Military Forum for Russian and Global Defence Issues
No kidding, LM has done a horrific job when it comes to the F-35, as for the F-22 they pitched it to congress so well that congress banned it from being exported, i mean talk about backfire.Zivo wrote:Screw "6th generation"
We need to get 5th generation sorted out first.
Possibly, but we still do not know what the requirements of a 6thgen fighter for Russia will be, i mean we still hardly know what the U.S wants in its next gen fighter, in short we still don't know the core technological leap that will define the 6th gen fighter.KomissarBojanchev wrote:Is there a chance Russia might develop a 6gen fighter before 2040?
Is there a chance Russia might develop a 6gen fighter before 2040?
US Navy's 6th Generation Fighter Jets Will Be Slow and Unstealthy
Zachary Keck
February 5, 2015
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The U.S. Navy’s next generation air superiority fighter will not be “super-duper fast” or employ much in the way of stealth, a senior navy official announced on Wednesday.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy’s top officer, divulged some details about the Navy’s so-called Next Generation Air Dominance F/A-XX fighter jet during a speech at an industry conference.
“I don’t see that it’s going to be super-duper fast, because you can’t outrun missiles.” Greenert said, the Washington Examiner reported. “And you can’t become so stealthy that you become invisible — you are going to generate a signature of some sort,” he also noted, adding “You know that stealth may be overrated…. If something moves fast through the air and disrupts molecules in the air and puts out heat – I don’t care how cool the engine can be – it’s going to be detectable.”
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In lieu of stealth and speed, Greenert said that the F/A-XX would gain access by deploying “a spectrum of weapons” that could suppress enemy air defenses.
Greenert made the remarks while speaking at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo in Washington, DC.
(Recommended: Will the F-35 Dominate the Skies?)
His concerns about speed and stealth appear to be valid. As USNI News notes, the proliferation of high-speed anti-air weapons to America’s potential adversaries greatly reduces the value of speed. Stealth also is a wasting asset, as Dave Majumdar recently explained on The National Interest:
“Russia and China are already working on new networked air defenses coupled with new radars operating in the UHF and VHF-bands that threaten to neutralize America’s massive investment in fifth-generation fighters. Fighter-sized stealth aircraft are only optimized to perform against high-frequency fire control band radars operating in the Ku, X, C and portions of the S-band.”
That the next generation fighter will gain access primarily by suppressing enemy air defenses also isn’t entirely surprising. After all, the Navy already employs the Boeing EA-18G Growler, an electronic warfare variant of the the F/A-18F Super Hornet, one of the planes that the F/A-XX will eventually replace.
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Still, Greenert’s claims about the declining value of stealth and speed pose some stark questions for the armed forces and American taxpayers. The U.S. has spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars developing and fielding the “super-duper fast” F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, both of which rely on stealth to be effective. These fifth generation aircraft are expected to be the foundation of the U.S. fighter fleet for years to come. If their capabilities quickly become inadequate to meet America’s security needs, the U.S. could find itself facing a glaring fighter gap.
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It’s little wonder then that the military is already fast at work trying to develop the next generation X-plane even though the F-35 JSF is not even operational yet. Unfortunately, these sixth generation fighters might not operational until 2035.
nemrod wrote:Mwahahahahahahahahaha
Let's hope that the JSFX to be the backbone of US Air Force, beside F-22.
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/us-navys-6th-generation-fighter-jets-will-be-slow-unstealthy-12193
US Navy's 6th Generation Fighter Jets Will Be Slow and Unstealthy
Zachary Keck
February 5, 2015
inShare1
Printer-friendly version
The U.S. Navy’s next generation air superiority fighter will not be “super-duper fast” or employ much in the way of stealth, a senior navy official announced on Wednesday.
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert, the Navy’s top officer, divulged some details about the Navy’s so-called Next Generation Air Dominance F/A-XX fighter jet during a speech at an industry conference.
“I don’t see that it’s going to be super-duper fast, because you can’t outrun missiles.” Greenert said, the Washington Examiner reported. “And you can’t become so stealthy that you become invisible — you are going to generate a signature of some sort,” he also noted, adding “You know that stealth may be overrated…. If something moves fast through the air and disrupts molecules in the air and puts out heat – I don’t care how cool the engine can be – it’s going to be detectable.”
(Recommended: 5 Ways to Replace the F-35)
In lieu of stealth and speed, Greenert said that the F/A-XX would gain access by deploying “a spectrum of weapons” that could suppress enemy air defenses.
Greenert made the remarks while speaking at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo in Washington, DC.
(Recommended: Will the F-35 Dominate the Skies?)
His concerns about speed and stealth appear to be valid. As USNI News notes, the proliferation of high-speed anti-air weapons to America’s potential adversaries greatly reduces the value of speed. Stealth also is a wasting asset, as Dave Majumdar recently explained on The National Interest:
“Russia and China are already working on new networked air defenses coupled with new radars operating in the UHF and VHF-bands that threaten to neutralize America’s massive investment in fifth-generation fighters. Fighter-sized stealth aircraft are only optimized to perform against high-frequency fire control band radars operating in the Ku, X, C and portions of the S-band.”
That the next generation fighter will gain access primarily by suppressing enemy air defenses also isn’t entirely surprising. After all, the Navy already employs the Boeing EA-18G Growler, an electronic warfare variant of the the F/A-18F Super Hornet, one of the planes that the F/A-XX will eventually replace.
(Recommended: How to Start A Proxy War With Russia)
Still, Greenert’s claims about the declining value of stealth and speed pose some stark questions for the armed forces and American taxpayers. The U.S. has spent decades and hundreds of billions of dollars developing and fielding the “super-duper fast” F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, both of which rely on stealth to be effective. These fifth generation aircraft are expected to be the foundation of the U.S. fighter fleet for years to come. If their capabilities quickly become inadequate to meet America’s security needs, the U.S. could find itself facing a glaring fighter gap.
(Recommended: 5 Russian Weapons of War NATO Should Fear)
It’s little wonder then that the military is already fast at work trying to develop the next generation X-plane even though the F-35 JSF is not even operational yet. Unfortunately, these sixth generation fighters might not operational until 2035.
Sorry, I've edited the message.GarryB wrote:Nemrod... nice post, but if you have read the rules properly one rule is to not use excessive smileys in your posts...
George1 wrote:
i will transfer it to United States section, we have a thread already there
Can America's 6th Generation Fighter Jets Rule the Skies? nemrod Tue Apr 21, 2015 11:01 pm
Can America's 6th Generation Fighter Jets Rule the Skies?
The U.S. Navy’s sixth generation F/A-XX replacement for the service’s aging fleet of Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet strike fighters should be designed primarily for an air-to-air role. A strike capability can be treated as a secondary concern, at least that’s the view of some industry officials.
According to some industry insiders with deep knowledge of both the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter and the Super Hornet, neither jet can adequately handle new threats like the Chinese Chengdu J-20 or the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA. The Chinese J-20 is particularly threatening, according to one senior industry official with an extensive fighter pilot background.
“When you see these next-generation fighters, the PAK-FA out of Russia and the J-20 out of China and some of their new missile technology, our advantage is dwindling,” said one senior industry official.
Typically, fighter pilots measure the capabilities of their mounts and compare the relative advantages and disadvantages of their jet to their enemies’ in the hopes of finding an advantage. That could mean finding a part of the flight envelope where one’s fighter turns better or out accelerates the enemy jet—or perhaps where friendly missiles have a range advantage. However, against the J-20 and PAK-FA, only the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor offers any real advantages, the official said.
One area where the J-20—for example—completely outmatches the F/A-18 and F-35, is supersonic performance. The J-20 can cruise at high supersonic speeds without using fuel guzzling afterburners for extended periods, which allows it to impart far more launch energy into its missiles.
“Take a J-20 that can cruise at mil power supersonic out to 300 plus miles before he has to turn around and come back, [this] makes it really hard for a subsonic fighter [that needs afterburners for supersonic flight] to go into that environment and survive,” said the official. “Especially in an away game when we are outnumbered.”
In a complicated air-to-air battle where there are many fighters involved, there are instances where one side or the other will have to try to “separate”—which basically means try to runaway at high speeds.
A fighter that needs to use afterburners for supersonic flight can typically only maintain those speeds for a minute or two before fuel becomes a critical problem. “If he’s in mil power supercruising, running you down, that’s not a good place to be,” the official sad.
Another source agreed that the F/A-XX might be more geared toward the air-to-air mission. The second official cited two major reasons. First, the F-35C can cover the strike role, and second, the sheer number of enemy aircraft that future carriers might faceoff against. “The F/A-XX requirements may well be biased towards fleet air defense versus strike operations,” the second official said. “The primary issue is the likely threat of numerical superiority in multiple dimensions.”
The second official added that, in his opinion, the F-35C can handle the J-20 one-on-one. However, if friendly forces are massively outnumbered, and they don’t have enough missiles to shoot down all the incoming enemy aircraft, the situation changes.
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“An F-35C can readily handle a J-20, but no group of aircraft performing fleet air defense can be expected to handle being outnumbered by more than the number of shots they have,” the second official said.
If the future F/A-XX is going to have to carry more missiles, it will necessarily need to have a large volume—if the jet is going to be stealthy, the official said. But because a flying wing design is needed for all-aspect broadband stealth—there is no room to stack weapons bays along the length of the jet if one assumes the F/A-XX will be a supersonic design. By necessity, a high performance supersonic aircraft has to be long and slender in order to have a good “fineness ratio” for efficient performance.
As such, new weapons will have to be developed. “A supersonic, flying wing fighter will likely require smaller missiles, or rely on directed energy weapons like a high energy laser to minimize internal payload volume,” the second official said. “However, broadband, all-aspect stealth is certainly possible for a subsonic carrier-based aircraft, where fineness ratio is not a concern.”
The first industry official, for his part, said that the Navy needs to develop the F/A-XX with an air-to-air bias. Basic attributes would include high-supersonic cruise capability at altitudes between 50,000 and 60,000 feet, stealth, advanced sensors and advanced weapons. “I think you can always make a good fighter into a good striker,” the official said. “They’re doing it with the F-22. There is no fighter in the world as good as an F-22.”
Meanwhile, John Stillion, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments argues in a recent paper that a next-generation fighter would not necessarily be a supersonic fighter, but rather a subsonic stealthy flying wing that would carry extremely long-range missiles. In simple terms, Stillion argues that stealth, payload and sensor capability will trump traditional fighter metrics like speed, altitude and turn capability.
One senior Air Force official said he agreed to an extent. But the Air Force official added that while traditional metrics might decline in importance, they will still be prominent in future fighter aircraft like that service’s F-X or the Navy’s F/A-XX—where the two services are hoping to kick-off a joint analysis of alternatives next year.
However, the early consensus is that the Navy and Air Force are likely to build separate platforms that share key technologies.
Meanwhile, some doubt that the Navy can afford an F/A-XX when looking at the service’s future budget. There are “a pile of must-pay bills like the Ohio-class replacement program,” the source said. “Not sure they can swallow a big development bill for F/A-XX, and field it in time.”
Dave Majumdar has been covering defense since 2004. He currently writes for the U.S. Naval Institute, Aviation Week and The Daily Beast, among others. Majumdar previously covered national security issues at Flight International, Defense News and C4ISR Journal. Majumdar studied Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary and is a student of naval history.
GarryB wrote:The fact that they are looking at 6th gen aircraft already suggests lack of potential for 5th gen aircraft.
For the 6th gen fighters it seems the lack of vertical tail surfaces seems common so a requirement would be thrust vector engines as a must.
Stealth will be an aspect I suspect but I rather think it wont be to such a high level as the current 5th gen Us aircraft which seems to have made them expensive to maintain and use.
I suspect 6th gen aircraft will be more net centric and likely operate with a cluster of drone aircraft and perhaps even a drone aircraft carrying aircraft in support.
Beyond that features will likely be very smart weapons and possibly very high flight speed with variable cycle engines...
What makes this a generation above the PAK-FA and F-22?max steel wrote:First glimpse of European 6th gen fighter concept? @AirbusDS concept for a FCAS (Future Combat Air System)
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