we hold the CCA fleet procurement and complexity and sophistication constant.

I agree it influences, I just see that as a more easily achievable problem to adapt around as the CCA/NGAS can iterate faster than the manned platform whatever it's size.

The analysis of alternatives for the "manned NGAD fighter" probably lies on a spectrum, but for the sake of argument we can say one extreme is a large (say, 24m long), twin engine (adaptive cycle) design with significant onboard organic sensors and a large weapons bay for carrying weapons (a large number of AIM-120/260 sized weapons, or even say a number of LRAAMs like AIM-174 or future successor, as well as larger/longer air to ground powered weapons), and a long range/combat radius -- another extreme could be a small (think F-35 sized), single engine design with minimal onboard weaponry (say, two AIM-120/260 sized weapons only carried internally), with only minimal onboard sensing capability, with much of its small airframe prioritized to fuel to enable it to have a relevant range/combat radius (essentially sacrificing weapons, sensors, to maximize fuel).

Obviously the larger options on the spectrum will be more expensive than the smaller options on the spectrum. My question is if budget was less of a constraining factor, and lets say that the USAF was able to buy same CCA fleet in the same quantity and sophistication, and they were able to buy the "large NGAD" in the numbers that they wanted (i.e.: their total "NGAD budget" is greater) -- then how would that effect the way the overall "NGAD system of systems" operates and what would their relative combat effectiveness be?

Note -- I'm not implying one outcome over the other btw, for all we know it may be that the "small NGAD" option happens to be less expensive and more capable than the "large NGAD" option. But I do think the "bigger/expensive" versus "smaller/affordable" debate in defense media and think tanks seems to imply whether a "small NGAD" option will be compromising/losing out on certain capabilities even if the CCAs remain constant, relative to a "large NGAD".

I get what your saying, as above though I think the easier problem to solve is the CCA one. Decide on manned NGAD and then build the CCA force around that platform.

 

[FighterJock]

Exactly Ozair, that was what I was thinking too.

 

[quellish]

My posts are OSINT guesses; I cannot speak for DoD. But given that manned aircraft development is a decade plus project and that satellites and UCAVs have a several year development cycle, you can see how USAF might get cold feet developing an air superiority solution worth half as much as a stealth bomber with projected production in only marginally larger numbers…in a decade. B-21 has the huge advantage of being in LRIP right now, with all development and most test costs paid or budgeted.

With NGAD the Air Force aims to cut the development to IOC time to just a few years and constantly iterate the design throughout the life of the program in an agile fashion to change the platform's capabilities. The first production NGADs may look significantly different than NGADs produced 5 or 6 years later.

Most radars capable of detecting a stealthy aircraft can tell you "hey, I found something over thataway" gesturing vaguely at a couple thousand cubic KM of air volume to search with IR sensors.

The stealthy aircraft is still hard-to-impossible for an S-band or X-band fighter radar or active missile guidance radar to track.

And this is where schemes like spaced based IR sensors, etc. fail. How how to integrate tham as part of a complete kill chain? How does it help you put a weapon on the target? At the end of the day it doesn't. You are still using aircraft and missiles that use sensors that are very vulnerable to stealth.

IIRC, the old DSP satellites had a pretty simple sensor that was "if IR signal is more than X strong, sound the alarm." Just like those stupid fire alarm sensors that can't tell the difference between a lit match or lighter and an entire wall of flame. So things like a forest fire or an oil well or refinery on fire would be detected, and alarms would sound till someone cross-checked alarm location with known missile dispersal sites. "Hot location matches an oil rig in Siberia, and heat patch is moving with the prevailing winds. Looks like Ivan needs to call Red Adair."

The DSP satellites were being used to detect aircraft ("SLOW WALKERS") from the late 1970s onwards. Specifically, DSP was used to detect Backfires for the Navy.

 

[Josh_TN]

With NGAD the Air Force aims to cut the development to IOC time to just a few years and constantly iterate the design throughout the life of the program in an agile fashion to change the platform's capabilities. The first production NGADs may look significantly different than NGADs produced 5 or 6 years later.




And this is where schemes like spaced based IR sensors, etc. fail. How how to integrate tham as part of a complete kill chain? How does it help you put a weapon on the target? At the end of the day it doesn't. You are still using aircraft and missiles that use sensors that are very vulnerable to stealth.



The DSP satellites were being used to detect aircraft ("SLOW WALKERS") from the late 1970s onwards. Specifically, DSP was used to detect Backfires for the Navy.

I am skeptical any manned aircraft development can be so truncated.

The new missile tracking satellites are explicitly designed to achieve fire control grade tracks for interceptors. Now there does seem to be some debate over exactly how accurate a fire control grade track is; it is a relative term compared to how big an interceptor’s sensor basket is. But to seems likely a weapon delivery grade track can be produced, is not is this increment, than may be a couple down the line.

 

[Training_Dummy]

Because F15s are running out of airframe life, as are the B1s. B2s are struggling because of how their stealth coatings work, requiring climate-controlled hangars and a crapton of maintenance hours per flight hour, and because of the stupidly low number purchased forcing a relatively high operational tempo per aircraft.

All 3 need replacements, full stop. (As much as it hurts me to see Bones go...)

B52s have enough life left in the airframes to make it past 2060, 100 years service for those specific airframes, averaging ~350 hours a year per plane.




You're forgetting that just because you can detect a plane via space-based radar or thermals, that you can't necessarily get a missile there to engage the plane.

Most radars capable of detecting a stealthy aircraft can tell you "hey, I found something over thataway" gesturing vaguely at a couple thousand cubic KM of air volume to search with IR sensors.

The stealthy aircraft is still hard-to-impossible for an S-band or X-band fighter radar or active missile guidance radar to track.




IIRC, the old DSP satellites had a pretty simple sensor that was "if IR signal is more than X strong, sound the alarm." Just like those stupid fire alarm sensors that can't tell the difference between a lit match or lighter and an entire wall of flame. So things like a forest fire or an oil well or refinery on fire would be detected, and alarms would sound till someone cross-checked alarm location with known missile dispersal sites. "Hot location matches an oil rig in Siberia, and heat patch is moving with the prevailing winds. Looks like Ivan needs to call Red Adair."

Forest fires you can be okay with one pass per day or so (well, not really, but for top view it's acceptable. The actual incident commanders need much more up to date data, which is why ER-2s and even USAF U-2s have been voluntold for orbiting overhead the fires at 70kft). And IIRC most earth-facing resource satellites are lower orbits than the usual sun-synchronized orbits that spy satellites use.

Scott you are pointing out boring old realities that v smart people don't want to face, or cite things like ramp/apron, deck and/or hanger space as to why there is no place in the future force structure beyond the most futuristic, exquisite systems. Reality, as they say, bites, and as a result airframe fatigue or issues like the hand to hand combat of basic maintenance (for even easier to maintain airframes like F-35 or hopefully Raider) are overly discounted in fora like these. Which is genuinely wild when you think about it.