When will we see the NGAD? It goes into service as early as 2030
Given the timeline of the JSF program we saw the F-35 long before it went into service
Also, what will it look like, and who will be the contractor?
Pic related is from a USAF poster
I imagine Boeing will create the naval variant and Lockheed will make the one for the Air Force
Some other concepts and designs in this link
https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/31756-what-do-we-know-about-ngad-heres-every-concept-so-far?v=amp
All the major contractors have put out various designs and so far it looks like it will be a tailless delta wing, sort of a mini B2
B-21 is entering service in 2026-7 and is being shown off in December 2022.
I wouldn't expect a public NGAD reveal before ~2026 at the earliest and probably later.
they 2027 at the earliest because the permanent boners from the B-21 reveal needs time to subside before they declassify more jet kino
This is from an Air Force poster but the model was purchased from an artist
I need triangle Kino
>flying dorito
Oh frick
Certain aircraft displays show hostiles as an elongated triangle. I've seen maintenance manuals describe RWR signatures as "friendly (circle) or hostile (dorito)". Me and my buddies used to make jokes about watching out for hostile doritos. Looks like whoever is unlucky enough to face the NGAD will have to witness the wrath of the true Hostile Dorito.
death dorito supremacy
so this was made back in 1947?
NGAD development is not being publicly documented like the f-22 and f-35 were. We've learned that it just gives the enemy a heads up on what they'll be facing. The internet also tends to be overly critical of any setback. The f-35 was lambasted even though it's on track to be an excellent plane now.
You'll see the NGAD either in 2030 or maybe earlier if there's a leak.
The JSF contract was signed in 1996, and the F-35 entered service 19 years later in 2015.
If work started soon-ish, could a F-35 replacement be up and running by 2042? Or if not a replacement, maybe a new-ish plane that is designed to semi replace but also complement the F-35? I know the F-22 entered service 10 years or so before the F-35.
>t. Not a EA Battlefield 2042 dev
Work has already started. It will be up and running by 2030. It's called the NGAD. The program encompasses both an air superiority fighter and a series of drones. The drones are what will complement the f-35. The drones will be specialised into specific tasks. An EW drone, a radar drone, a jamming drone, an anti ground drone, a missile truck drone, laser drone and so on. One human piloted f-35 or NGAD fighter will command approximately 5 drone wingmen, collectively forming an element. This way, the numerical superiority of the any opposing airforce will be completely nullified.
>The jets of the future will just be drones
🙁
I’ve heard the F-35 is a Jack of all trades but a master of none. Maybe NGAD will be more fighter-oriented?
Define fighter oriented. From the snippets we are hearing it will be a large stealthy missile bus.
I was wondering if it would be more air-to-air focused I guess. With J-20 coming and SU-57 doing…something. I heard the F-35 wasn’t a true dogfighter but the older and more expensive F-22 was.
The human piloted plane of the NGAD program is a replacement for the f-22, which is an air superiority fighter. It will have long range, hyper stealth, high speed and probably terrible manoeuvrability, since the focus on max stealth with necessitate the removal of the tail fins.
Collapsible stabilizers like in this concept
I'd love to see it but don't think it would be worth the cost and compromises to stealth. Even when the tails are folded, they still have a seam on the plane that interrupts its stealth qualities.
How often will it be pointing its top toward a radar? Normal combat manuevering places the belly towards the radar while banking away.
There's still AWACS to consider, which is going to be flying high. Unexpected radar to the sides of the plane can also catch it when it banks.
That's a good point. I forgot that.
Dog fighting isn't a thing anymore. It's all beyond visual range. The f-35 in a stealthed A2A configuration probably can kill the j-20. But the f-35 isn't optimised for A2A. It's slow and has limited internal space for huge radar guided missiles. The NGAD will have more speed, stealth, better radar and a bigger internal weapon bay for long range missiles. It will also always have drones that can spot targets for it, act as decoys, or carry even more missiles.
I feel like I'm the only who doesn't really care that much about dogfighting, the idea of multiple drone wingman is far more interesting to me, like some scifi alien mothership.
>This way, the numerical superiority of the any opposing airforce will be completely nullified.
They aren't already? Is the US preparing to fight some alternate time line version of itself?
It’s better to overestimate your enemy than under
China has a billion jets. We may as well have a force multiplier that is sacrificial.
>way, the numerical superiority of the any opposing airforce will be completely nullified.
What fricking numerical superiority, the three largest air forces in the world are american
I guess China can temporarily have a local numerical superiority if something happens over there. A lone carrier group might also be locally outnumbered I guess. This is all in the fantasy world where countries are aggressing American assets of course.
The United States MIC is likely at least a century ahead of everyone else picrel
More like 20 years. China is where the US air force was in 2001. They have fifth gen fighters, drones and an assload of 4th gen fighters.
>China
>fifth gen
Choose one. They still dont have engines capable of supercruiser and its RCS is worse than the F-22
J20 has worse RCS than the SU-57.
By worse you means higher RCS, don't you?
No, the Su-57 is the worse by far ~0.5m2 as stated by sukhoi and estimated by sims. The J-20 is like <0.01 iirc, f-35 <0.005 and f-22 0.001-0.0001 all from the "front". The Su-57 is just a bad low observable similar to the superhornet, super viper, typhoon or rafale, only have reduced frontal RCS, the lateral RCS is plainly mediocre. And also lacks the supercruise engines.
J-20
>http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2011-03.html
T50/Su-57
>http://ausairpower.net/APA-2012-03.html
Smaller. I’m ESL. Thanks.
What was the point of the F35 if there were already more capable vehicles for specific tasks flying? Not a F35 hater, just curious. F22 is stealthier overall, and is also a better fighter. F-15/16/18 (?) seem to be better at overall ground attack stuff too. F-18 Superhornet has more total hard points than F35.
I guess F35 has stealth, but so does F22, and F22 can carry more. So what’s the point?
Can F22 take off and land vertically or use a catapult and arrestor wire?
Does it really take building a whole plane to do carrier landings (not vtol)? How hard is it to modify an F22 for that?
All this crap I’m talking but my dream is to still fly an F35 soon. I’m joining the marines with a guaranteed pilot slot, I just have to not suck and end up flying a cargo plane. Goddamnit, the F35 is really a beautiful plane
>Does it really take building a whole plane to do carrier landings (not vtol)?
No, but it broadly depends how many times you want it a plane to be able do it before it falls apart and how the design started life. Some designs are easily navalised, some aren't.
>How hard is it to modify an F22 for that?
Hard. Navalising F22 was scoped.
Carrier takeoffs and landings are the most punishing treatment a military plane gets outside of taking fire. Catapult launches and tether landings are massive stress through the entire body of the plane and will eventually crack the airframe and retire the plane. Being vstol lets it avoid that for tiny helicopter carriers.
Because the F-35 had its entire development cycle publicly disclosed to the media and they picked apart and harped about every minor setback as the plane was turned from a test prototype into a ready production model. Every problem they picked on the F-35 likely had an analog issue in earlier planes while they were being designed but it wasn't public knowledge so no one could complain.
>F-15/16/18 (?) seem to be better at overall ground attack stuff too. F-18 Superhornet has more total hard points than F35.
Also where the frick are you getting that impression? F-35 has more payload, range and endurance than either F16 or F18, plus stealth, EW and sensor fusion. F15E carries more under some circumstances, but again, no stealth, EW etc.
F-35 might be worse in a WVR dogfight than some legacy fighters, but trying to argue it's a worst ground attack and strike bomber than legacy multiroles is absolutely moronic.
Thanks. So F35 is not only able to do many jobs, but it is also stealthy AND capable of using a carrier?
Why do so many people seem to hate it? I feel bad for the poor girl.
>Why do so many people seem to hate it? I feel bad for the poor girl.
Because it was a stupid idea to build it. It should have been three separate planes and three separate projects. It's turned out OK, but it's turned out OK mostly because Russia imploded and never into'd 5th gen and China is still playing catch-up.
The point is that the comparison shouldn't be made between F35 and legacy planes based on designed from half a century ago. The comparison should be between a Joint Strike Fighter and a Naval Multirole, Low-Cost Strike Fighter and MAGTF S/VTOL respectively.
Three planes for three mission roles would definitely have been better and cheaper for two of the roles, and almost certainly would have been cheaper and worse than one (muhreen plane). We were promised a plane that would be insanely cheap because of the economies of scale and got robbed blind because it turns out that designing and building a plane that can do everything to at least an OK standard is an expensive mistake.
Unlikely. Re Navy would be a toss up if whether they will continue the program of just ax(re Zumwalt). And even if they did continue, the price will be higher right now. And also, it would the AF version will carry less weight of ordinance for the sole reason they want to carry 2x1K bombs and not the the current 2x2K ones.
Also, it wouldn't be three but two. AF and USMC have already joined to have a common airframe.
Based from contest it have entered, yeah, it is now getting more affordable to the point that other smaller NATO countries are starting to place their orders.
Almost 1000 F35s have been built. And it does seem pretty low cost compared to F22.
F-22 are like $300M a pop if you include R&D costs on top of the manufacturing costs.
"only" ~$120M each for the manufacturing costs.
WVR is always a toss up but we can infer the praise F-35 have against F-18 and F-16 re WVR.
Most of it has been touched on but it's hard to overstate how insane the electronics/sensors are in an f35, they can basically act like a stealth awacs with their datalinks
The F-35 variants are distinct enough from each other that it would almost be fair to call it three different planes. But that means there were actually some cost savings in reusing what, 50% of the airframe?
What we actually got was
New F-16
New Harrier
New F/A-16
And of the three, New Harrier might be the most exciting - there are SOOO many hulls in the world that can be converted to operate it. Frickin' Oprah Winfrey carriers. You get a carrier, and you get a carrier, and you get a carrier. Fricking Italy gets to be a two carrier power, how based is that?
>Fricking Italy gets to be a two carrier power, how based is that?
Italy even gets to manufacture their own F-35Bs
My guess is that it is going to be as flat as possible, in order to reduce drag and increase stealth properties.
I think it is possible for an NGAD to be a two seater. The F35 loads a lot of tasks onto a single pilot.
I would also guess that the jet would be larger like the tomcat, or the ardvark, This increases its strategic significance in range and payload.
I've heard procurement wants to do small runs of modern aircraft, rather than put all of their eggs into the F35 for many decades to come. So we may not see many aircraft standardized in NATO.
Stealth coatings will most likely use the ceramic improvements. Stealth is getting cheaper.
I should add that the NGAD will likely not be a perfect triangle. It is more likely that it will be 4 sided. This has better stealth characteristics, at the expense of aerodynamics.
The NGAD will have to have new more efficient engines. The extra power is needed to run electronic systems that will only become more important as time goes on.
I do not believe we will see autonomous jets in the future replace all pilots. It is important to bring command and control closer to the action in order not to be cut off by jamming. Keeping a pilot close, commanding drones is the most likely development.
i want the NGAD to be a two seater solely because i want to fly it in Project Wingman with Prez
Download the every plane is two-seater mod
Im gonna miss aesthetic aircraft but if the flying triangle is the most optimal shape then so be it.
F-35 reminds me of Russias SU-75. It’s supposed to be an export variant of a fifth gen fighter. They even have the single engine too, awww
>F-35 reminds me of Russias SU-75.
Just the opposite, the F-35 is 20 years older.
Beside the obvious thing that the Su-75 doesnt exist and is russian cope because the F-35 is far more popular than their bimotors.
Russia has so many cool ideas but they’re stupid fricking government always chimps out and they never come to fruition. As a fan of spaceflight, Russia annoys me to no end.
>F-35 reminds me of Russias SU-75
thanks for posting that picture. I've been looking for that for ages. I know it's probably just a PR mock-up made by an artist with no source, but it looks really fricking slick. I'd love to see that in some sci-fi flick.
Hadn't Tom Cruise crashed the only existing prototype?
That was the SR-72. Next Generation Aerial Reconnaissance