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

djfawcett said:
I can tell you exactly what several Lockheed test pilots said, "bad ramp presence, doesn't look like a real fighter." They compared it to a butterfly tail Bonanza. I wouldn't be surprised that attitude was found elsewhere in the company.
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What were they smoking?


Sferrin said:
"Bad ramp presence"? Maybe that's why the X-32 lost.
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Yes, that was part of it.

Boeing really needed to have leaned into the open mouth and added the shark mouth.
 
Scott Kenny said:
What were they smoking?



Yes, that was part of it.

Boeing really needed to have leaned into the open mouth and added the shark mouth.
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That's one reason I like the XF8U-3 Crusader III so much. China calls the J-15 "Flying Shark". This is a flying shark.
 

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Sferrin said:
The Northrop/McD JSF failed because the USMC said they didn't want two types of turbofans in their jet. So Northrop/McD did it anyway. Their failure was fairly predictable. In fact the shaft-driven lift fan was the riskier move and LM was rewarded for it.
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The MD gas-driven lift fan system was heavy and complicated and could have failed anyway. NG was thinking logically but I don't blame the USMC, you to have a complete logistics system to support the lift engine.
 
barry bozo said:
B-21 had engineering in both locations and still does to this day. But yes you’re correct in saying they want to leave CA because it’s more expensive. That’s the rationale I was told.


Without getting too deep in the weeds, LMT didn’t protest because they simply weren’t competitive enough. Boeing absolutely would’ve protested had they ruled the other way.

In the case of F/A-XX, both will likely protest as it’s a must-win from a business perspective for both companies.
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I think LM ADP is currently occupied with other programs in which NG and Boeing are just not competitors, LM ADP already had these in the bag some time ago.
 
Hydroman said:
The MD gas-driven lift fan system was heavy and complicated and could have failed anyway. NG was thinking logically but I don't blame the USMC, you to have a complete logistics system to support the lift engine.
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I never understood why anybody would want to pipe hot gas through ducts inside the fuselage. As awesome as this looks this is probably one of the worst examples:
 

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Sferrin said:
I never understood why anybody would want to pipe hot gas through ducts inside the fuselage. As awesome as this looks this is probably one of the worst examples:
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You are right.
 
tico said:
I found the slides you mentioned on the forum, yet I can’t identify any specific correlation between the diagram in the paper and this slide. Could you track down the paper or presentation slides where this diagram originally appears?
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Hello. The two images you provided appear to come from a paper titled "A Systems Engineering Approach to MDAO Applications for ESAVE (Exploration of Highly Efficient Supersonic Aircraft)" (PDF version). I stumbled upon it via a Google Image search!
 

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wtna7 said:
Hello. The two images you provided appear to come from a paper titled "A Systems Engineering Approach to MDAO Applications for ESAVE (Exploration of Highly Efficient Supersonic Aircraft)" (PDF version). I stumbled upon it via a Google Image search!
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A pretty interesting CBO document put out recently has the following guesstimates:

F/A-XX "arrivals start in 2038"
F/A-XX "fleet total" of 48 by 2040

F-47 "fleet" totals 198 aircraft in 2040
F-47 arrivals "ramp up from 12 in 2034 to 24 in 2035 to 36 per year" from '36
F-22 retirements to lag F-47 arrivals by perhaps 5 years, 1-for-1

"CBO’s projection includes two types of fighter aircraft that have not yet been fielded: the Air Force’s F-47 and DoN’s next-generation fighter, which the department refers to as the F/A-XX. Plans for those aircraft are still being finalized, so CBO relied on statements by DoD officials to create its projection for those two fleets."

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62602
 
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My thoughts too Sferrin, 2040 is a long time to wait for the F/A-XX to reach fleet strength and you are right to say about the J-35 and J-36 Chinese fighters they will have lot's more of them in service by that time. All this repeated delays with the program have done no good for the future of the US Navy.
 
Actually, given current production rates, china might reach a 1000 j20 by 2031 or so.

by 2040, assuming j20 production stops by mid 2030s and j35 production never goes over 40 per year, china might have something like 1500 j20 and 500 j35. on top of whatever number of j36 and that other fighter are made. which might be a few hundred of each.
 
Sferrin said:
2040? China will probably have a thousand J-20s by then and God knows how many J-35s/-36s, etc. I'll bet we never see 36/yr for the F-47. I don't get the impression there is much of a sense of urgency.
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Well, if China were to produce J-20 for 14 years at a current tempo, it'll probably have more like ~2.5k of them alone. Plus J-35(A) fleet expansion, which is winding up.
But this is not very sensible; heavy air superiority fighters are a useful capability, rather than absolute measure of power; i personally don't expect single-seaters to go far beyond the original planned ATF fleet. More likely there will be 2-3 waves of different aircraft "generations", solving different needs and adjusted to technical progress.
For instance, it's increasingly likely J-36 and J-XDS will see IOC within the next few years, and more new models can come out by 2034 and 2040. They now have engineering capacity (bordering necessity, to keep people employed and sharp) to do that.
 
That entire paper, at the link, with the exception of one page, is completely redacted now. At least for me, anyway.
 
Sundog said:
That entire paper, a the link, with the exception of one page, is completely redacted now. At least for me, anyway.
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Not for me. Anyway i download the page and put it up in Archive

Edit: its up for anyone who has some issues
 
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Is the plan to wait until the Boeing F-47 matures before developing the FA/X-X? (Or is this a conservative measure to prevent the Navy from making "reckless changes" to the project?)

Another perspective is that the ESAVE project (Figure 1)—"this framework can be directly applied to the development of future fighter/attack aircraft concepts, as well as to ongoing design and optimization trade-off studies for the next-generation F-X tactical aircraft, to support Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) and future system development."
 

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wtna7 said:
Is the plan to wait until the Boeing F-47 matures before developing the FA/X-X? (Or is this a conservative measure to prevent the Navy from making "reckless changes" to the project?)

Another perspective is that the ESAVE project (Figure 1)—"this framework can be directly applied to the development of future fighter/attack aircraft concepts, as well as to ongoing design and optimization trade-off studies for the next-generation F-X tactical aircraft, to support Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) and future system development."
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You effectively kill the program if you wait for that long. If the plan is to wait until F-47 mature then why not annouce Boeing as the winner right away. The delay is just wasting everyone time to be honest.
 
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wtna7 said:
Is the plan to wait until the Boeing F-47 matures before developing the FA/X-X? (Or is this a conservative measure to prevent the Navy from making "reckless changes" to the project?)
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Hope not.

Ideally (perhaps fantasy at this point), Boeing should be producing 50-75 F47s per year while NG should be able to crank out 30-40 F/A-XX units per annum and 20-25 B21s in the same time frame. Same with the CCAs for the USAF, Navy and Marines. Whatever has to be done to scale production to those levels needs to get done by all stakeholders. Seems like they are doing so with critical munitions so next step is getting it done with air craft and ships/subs.

While we want to ensure platforms are mature, we don’t want to let perfect tomorrow become the enemy of “acceptable/viable” today.

The more we slow-walk things, the faster they will become obsolete. Meanwhile China is cranking out J20s at a stupidly fast rate.

Speaking of the F/A-XX, hopefully we get an announcement soon. Only a dozen or so days left in August.
 
Jemiba said:
It's always tempting to digress, but please, stay with the original topic. The discussion in the last posts had nothing to do with F/A-XX !
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without active moderation, posters will end up straying far from the original topic (usual people), and we end up implementing news only rules. And people wonder why...
 
books said:
A pretty interesting CBO document put out recently has the following guesstimates:

F/A-XX "arrivals start in 2038"
F/A-XX "fleet total" of 48 by 2040
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Not reaching the fleet before (at least) 2040. What a joke. That would mean roughly 30 years from the F/A-XX's RFI (2012) to service entry... :rolleyes:

Meanwhile, the Super Hornets are becoming less and less relevant against China. You would think replacing the SH (which originally was to be nothing more than an interim aircraft) would be a priority and a matter of great urgency. Instead, the DoD has all the time in the world apparently while China builds J-20s by the hundreds and brings the J-35 and J-36 closer to operational service.
 
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ST21 said:
Meanwhile, the Super Hornets are becoming less and less relevant against China. You would think replacing the SH (which originally was to be nothing more than an interim aircraft) would be a priority and a matter of great urgency. Instead, the DoD has all the time in the world apparently while China builds J-20s by the hundreds and brings the J-35 and J-36 closer to operational service.
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There is nothing more permanent than an interim fix.
 
Earlier this week I was told exactly the same thing the Admiral said to AvWk.

Trying to make sense of what I've been hearing from inside sources since March 2025, and where we are now, requires speculation.

So here's mine: DEPSECDEF Feinberg and CAPE Director Payne remain firmly against starting up F/A-XX, nothwithstanding Congressional mandates and several JCS-level reviews of the requirements flowdown. Hegseth doesn't care, and Trump isn't weighing in. F/A-XX may continue to reside in limbo unless and until one or both houses of Congress change hands.
 
timmyjohn said:
Earlier this week I was told exactly the same thing the Admiral said to AvWk.

Trying to make sense of what I've been hearing from inside sources since March 2025, and where we are now, requires speculation.

So here's mine: DEPSECDEF Feinberg and CAPE Director Payne remain firmly against starting up F/A-XX, nothwithstanding Congressional mandates and several JCS-level reviews of the requirements flowdown. Hegseth doesn't care, and Trump isn't weighing in. F/A-XX may continue to reside in limbo unless and until one or both houses of Congress change hands.
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This suggests that a couple of people need to make Trump and Hegseth care.
 
The Powers That Be hated CVNs before OEF; they hate them more after. F/A-XX is a subroutine that nests within the CVN framing. Perhaps this makes more sense if you consider Defiant class vs more Fords + F/A-XX as a choice.

Given the USNs total failure to seize the X-47B moment almost 15 years ago, the defining dynamics at play here may predate the last three administrations.
 
Training_Dummy said:
The Powers That Be hated CVNs before OEF; they hate them more after. F/A-XX is a subroutine that nests within the CVN framing. Perhaps this makes more sense if you consider Defiant class vs more Fords + F/A-XX as a choice.

Given the USNs total failure to seize the X-47B moment almost 15 years ago, the defining dynamics at play here may predate the last three administrations.
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The USN should have implemented the X-47B. What ever F/A-XX turns out to be, the USN just needs a good next-gen fighter. There is no longer a good mix of platforms like there used to be and that is sad. When I was on CVN-65 from 1980 to 1984, we had the following platform types:

F-14, A-6, KA-6, EA-6, S-3, E-2, A-7, C-2, C-1 and SH-3. During our 82-83 WestPac, we would bring on EA-3s from Cubi Point for the I/O operations.
 
Training_Dummy said:
The Powers That Be hated CVNs before OEF; they hate them more after. F/A-XX is a subroutine that nests within the CVN framing. Perhaps this makes more sense if you consider Defiant class vs more Fords + F/A-XX as a choice.

Given the USNs total failure to seize the X-47B moment almost 15 years ago, the defining dynamics at play here may predate the last three administrations.
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How do they expect to conduct military operations like the recent ones against the Houthis, Venezuela, and Iran without CVN? Battleships don't have the capabilities that CVN offer.
 
fure said:
Is there any reason for this?
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No clue to Feinberg's thinking, but there's no reason to believe he has a pea-brain or a lazy work ethic. According to Wikipedia, his father was a steel salesman, so DEPSECDEF seems to be a self-made man (bonus points from me). I was once told that the grapevine says he sees Michael Payne as a trusted advisor, especially while Feinberg was learning his way around the Pentagon, aka the five-sided puzzle palace.

Payne cut his teeth in the Air Force's world of systems analysis, cost/benefit analysis, and portfolio planning. Since the days of ATB/B-2, the Air Force has argued publicly and behind-the-scenes that strategic air power is much more cost effective than carrier-based aviation to hold the same set of high-value targets at risk.

Back when the A-6E provided a legitimate deep strike capability operating from the required standoff ranges, my opinion was that there's two sides to this argument. With the ATA/A-12 debacle, reasonable and informed people can agree that the Navy and DoD have basically ceded those roles and missions to the Air Force. Is that Payne's line of thinking? I certainly don't know, but it may not be too far off.
 

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