US Navy 6th Gen Fighter - F/A-XX

EmoBirb said:
For carrier aviation I can imagine you want a responsive aircraft with lots of low speed control upon landing. So you need something, be it canards (NATF-23) or other stabilizers.
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Whichever way you can get the aircraft into a high-drag, high-power setting for landing to have enough power for a bolter. From the NG image, I saw no apparent tails or canards (the image on TMZ) but only the first of probably more revealing images. The nose/forward fuselage area oozes evolved F-23. Goes to show our YF/F-23 was very advanced for the timeframe. Even though we lost to Lockheed, NG really gain a lot from the competition and knew what needs to happen for future fighter platforms. Now with inlets on top, still may still have very maneuverability possibly, it's all about advanced aero, we puzzled Lockheed with our YF-23 diamond wing and v-tails.
 
Hydroman said:
Whichever way you can get the aircraft into a high-drag, high-power setting for landing to have enough power for a bolter. From the NG image, I saw no apparent tails or canards (the image on TMZ) but only the first of probably more revealing images. The nose/forward fuselage area oozes evolved F-23. Goes to show our YF/F-23 was very advanced for the timeframe. Even though we lost to Lockheed, NG really gain a lot from the competition and knew what needs to happen for future fighter platforms. Now with inlets on top, still may still have very maneuverability possibly, it's all about advanced aero, we puzzled Lockheed with our YF-23 diamond wing and v-tails.
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How does the rear-mounted air intake meet the engine's air needs at high angles of attack? In the A/F-X project, the air intakes of both NG schemes were not on the top.
 
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donnage99 said:
One who isn’t driven by clickbait incentive would put “possibly AI generated placeholder” in the header
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I'm pretty sure we can exclude AI here.
I think I recognize the reflections that can be seen in the glass of the canopy as part of this HDRI image:
IMG_2803_reflections.jpeg

I believe the people (or person) that made this rendering for NG, used a (free) HDRI picture downloaded from Poly Haven of an indoor studio.
 
Geo said:
Interestingly "Northrop Grumman has provided" it the day after photos of beaming guys with hipster socks and interesting images in the background appeared.
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As for the "hipster socks", there was a crazy socks / crazy hat spirit day that was the root of those pictures.
 
Jacky said:
How does the rear-mounted air intake meet the engine's air needs at high angles of attack? In the A/F-X project, the air intakes of both NG schemes were not on the top.
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It'll be interesting to find out in the coming months or years. Northrop Grumman has put a lot of effort into making dorsal inlets work. The reduction in profile for the subsonic B-21 versus the B-2 is remarkable. What have they done with the supersonic F/A-XX?
 
Rhinocrates said:
It'll be interesting to find out in the coming months or years. Northrop Grumman has put a lot of effort into making dorsal inlets work. The reduction in profile for the subsonic B-21 versus the B-2 is remarkable. What have they done with the supersonic F/A-XX?
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Hopefully, we will find out of NG wins the competition providing funding continues, let's hope F/A-XX does not get screwed up by the USN/USG.
 
Hydroman said:
Hopefully, we will find out of NG wins the competition providing funding continues, let's hope F/A-XX does not get screwed up by the USN/USG.
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It could be a good new, the YF-23 was the most beautiful and advanced fighter of all times I think the FA//XX made by Northrop could be a jewelry.
 
Same thoughts here dark sidius, I often wonder about what a Northrop Grumman F/A-XX would look like after all they built the YF-23 and designed the NATF-23 two of the most stunning looking fighters in the last century.
 
CiTrus90 said:
I'm pretty sure we can exclude AI here.
I think I recognize the reflections that can be seen in the glass of the canopy as part of this HDRI image:
View attachment 780795

I believe the people (or person) that made this rendering for NG, used a (free) HDRI picture downloaded from Poly Haven of an indoor studio.
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I'm not convinced it's using that HDRI, the red and green highlighted light sources are long edges parallel in the HDRI and orthogonal in the render. Also why use an indoor HDRI for lighting when there's no shortage of outdoors ones?

WRT AI, I wouldn't necessarily exclude AI-generated images accessing an HDRI for their lighting set-up, either directly, via training, or baked into an image used in training.
 
The reason I thought that image pushed out by NG may be AI is where the hell is the main landing gear? I thought maybe it was further back, but based on the shadow, there is no "further back." Does it use Back To The Future Hoverboard tech in lieu of the main landing gear? Also, if you look at the shaping behind the canopy, there's way too many small curves there to make sense aerodynamically. It seams to me they asked AI to remake the aircraft shown in the image with the steam and almost recreated it, but couldn't quite figure it out.
 
RavenOne said:
Interesting the Northrop Grumman artist rendering.

www.twz.com

F/A-XX Next Generation Naval Fighter Concept Art Emerges From Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman has provided a very rare glimpse of what the F/A-XX could look like at a time when the program's future is in serious doubt. Northrop Grumman has provided a very rare glimpse of how the future F/A-XX carrier-based stealth combat jet might look.
www.twz.com www.twz.com


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I’d like to say if anyone remembers the N-G video of few years back with the employee going out of elevator to each segment of the company. The mystery jet with the fuselage mounted engines I am referring to …

Cheers
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1754677358386.png

Concept rendering can be anything.
We're in era of affordable realistic graphics. It is difficult to differentiate some videogames from reality when seen with best graphics gear.
Private companies can show anything in their promo videos. There's no liability to show glimpse of secret X/Y jets.
Moreover the intakes on top for an agile fighter blows the cover.
 
FlyGuy369 said:
Im still clinging to this rendition as their submission on the basis that the other aircraft surrounding it areas are accurate in representation.
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Could be X/Y jet like Bird-of-Prey, or just another excellent graphics.
 
DWG said:
I'm not convinced it's using that HDRI, the red and green highlighted light sources are long edges parallel in the HDRI and orthogonal in the render.
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It's not very intuitive, but it essentially depends on how the scene is setup and the geometries/surfaces of the 3d involved reflect the HDRI that is around them.

Think of an object put inside of a sphere, with the internal surface of said sphere being covered by the HDRI.
It would be easier to show you in a render in real time how this works, but that's not something I can do without you sitting next to me.

DWG said:
Also why use an indoor HDRI for lighting when there's no shortage of outdoors ones?
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Sometimes, one might want to use a particular HDRI to achieve the reflections and lightning they are looking for on certain materials and geometries.

Sometimes, one might forget to change the HDRI they are using in their scene if they are working on something rushed.

Some other times, some people might not be very good at the job they have been commissioned for.

I suspect in this case it might be the latter.
Besides the HDRI reflections, I can see the bump map lines, a few "fireflies" here and there and the vertices for the 3d for the intake lip and the underside of the aircraft nose.
None of these are things I should be able to see this prominently if the rendering had been done by a professional.
I am an amateur at illustrating aircraft but I can tell you that this image is a shoddy job.

DWG said:
WRT AI, I wouldn't necessarily exclude AI-generated images accessing an HDRI for their lighting set-up, either directly, via training, or baked into an image used in training.
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AI image generators don't use HDRIs to make reflections, they just put together results based on whatever images they have been fed/were trained on.

Also, the images they produce are usually a lot flashier and sharper than this one. For example, look at how low resolution the clouds in the background are (or the carrier itself is) and then compare it to any AI generated picture of an aircraft.

This picture was certainly run through some filters in Photshop and probably photo composited there as well. Maybe, it was run through some AI filters that did the photo composition automatically in place of the artist (that could be a possibility I wouldn't exclude), but the aircraft itself at the base of the image looks very much like a 3d object done from a person to me.
 
It's just an imperfect 3D model rather than a real parametric engineering model.

As for an AI generated image look at the example from here:

(sorry, forum doesn't allow *.webp files)

As for the intakes being too small. It's a single engine design with a splitter in the nozzle like on the X-47B.
So it's the F16/F35 smaller partner of the F15/F22-F16/F35 pairing setup. That's why we saw a budget request for the larger ones (presumely not done yet) in the recent budget.
 
CiTrus90 said:
It's not very intuitive, but it essentially depends on how the scene is setup and the geometries/surfaces of the 3d involved reflect the HDRI that is around them.

Think of an object put inside of a sphere
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I know how HDRIs work, I'm just not convinced that's a likely source for the render.

CiTrus90 said:
AI image generators don't use HDRIs to make reflections
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In general, no. But if you wanted an AI that did accurate rendering of 3D models, rather than the standard pastiche, then following a standard rendering pathway to produce an intermediate image that's then composited into the generated background might be the way to go about it.

CiTrus90 said:
look at how low resolution the clouds in the background are (or the carrier itself is)
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Look, however, at the detail of the deck surface immediately around the nosewheel, and the fall-off in focus around the black squares on the far deck edge, I think someone is playing with depth of field, rather than starting with a low res image.
 
We could be seeing the second coming of F-23 everyone. At Northrop, we had a I would say a good fundamental problem, we had developed aircraft during certain periods in time which were very advanced as compared to our competitors but would lose out I think because of that approach but Northrop was not shy about investing company funds to foster advanced designs. However, with B-2 as an example, NG got the "RQ-180" which parlayed into the B-21 in which the B-21 shares lineage also to the original ATB and ATA platform designs, see where this is going, ATB and ATA were very advanced as compared to the GD/McAir A-12, oh yes, Tacit Blue to YF/F-23, lots of history here. The McAir/Northrop JSF contender was superior to the X-32 but unfortunately used the separate lift engine. Take the vertical tails off the NATF-23, blend it a little and you may have an F-47, potentially? I may be able to pop the verticals off my NATF-23 model then take some images of it, what goes around comes around.
 
DWG said:
I'm not convinced it's using that HDRI, the red and green highlighted light sources are long edges parallel in the HDRI and orthogonal in the render. Also why use an indoor HDRI for lighting when there's no shortage of outdoors ones?
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Specifically, what @CiTrus90 is pointing out is that they seem to have used what we used to call a spherical reflection map.
 
I have a bit of experience refining and training stable diffusion models, and nothing about this image screams AI to me. If it is AI, then someone very skilled went to a lot of trouble to make it look like a 3D render, which is what it looks like to me. There are no obvious AI errors that I can see (no need to get into what those include, but they are numerous). The low-poly intake compared to the smooth outer mold line catches my attention as something that an AI would not do on first pass. This is something that you could "inpaint" if you were running one of the latest high-quality open source models on a local machine, but it would not happen on its own, and I doubt you could make any web-accessible cloud-based model do this. Additionally, although this looks like a low-quality CGI render, it would have to be created in one of the largest and latest AI image models, but in such a way as to appear like a low-quality render. The model would try to make it appear higher-quality by default.

By the way, the reflection that has been discussed is actually a reflection on the pilot seat, which you can see in the full resolution image. AI models cannot use reflection maps in the same way that 3D models can, as an AI image generator does not generate a 3D model that is capable of later having reflections added. That said, AI models are more than capable of generating reflections on glass, as they have been trained on images with those reflections.

Anyway. This is either a CGI render, or someone with a lot of experience with both AI models and 3D modeling went through a lot of trouble to make an AI image appear like a CGI image.
 

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Unless the navy wants to go with a three (or four, lol) engine design it makes no sense to have seperators in the two intakes...
 
Low IQ Techie said:
It loos like a delta wing, with 2 rudders, only top flat intakes with middle separator.
Dark & difficult to see under wing & belly. There seems to be SWB & IWB.

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First, it would have been nicer if you had shared the link, instead of just saying "I saw it on Twitter".

Second, from the comment you left under the video, you are perfectly aware of the fact that this was generated using Grok starting from the original NG picture, which is to say that this is AI generated slop that has no relevance to the original image released by NG.
I find it very dishonest, especially, to make statements on it trying to pass it as material even worth taking it into consideration, with reference to details of the aircraft that Grok came up with on its own.

Those stills you posted from the video are even worth less than fan art.
 
The NATF-23 was a compromise to get an aircraft which fit the F-14 envelope (no longer than the F-14, similar spotting factor, etc), hence the larger diamond wing (extra100 sqft of area), canards and all-moving, canted verticals. NATF-23 also had three very large elevons per wing, lots of control authority along with the canards and huge weapons bay. The large bay could have been an issue though the YF-23 seemed not to have a problem with it's large bay from a performance stand point from what I remember. The F-23 was way too long and would have had a higher landing speed for a carrier aircraft.

In my opinion I think the NG F/A-XX is going to be a highly blended, evolved F-23 design, may not require canards since the entire aircraft body/fuselage may be flat an efficient lifting body, the dorsal inlets, NG may have some magic up their sleeve. The F-23 is just screaming to be reborn just like the B-2 evolved into the more organic B-21. I'm sure NG may keep a distributed hydro system (may 4000 or 5000 psig) and standard electrohydraulic servoactuators vs. EHAs like the F-35. The X-47B as an example used distributed hydro with Moog actuation. EHAs like to be moved, electric motors with pumps are not designed to hold static load/hinge moments.
 
CiTrus90 said:
First, it would have been nicer if you had shared the link, instead of just saying "I saw it on Twitter".
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I went out with family, hence i replied just short line which is usually not my style.
It is now i'm with my laptop & i was going to give the link & screenshot, but i see you gave it.

CiTrus90 said:
Second, from the comment you left under the video, you are perfectly aware of the fact that this was generated using Grok starting from the original NG picture, which is to say that this is AI generated slop that has no relevance to the original image released by NG.
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I'm very new on using X, just few posts, so after spotting a line below his video "Create your own on Grok iOS and Android." i asked that user if he used Grok & so far no reply from him.
The 1st pic with YF-23 i found through Google Image search.

CiTrus90 said:
I find it very dishonest, especially, to make statements on it trying to pass it as material even worth taking it into consideration, with reference to details of the aircraft that Grok came up with on its own.
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I always appreciate art-work, either by CAD tools by artists like i appreciated CADs by you & other artists & also by using AI.
But technical discussion would obviously point out inaccuracies, fundamental flaws, etc for improvement.
This is all leisure activity, casual chat & entertainment.
Some people are making so many articles & videos & making money out of it.
Enthusiasts will share, discuss, opine as they like as per their choice, interest, knowledge, comprehension, timetable, situation, etc. That's how social media works.
So there's nothing dishonest over leisure activity, entertainment, casual chat.

CiTrus90 said:
Those stills you posted from the video are even worth less than fan art.
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Artists like you & others create the best fan-art.
You can email team of X/Grok to improve their programming.
 
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