Pardon me, had a LOT to catch up on...
I wonder if those canards can actually be very stealthy ?
The bigger the canards, the smaller the deflection needed (preserving edge alignment better)
and the more effective their RAM/RAS is.
What do we know about the characteristics of this drone, the mass, the engine, the weight of the combat load?
Well, combat load that has been talked about for most of the "spear carrier" CCAs was 2x AMRAAMs. That's 700lbs or so. I might give it 1000lbs if there's a plan to stick 4x SDBs on them.
I will note that I expect combat load to significantly increase once the CCAs are less "spear carrier" and more "squires"/"men at arms"
I think people sometimes forget the fact that the China could use similar tactics to use against the US's naval blockade except the fact that they have more resources at their disposal due to SCS being in their backyard.
Except the USN has been developing A2AD since the 1970s with Aegis.
And said A2AD was designed against 200+ incoming missiles as the expected threat. Soviet multi-regimental attacks.
Nothing, but with aspirational goal of 185 core airrframes, that may not go very far
F-47 is only planned for ~200 airframes, 1:1 replacement of F-22s (though I hope the F-22s get pushed down to the Reserves/Air Guard replacing F-15Cs instead of retired outright).
FAXX production is planned for more like 300 airframes, possibly more. That's two squadrons of 12x birds each, on 12x Carrier Air Wings.
Point of that is designing a plane for geography in stasis isn't exactly smart, when battlespace is movable. And while battlespace is movable, american allies in the region aren't.
You gotta design based on where the available air bases are, or you gotta build new air bases. Take your pick.
It would not surprise me. Having two hot production lines could be useful and these aircraft will not need maintenance in the traditional sense.
They're still going to need maintenance after each flight. Yes, they're probably going to fly a lot less than manned planes, but they're still going to spend some time flying.
Coming back to the F-47 proper, do we know anything about the helmet yet? Or has there been radio silence on that bit? I wouldn't be surprised if it's fundamentally just an evolution of the one used in the F-35.
Haven't heard anything, but I'd expect it to be an evolution of the F-35 helmet. Newer components, mostly. Still the same custom-fitted inner helmet with attachment points to the standard outer shell that holds all the electronic bits, because that's a really solid design concept.
We have gotten our first official basic specifications for the Air Force's Next Generation F-47 fighter and its accompanying drones.
www.twz.com
Hope it's got a hell of a long error bar on the plus side of that.
If you are wanting the F-47 to be flying in 3 years, I would envision a “modified F119” to be a bone stock F119, possibly with a new augmentor / nozzle to match whatever the aft end concept is for the F-47. And a revised FADEC design to communicate on whatever flight control buss the F-47 will use instead of the 1553 bus used on the F-22.
All I'd expect on the physical-changes side would be a new nozzle on the back end for the F-47.
As to the data bus, is there any reason to not use the old 1553 bus? I mean, cars still used the ODB2 serial port to talk to the scan tools. Though admittedly they're using the CAN bus architecture aside from that port.
The question is whether the F119 would be a good fit size wise to replicate the XA102/103. Will those engines be closer in size to a F100/110 than a F119? They will want an engine that is essentially exactly the same size or smaller to prevent unnecessary airframe changes..
No, you want an engine same size
or larger.
It's a lot easier to put an engine that has smaller airflow needs into a big bay than to try to stick a bigger engine into an airframe designed for a smaller one. Witness the Spey Phantom issues versus the Tomcat's ease of sticking TF30s into a nacelle designed for F401, and then sticking F110s into that same nacelle.
I'm not well versed in terms of engine tech but what are the reasons for not going with higher thrust engines? Even two of the AETP engines for the F-35 would get you a combined 80k lbs of thrust which would be nice kinematically especially if we are looking at a slightly larger fighter right?
Most of the time, you want to aim for a Thrust to Weight ratio of ~1:1 at about 33-40% of max range, or at about your combat radius. The exception being scramble interceptors, and most planes designed for that mission
today just go for a reduced fuel load to get the climb rate needed.
You don't need 80-90klbs thrust for a fighter that has an MTOW of 80-90klbs, you need that much thrust for a fighter that has an MTOW of ~105-125klbs (and thirsty engines at the upper end).
I mean, the F-22 has an MTOW of 84klbs, but only has about 70klbs of max AB thrust. (Note that the typical air-to-air mission loadout has the
F-22 taking off at about 65klbs, 6x AMRAAM + 2x AIM-9X is about 2500lbs, plus 18klbs of fuel, on an empty weight of ~43,500lbs)
Also how wouldn't more powerful engines imply better power generation?
It's based on what generators are installed, and how much torque can be pulled through the accessory gearbox.
Also, pulling too much power through the gearbox will reduce engine RPM and reduce how quickly the engine can change RPM. For an easy example, go for a drive in your car and compare how well it accelerates with the air conditioning on versus off.
Makes me wonder why there are so few twin engine aircraft with a vertical engine arrangement.
The maintenance really,
really sucks. Sucks so bad that it's basically only been done on what was supposed to be a research prototype that was forced into combat service, the EE Lightning.
So he actually says in the podcast that in the source selection process, there was a joint air force and navy aspect to it, and that the navy made their selection first, then the air force, then came Kendall deferring NGAD to the next administration.
I guess the results have been determined already even for FA-XX too and there's at least some level of commonality between the two?
I'd expect radars, DAS, probably cockpit displays, EOTS/IRST, and defensive systems to be common between F-47 NGAD and FAXX. Oh, and maybe actuators.
All the stuff that is at least TRL7. USN is explicitly not using a 3-stream engine on the first batch of FAXX while supposedly the USAF is.
aviationweek.com
theaviationist.com
