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

[FighterJock]

Quite Sferrin, I was shocked when Boeing were awarded the NGAD/F-47 contract. I will be equally shocked if they take the F/A-XX too.

 

[barry bozo]

Mostly because Boeing's track record hasn't been great for over a decade.

Boeing =/= Phantom Works. Projects do fall apart once they move to BDS oversight, but Phantom Works doesn't fall under Boeing Defense Space & Security (BDS).

KC-46 was developed under BDS, not Phantom Works. MQ-25 was developed under PW and was transitioned to BDS after it was the contract. Both experienced their struggles under BDS management.

Even from a design perspective, X-32 was largely designed under BDS rather than Phantom Works. We saw the result there. T-7 is the one recent notable Phantom Works effort that was sub-par, and this was partially because it was used as a risk-reduction effort for its FSDA design methodology.

Phantom Works is better attributed to UCLASS, Bird of Prey, X-36, MQ-25, F-47, and more projects the public doesn't know about.

 

[Sferrin]

You can design the most magical aircraft ever conceived. You still have to execute and produce it. And that would be on Boeing's shoulders.

 

[red admiral]

Design needs to be coupled to production. It's not a good design if it can't be produced.

 

[bring_it_on]

What are the other options?

You can expect both France and Sweden to aim to occupy the space that sits between the F-35 and the GCAP in terms of export. Both will aim for it to be ITAR free. Whether one or both of them make it to achieve that differentiation (exceeding F-35 block 5 performance by a level to justify the higher cost, and putting distance between its cost/performance/value prop and that of GCAP) is TBD... Yes, certainly possibly for F/A-XX to do so as well. I think Israel will end up using the F-47 or the F/A-XX if the latter ever makes it into development and production. Possibly Australia if they don't join GCAP. But there aren't very many others that will be able to afford something that costs 2x that of the F-35...very many of those that can are already on the GCAP.

 

[Sferrin]

Design needs to be coupled to production. It's not a good design if it can't be produced.

Oh, it sure can be. If your staff is trained. Not all production lines are created equally.

 

[barry bozo]

You can design the most magical aircraft ever conceived. You still have to execute and produce it. And that would be on Boeing's shoulders.

To reiterate my original statement - I don't know why people underestimate Phantom Works. Knock Boeing all you want (rightfully), but PW does a great job. It shouldn't be surprising to people that they can put together a great design and proposal.

Design needs to be coupled to production. It's not a good design if it can't be produced.

MQ-25 and T-7 (PW products) are both going to make it to production with their intended designs. If over budget/behind schedule is your criteria for not executing, would you apply the same sentiment to F-22? F-35? B-2?

F-22 and F-35 both had to make numerous design changes during EMD to get to the product they have now, both for performance and producibility.

Also worth noting the F-47 is still on track for a 2028 first flight, only three years after award. If that doesn't showcase technical maturity and execution, I'm not sure what will. Given, there's still time for that to change, but its been 18 months of that same message, so I'm not sure I see that changing too much.

 

[Sferrin]

To reiterate my original statement - I don't know why people underestimate Phantom Works.

I'll believe it when I see it. (And would be delighted to be wrong.)

 

[Reddington777]

To reiterate my original statement - I don't know why people underestimate Phantom Works. Knock Boeing all you want (rightfully), but PW does a great job. It shouldn't be surprising to people that they can put together a great design and proposal.

There are many things people on this forum refuse to be convinced by even if the evidence (and thread history) readily awaits them.

What I am interested in is what did PhW (to distinguish it from The other PW...) have to offer that LM and NG couldnt? Perhaps more experience with fighter sized tailess aircraft given the things you listed?

 

[barry bozo]

There are many things people on this forum refuse to be convinced by even if the evidence (and thread history) readily awaits them.

What I am interested in is what did PhW (to distinguish it from The other PW...) have to offer that LM and NG couldnt? Perhaps more experience with fighter sized tailess aircraft given the things you listed?

It for sure played into it. But Boeing/McD was also at risk of being out of the stealth game altogether. As far as we know publicly, NG and LM weren't making clean sheet demonstrators in the tailless fighter class like Boeing/McD was (pre-NGAD demonstrators). Boeing/McD was heavily invested in making up and their deficits in the stealth department. I'm sure a huge amount was learned from BoP and X-36 that you can't otherwise get from trade studies.

At the same time, LM probably played it more safe for NGAD. I'd be hard pressed to believe that NG would've played it safe for F/A-XX, but they also don't have much demonstrator experience in the same class as far as we know.

 

[FighterJock]

It would not be like NG to play it safe for F/A-XX barry bozo, look at the YF-23 for the ATF for instance. I would think that NG would go for the most advanced that current technology can handle.

 

[barry bozo]

It would not be like NG to play it safe for F/A-XX barry bozo, look at the YF-23 for the ATF for instance. I would think that NG would go for the most advanced that current technology can handle.

Right, that’s what I said.

 

[red admiral]

MQ-25 and T-7 (PW products) are both going to make it to production with their intended designs. If over budget/behind schedule is your criteria for not executing, would you apply the same sentiment to F-22? F-35? B-2?

I would apply the same criticism to those programs, but I'd also note that all those three were high technical risk and/or highly complex.

Whereas MQ-25 and T-7 are about as conventional and low risk as you could imagine. It hardly a ringing endorsement that Boeing got kicked out of providing the MQ-25 GCS and LM brought in to provide it instead. Or that it'll take ~12 years to go from T-7 first flight to IOC.

But organisations can learn from previous experiences. Let's hope that they've identified the right lessons and taken effective action to avoid or mitigate these from happening again.

Maybe PW/Boeing's real advantage in these competitions is pulling across lower cost manufacturing technology from their commercial sector? LM and NG simply don't have access to.equivalent

 

[Hydroman]

I would apply the same criticism to those programs, but I'd also note that all those three were high technical risk and/or highly complex.

Whereas MQ-25 and T-7 are about as conventional and low risk as you could imagine. It hardly a ringing endorsement that Boeing got kicked out of providing the MQ-25 GCS and LM brought in to provide it instead. Or that it'll take ~12 years to go from T-7 first flight to IOC.

But organisations can learn from previous experiences. Let's hope that they've identified the right lessons and taken effective action to avoid or mitigate these from happening again.

Maybe PW/Boeing's real advantage in these competitions is pulling across lower cost manufacturing technology from their commercial sector? LM and NG simply don't have access to.equivalent

NG does have and has been using Scaled Composites for years now which is very sensitive to the cost manufacturing and always exploring new techniques to reduce cost. I know a number of years ago LM ADP struggled to be the low-cost house they used to be and that may have changed. Even though Boeing/BPW did not win JSF they did demonstrate lower cost primarily composite manufacturing for the X-32 as compared to the LM ADP X-35, Boeing had far fewer major structural assemblies and could produce the primary structure for less cost.

Also, part of cost is the configuration especially in regards to maintenance, the greater the accessibility, the more complicated things get structurally, less access, more streamlined structural parts, big tradeoffs. One of the things that help kill the A-12 was the USN's insistence regarding maintenance accessibility, basically the aircraft OML got carved up into a bunch of various sized, top, bottom, side, etc access panel and so bad, you had to jack and jig the aircraft just to due maintenance. If anyone had previously worked the A-12 program, please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Training_Dummy]

@Reddington777 i just like it when people say only losers work at Boeing. I see it as a personal attack on you!!!

 

[Scott Kenny]

F-35, NGAD (and future increments / derivatives) and CCA should allow us to preserve three primes capable of producing next generation supersonic manned fighter aircraft. Whether the USAF can afford one is the big question. With F-47 already sounding like very expensive and its derivitives and future iterations likely to also pack more capability into the mix they might just begin moving larger portions of acquisition dollars towards lower cost CCA. It might be market size and demand that forces further consolidation in the fighter space.

No. A Duopoly is still a monopoly. 3 primes is the bare minimum you need to maintain actual competition.