Boeing 6th Gen Fighter - F/A-XX

FighterJock said:
So in the end the EW role is going to be gone once the Growler is retired whenever that will be to be.
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Very likely.

After all, once your whole offensive air wing is stealthy, you don't need STANDOFF jamming. You can get away with stand-in jamming, and the power advantages of stand-in jamming means your stand-in jammer fits in an ADM-160 MALD.



Elysium said:
I implore you to think about what you just wrote.
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That carrying jammer pods messes up your RCS when not transmitting?
 
Quite Scott Kenny, external jammer pods can seriously reduce RCS on a stealthy fighter like the F-35 to the point of making it non-stealthy. Better leaving EW jamming to a long range jammer like the EC-37B Compass Call for it they are less likely to get into harms way.
 
More conjecture for the conjecture salad:

I would think the F/A-XX and its unmanned components would be able to fulfill EW responsibilities IF they aren't expected to penetrate heavy IADS.

Not sure what the plans are for the USAF's PEA, but if they end up producing a good amount, maybe they'll reserve some for USN escorts in the Pacific.
 
It will be interesting to see what capabilities the US Navy expects for the CCA fighters In_A_Dream, regarding EW if that is the case better a CCA than manned aircraft.
 
There was talk in the CCA threads that stand in jamming is going to be done by CCAs and other unmanned aerial platforms in a distributed manner.

You need wide area jamming and effects that are persistent and hard to dismantle. Putting your jammers on a few manned aircraft limited to an aircraft carrier isnt going to achieve that. Having deployable CCAs from all kinds of land sea and air platforms would help achieve that.

This is also why talking about only the kinetic payload and kinematic capacities of CCAs is reductive. Just conudcting EW and offering countless targets to the enemy will already greatly complicate the targeting process even before anything kinetic happens.

Also - I dont think any amount of stealth these days is going to be decisive without supporting jamming.
 
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DJK said:
Because jamming lights up your aircraft, as opposed to passive EW where you might want to just detect the enemy radar or transmissions.
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Traditionally, yes, but a low signature aircraft can have an easier time manipulating the EM spectrum to blend in and complicate the air picture. The radar operators might know you're out there, but they'll be scrambling to find out where and how many. Also remember that fire control radar requires a stronger return than surveillance radar, and both can be specifically targeted with EA to create a "smoke screen" to obscure positioning.

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https://www.emsopedia.org/entries/radar-electronic-counter-measures-in-escort-jammer-task/
 
DJK said:
Because jamming lights up your aircraft, as opposed to passive EW where you might want to just detect the enemy radar or transmissions.
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Jamming is an emission vector, pointing directly towards your aircraft.
Your own RCS doesn't change at all.
 
Ainen said:
Jamming is an emission vector, pointing directly towards your aircraft.
Your own RCS doesn't change at all.
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If you've got binoculars, and are looking for a faint target, and someone blasts you in the face with a spotlight, do you think it will make it easier or harder to find that faint target?
 
Sferrin said:
If you've got binoculars, and are looking for a faint target, and someone blasts you in the face with a spotlight, do you think it will make it easier or harder to find that faint target?
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Finding will obviously be vastly easier as you have a vector.

But if you or your seeker doesn't get enough RCS to target it anyway (especially with denied range, false returns, and other aspects), it doesn't really help.

I think it's visible, that F-22 was the first and likely the last "all in" stealth 5th gen fighter. Everyone afterwards, apparently including B-21, jams as much as possible, even at the expense of some loss in signature reduction.
 
If there are a lot of sensors all over the place and assuming all are being jammed and there's only one intruder then it's certainly possible to determine the plane's location. But in the real world there's at least 100 aircrafts involved for any given military operation even if half are support and afar.
It's claimed we now have spoofing ghost/signature clone/"hologram" technology in EW and some more exotic capabilities. We don't know how this play out yet at least not publicly.
 
Seragina said:
If there are a lot of sensors all over the place and assuming all are being jammed and there's only one intruder then it's certainly possible to determine the plane's location. But in the real world there's at least 100 aircrafts involved for any given military operation even if half are support and afar.
It's claimed we now have spoofing ghost/signature clone/"hologram" technology in EW and some more exotic capabilities. We don't know how this play out yet at least not publicly.
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But home-on-jam missiles could be designed to counter some of that. Could be a bit of cat & mouse if you go up against a competitor that has also been working on EW.
 
Home-on-jam might also be complicated by these rumored new capabilities to burn out missile seekers by basically turning the AESA array into a microwave DEW, as is purported for the AN/APG-85 (which I’d bet is slated to go on the F-47 and F/A-XX, too).

Using that method might just end up guaranteeing that your missile seeker is directly aligned with the emitter that ends up burning it out. At least until they start making hardened seekers?
 
I think you don't understand that if you can electronically skew the emitted radar wave at an angle, you can also simulate a fake skew in perfectly aligned emission, sending your missile array where you think it's more suited...
 
You don’t need to blind or misdirect an X band radar in the classical sense. Essentially anything electronic can be targeted and manipulated - a sufficiently sophisticated agent can “enter” through a TRM array but could also gain access through other less obvious apertures.

“Oh child, it’s a wild world”

Edited for clarity
 
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fure said:
Wasn't Boeing rumored to be the preferred option for the FA/XX?
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I haven't heard of a preference in the F/A-XX program. Only that LM was not preferred. Hence NG vs. Boeing.
 
Sundog said:
I haven't heard of a preference in the F/A-XX program. Only that LM was not preferred. Hence NG vs. Boeing.
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Different media has reported differently. Vago from Defense and Aerospace report had been claiming NG is the favourite, Steve Trimble from AvWeek saying Boeing is. Reality is neither knows and the USN has been pretty tight hold on this.
 
Scott Kenny said:
No, Boeing getting both NGAD/F-47 and FAXX was considered unlikely.

Plus all the issues Boeing Military and Boeing Civilian have been having.
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The evaluation criteria for F-47 didn't weight past performance very high compared to overall value.

Boeing’s proposal, now called the F-47, won because it “represents the best overall value to the government and is best suited to fulfill the Air Force’s requirements,” the spokesperson said. That stands in contrast to other contracts that have been awarded based on “lowest price/technically acceptable,” which is the criteria used when proposals are so evenly matched that cost becomes the key discriminator. A “best overall value” offeror may sometimes have quoted a higher price and was chosen because the source selection authority deemed the proposal more realistic, or if more value was added in the form of far better technical performance, lower-cost maintainability, or other factors.

The Air Force has not revealed the criteria used to judge the two entrants, and the spokesperson said the service “will not release additional details relative to the proposal.”

Industry sources told Air & Space Forces Magazine that past performance was not heavily weighted in the selection and counted for less than 10 percent of the scoring.
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https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-boeing-ngad-best-overall-value/

I expect the USN will also value past performance as a single digit percentage within the evaluation criteria.
 
NG could win, B-21 going very well. I assume USN F/A-XX to be managed by RCO? Boeing has F-47 and has to get KC-46 fixed and T-7 back on-track. Got to keep B-52 re-engine going as well.
 
Quite Hydroman. Boeing have a lot on their plate and a lot that is going wrong as you say with the KC-46 and they have already won the F-47 so that would be a mark down on that point too, having too many eggs in one basket would not work for the US military now.
 
One again, AII-X generated two demonstrators with Boeing building an airframe more oriented to the USNs objectives (while still demonstrating capabilities the USAF was uniquely interested in), while Lockheed built the second, later to fly demonstrator that was tailored to the USAF NGAD capability set.

It was believed that while Lockheed flew later than Boeing, its design was more evolutionary than Boeing. While some believed Lockheed experienced real issues getting to first flight - including potentially with the engines - it is now believed both programs had to overcome major issues and were described as CFs at certain times.

I also believe NG flew some sort of demonstrator aircraft, although this remains unconfirmed and unclear if it was as part of, parallel to or completely separate from the demonstrator portion of AII-X. Although it should be kept in mind NG was heavily involved in the NGAD program and its prior programs, even though it wasn’t selected to fly NGAD demonstrators as Boeing and Lockheed were.

I also believe Boeing thinks it can design and build both F-47 and F/A-XX given its substantial near decade long multisite expansion (especially STL but also in California and in Arizona). I have a sneaky suspicion that Boeing thinks F-47 related know how might put in a position to deliver the program at a lower cost than NG (ever see Boeing do this?).

After all, KC-46, T-7 and EX are all built very differently, with different lines, automation levels and processes at work for those three vs F-47, or F/A-XX. On the other hand, NG seems to be executing on all cylinders with B-21, as evidenced by talks to dramatically ramp up delivery cadences as well as total airframes for Raider; I think that would matter quite a bit in a theoretical vacuum, but who knows.
 

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