When the AF is planning to award an EMD-contract for NGAD next year, you don´t believe at all an 'X-NGAD' has already flown and/or an 'YF-NGAD' could be flying 'right now'? Why?
Read the article:
This solicitation release formally begins the source selection process providing industry with the requirements the DAF expects for NGAD, as the future replacement of the F-22 Raptor.
I have been in this industry long enough to know that you don't build platforms and then go out and ask people to do so afterwards. anyone who thinks there is already NGAD platforms flying, even prototypes is a fool who has no idea of how things work in reality.
I´ve read the article more then once, of course with inclusion of the sentence you highlighted.
I´ve also read this sentence: "
The Department of the Air Force released a classified solicitation to industry for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance Platform with the intent to award a contract in 2024."
It´s an AF press-release without any mentioning of any date/time-period when exactly this classified solicitation was released to the industry, it just states industry has received such a classified solicitation, what the solicitation entitles, and that the EMD-contract will be awarded (to the winner) in 2024. Imho, but I could be wrong of course, the industry could have received such a classified solicitation yesterday, last week, a month ago, or a year ago.
What I think/believe, and of course I could be wrong again, is that this classified solicitation we now got to know about, has provided industry with the 'refined' or 'up-to-date' requirements and KPPs (Key Performance Parameters) which their EMD-proposals/prototypes should be able to achieve to enable an EMD-contract award next year.
I know YF-23 and YF-22 first flew only about a year (roughly) before the ATF´s EMD-contract was awarded in 1991.
I also know X-32 and X-35 first flew only about a year (roughly) before the JSF´s SDD (System Development and Demonstration) contract was awarded in 2001. But I don´t think timelines and milestones for the NGAD-program should necessarily be the same as those of the ATF- and/or JSF-programs. Especially if they don´t want to repeat the mistakes from the JSF-program/development.
When Will Roper said in Sept. 2020 a 'full-scale demonstrator' had already flown and had broken several records (whatever those records were about), I believe what he said. Having a demonstator and testing it, doesn´t mean such demonstrator has to test all requirements people have in mind (or had in mind in 2020, or earlier) for the NGAD-platform. A company having a demonstator also doesn´t prevent the AF from changing NGAD-requirements over time and it also doesn´t mean any additional requirements could not have been added later on. Remember Will Roper´s 'digital century series'-approach is not valid anymore for the 'platform'-part of the NGAD-program, so several requirements for the manned platform/fighter could have changed since 2020.
Also, Frank Kendall said last year NGAD had 'reached EMD' (or something very similar). A few days or weeks later, he retracted those words and said 'we still have competition'. Maybe he spoke a year too early, maybe not, we don´t know. I wouldn´t exclude something came up and they decided to postpone entering the EMD-competition for a while longer. I also recall some people at the time were asking to first provide 'more evidence' about NGAD-technologies being 'mature enough', before any EMD-decision would go ahead.
So, for a 'generational-leap' NGAD-platform program, I do believe some kind of demonstator will already have flown by now.
Whether that demonstrator would be just an X-plane or maybe something in between an X-plane and a true YF-prototype, I´ll leave that in the middle.
If I´m not mistaking, the AF wants to award an EMD-contract next year for a very, very expensive air-dominance 'platform' that comes with a lot of whistles & bells, and as I have read/understood during the past months, one that will already incorporate as much as possible all of the desired technologies & subsystems at the time the EMD-contract decision has to be made, to avoid (another) prolonged and more complicated development later on. I would assume the AF is taking a similar path with the NGAD-platform as with the B-21; to be able to move from developmental aircraft to production-aircraft as swiftly as possible.
But maybe my thoughts are wrong and indeed foolish, and there isn´t any real-world NGAD demonstrator at all. Maybe the 'demonstrator' Roper talked about is just a mirage and we have to be satisfied with the demonstations performed by a 'mirror-plated' F-22...
Maybe there won´t even be NGAD-prototypes before the EMD-contract gets awarded next year, maybe everything will now be digitally engineered, assembled and tested in a virtual environment and they´ll award a contract to the company which comes up with the best virtual proposal/prototype, without any flight-testing in the real world. (All my fingers crossed and glued together for if that would be the case.)
www.nationaldefensemagazine.org
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