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

[Sferrin]

I think it's important who's making the statement. He's very much a biased party.

If anything, it would give him justification to beat the drums for more resources. It's not like he could single handedly hide procurement problems.

 

[Ainen]

If anything, it would give him justification to beat the drums for more resources. It's not like he could single handedly hide procurement problems.

I was more along the lines he's a USAF F-47/B-21 guy.

 

[nn8734]

I think it's important who's making the statement. He's very much a biased party.

True but Hegseth or Trump, among others, could overrule him if they felt it was critical. So tells me they must agree to some extent (Trump not being an SME in these matters would defer to Hegseth’s position).

I know if I was President atm, and my chief procurement officer expressed such concerns, I’d fix them asap and, given both Boeing and NG both expressed confidence they can build the Navy NGAD while the F47 is going together, I’d make them show me they can do so. If I am satisfied with what each had to show/tell, I direct the Navy to complete downselect and award the EMD contract to their preferred choice.

If a selection hasn’t been made yet, they would have to come up with the mother of all justifications as to why not and sell me like they’ve never sold anyone on anything before to get me to allow more time.

I don’t see China holding back or pausing anything. No one over there seems to have “industrial base” concerns, at least any I have heard.

How does the F18 SH and/or Growler fare in a live engagement against a J20 (or four-ship vs four ship)?

Maybe the Navy has reason to believe the Rhino/Growler pilots would not be out matched. Or they simply figure all such situations would be handled by the F35C or USMC F35B and that’s more than enough for the next 10 years if push comes to shove…

 

[FlyGuy369]

Okay, had a thought earlier today. Call it off-topic if you would, I cannot recall the exact reason NG isn't assisting SNC with the Freedom Trainer other than that Beechcraft-Leonardo have a naval trainer monopoly. Is it indicative that such a drop occurred after they said they made the selection but didnt tell us who? Something to think about. Wonder if it'll look like this from the NG slide.

 

[DWG]

Next level retardation, IMO.

Ballute, spade, or parachute?

 

[Scott Kenny]

Ballute, spade, or parachute?

Yes.

all at the same time.

 

[EmoBirb]

but perhaps the concern isnt completely overblown.

Then the US aerospace industrial base is in worse shape than anyone of us has ever considered. If a handful of programs for each contractor already take up all their resources.

Meanwhile there is a certain east asian nation that has like twice of the amount of programs running concurrently with more and more things being spotted and and speculated upon each month, two next generation manned fighters in advanced stages of testing and like three dozen UAVs and UCAVs from the lowest to the highest end of the capability spectrum.

I wonder who'll Washington will blame, because they won't blame themselves.

 

[Hydroman]

Okay, had a thought earlier today. Call it off-topic if you would, I cannot recall the exact reason NG isn't assisting SNC with the Freedom Trainer other than that Beechcraft-Leonardo have a naval trainer monopoly. Is it indicative that such a drop occurred after they said they made the selection but didnt tell us who? Something to think about. Wonder if it'll look like this from the NG slide.

SNC does not have a reputation, Dreamchaser will probably go nowhere after how many years and they are having issues with the new E-4 aircraft they took from Boeing which is probably a wash as compared with Boeing's issues. NG not working with SNC, very good move.

 

[Hydroman]

Then the US aerospace industrial base is in worse shape than anyone of us has ever considered. If a handful of programs for each contractor already take up all their resources.

Meanwhile there is a certain east asian nation that has like twice of the amount of programs running concurrently with more and more things being spotted and and speculated upon each month, two next generation manned fighters in advanced stages of testing and like three dozen UAVs and UCAVs from the lowest to the highest end of the capability spectrum.

I wonder who'll Washington will blame, because they won't blame themselves.

Why don't you just say China?

 

[Hydroman]

Why don't you just say China?

Europe is not doing any better as well.

 

[EmoBirb]

Why don't you just say China?

Because I like ambiguity as a rhetorical tool. But yes I mean China and given that the US views them as the main adversary for the foreseeable future, it should be concerning for them to see such a widespread development offensive across multiple disciplines in aerospace and in many of those substantial progress.

And yes Europe isn't doing any better, and that's not good either and should be concerning to anyone who has an unfavorable view of the PRC (although I'd argue that's a minority in continental Europe compared to the US).

 

[Scott Kenny]

Then the US aerospace industrial base is in worse shape than anyone of us has ever considered. If a handful of programs for each contractor already take up all their resources.

Meanwhile there is a certain east asian nation that has like twice of the amount of programs running concurrently

That nation also has at least three times the population of the US. Maybe four times.

So I'd expect them to have at least twice the number of aircraft programs, if not three to four times the number of aircraft programs as the US.

 

[EmoBirb]

I'm unsure if I would equal productivity in any given sector with outright population size. There are exceptionally productive countries with low populations and very populous countries that are not productive at all.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I'm unsure if I would equal productivity in any given sector with outright population size. There are exceptionally productive countries with low populations and very populous countries that are not productive at all.

Granted, but once you get to the levels of hundreds of millions of people in a country's population, it's not a completely unreasonable first-guess.

 

[Seragina]

I'm unsure if I would equal productivity in any given sector with outright population size.

Ideally, you can but in reality you have to understand the society and its education ssystem in question and then look at the industrial fraction/work force capacity. Sadly, discrimination is a thing. In this case only the Han-chinese population demographics counts (91.11%).
The aerospace capacity looks to be ~3.5x but this is just a survey observation.

 

[Reddington777]

Then the US aerospace industrial base is in worse shape than anyone of us has ever considered.

Maybe. but perhaos its just me. Things looked easy for me on the outside but in practice, everything is far far more complex than one can imagine. Quite frankly, while having so many startups and companies competing is nice, the amount of work going into making all of it manageable and what not is going to be hard. And that could be part of the problem - many many companies in the race each with their own program and yet it seems like everyone is trying to solve the same problem whereas perhaps a few less of these competitors could squeeze out some more engineers for F/A-XX pr other big lifts.

 

[dark sidius]

Europe is not doing any better as well.

Europe is surely not doing something better than USA , France is glued with the forever Rafale with a economy in collapse unable to build a 6th gen Fighter and UK is in the Tempest who is a enormous program with high risks. USA is still the best on Earth with B-21 in time and number and the first F-47 in production , and surely 2 or 3 Black programs nobody know about