It would do very poorly. That said, it seems the name of the game is stealth and lots of missiles. The sixth-gen fighter could be a more conventional design with a fast-moving flying-wing missile truck companion drone.
It'll have the air intakes on top in order to make It more stealthy, but at expense of maneuverability. So NGAD will be going long range, stealth, interceptor which will leverage long range missiles, longer combat range and drones to achieve superiority over 4.5th and 5th gens
NGAD will be a fat f35 , maybe even use the same engine but 2 of them that way they can save money developing and improving engines for both.
more weapons,more range, possibly a 2 man plane.
also having the widely exported f35, the b21 and the NGAD fighter use the same engines is gonna save a shitton in spending and logistics.
IMO it's gonna be a twin engined,faster F35 with a lot more internal space (usable with either weapons or extra fuel) and/or some kind of stealthy drop tank built into the design to give it 3000km+ combat radius (vs the f35s 1200km) before aerial refueling considerations.
Sixth Gen is undefined right now. It will definitely include drone wingman integration. The other thing that seems like it will be common is a very powerful power plant so that it can utilize lasers for interception, both for its own defense and screening friendly positions and ships.
I think talk about ramjets and significantly higher speeds is bullshit. We will probably just see iterative improvements here.
Shit like mostly electric power and beaming energy in from satalites with solar panels is pure sci-fi. A California company is just now doing that for stationary commercial power and it is a long ways away from viable. Stuff like jets being able to climb to low orbit are also fantasy. I've only seen this truly moronic shit mentioned for the new Mig, which is supposedly capable of space flight and Mach 6-7 with ramjets lol.
>California company is just now doing that for stationary commercial power and it is a long ways away from viable
so that means darpa had been doing it for twenty years
If DARPA had an efficient means of sending energy from solar satalites down to Earth we'd be seeing it already. It's too valuable not to use commercially. That and fusion are two of the best bets for energy independence and curbing use of fossil fuels. That tech would be a massive tool against Russia. The biggest threat to Russia isn't NATO, it's working tocamaks that are going up in the US and southern France. Once Europe's heating can be done without gas, Russia becomes irrelevant and collapses if it doesn't modernize.
They need to learn 2 code, not take more gas for long term security.
Plus, you still need better batteries, sulfur-lithium or something better to make it possible to run your military off them. I think we will get there, but not for 20-30 years.
At that point there will be big changes. For one, once you have efficient coil guns and batteries that will keep them working for days, plus a way to deliver power, conventional firearms and artillery are out. Coil guns are way quieter, shoot way faster (negating armor) can have far lighter ammo, and make no smoke. DARPA did have a 120mm coil gun mortar for a hybrid engine Humvee replacement, but it go dropped in procurement. Pretty beat though.
Rockets will never be efficient for the amount of mass needed for a full solar grid.
They need to get working on the coil gun/mass driver space catapult. There is a cool new thing that's been done where the tube of the coil gun is filled gas, allowing a ramjet to turn on once the launch vehicle hits suitable velocity.
Space catapult is the way to go. Also for nukes since interceptors best hopes of eliminating ICBMs is early in the flight path, but hitting Mach 6-9 out the gate makes that significantly more difficult.
I also want these so battleships can come back and lob projectiles at each other or land targets from potentially hundreds of miles away at insane velocities.
DARPA had a working plasma railgun and deep sixed it. I don't even care if it was expensive and fragile, they should have at least kept a few up so that we could send them to Ukraine. I want drone footage of a Russian tank column wandering into another ambush, and this time a donut shaped bolt of energy blows up one of the tanks while shooting ball lightning everywhere.
RAM/SCRAM has no use in a fighter anyways. The operation modes require design drawbacks that would limit all purpose capability. High alt, high speed, high temperature flight is a totally different regime than 50k feet at mach 2+
You make a fighter a RAM mach 5 plane and it is very limited with only one purpose, intercept, which is a dead doctrine because of modern missile defense.
>No vertical tail
All the 6th gens are likely to have tails. >Super cruise >High output generators
yep >Directed energy defensive abilities
none of these will have mature systems at IOC >Optionally manned >Agile wingman integration
yep >Combined cycle
I think you mean variable cycle/bypass, combined cycle is something difference entirely.
The main thing you're leaving out is the software "cloud" that all the jets, drones and missiles will be working within. A big part of that will be how much we let AI take over. Tempest has shown some interesting peaks at neural and vitals monitoring by the plane to determine when someone is becoming overloaded at which point it steps in to manage peripheral tasks.
Pathetic. The MiG-41 has defensive lasers, a max speed of Mach 4.3 and can enter space, while also being optionally manned and likely having a full complement of hypersonic weapons by then.
And initial flight is planned for 2025, not years and years from now like Western jets. The Mitsubishi F-3 isn't going to be ready until the 2030s lol. Looks like the F-35 is already obsolete.
It'll have drone wingmen. Probably one variant that's a missile truck and one that's very stealthy for forward recon. It'll also probably have longer range than the f35 for use in the pacific.
We have absolutely no idea, bro. All we're going off of is that they're making an aircraft that's such an improvement over the F-35 that it's considered "next gen". The thing could phase shift into another plane of existence for stealth and countermeasure purposes. It could attack enemy aircraft directly with its radar waves. It could achieve FTL travel with an internal warp drive. We simply don't know.
Send in drones to hunt/destroy SAM sites, send in drones as decoys for SAMs and then engage w/ HARMS, send in drones for recon, send in drones to harass enemy fighters and then engage from BVR from a safe distance
They can carry an enormous amount of missiles and would be more stealthy than an airframe with a wienerpit. >alternatively
They could be extremely fast, stealthy, and be used to do dangerous recon.
One drone type to scout, another to carry lots of missiles. The piloted aircraft engages enemy aircraft and calls for missiles from the drones.
It’ll be large, slower flying and less maneuverable than a standard fighter jet. It’s going to have massive range and internal weapons bay. It’s going to be optionally manned with lasers to shoot down incoming missiles. It’s going to have great EW and sensor integration. It’ll command drones. It will be the stealthiest plane by far from a radar and infrared standpoint.
It’s going to be hard to detect and if you detect it, you won’t get a lock on it. If you manage to get a lock on it, lasers will destroy the missile.
It’s going to completely change how people think of fighters. It’s more of a air dominance platform than a traditional fighter.
This is my prediction.
So it's going to be a B-21? Drones can carry the radars, there should be full sensor fusion. Imagine a B-52 worth of AIM-260s, or you could go bigger and air launch SM-6.
why you think that usa defines what a generation is and what not?
lmao
It needs long range and high speed to fight in the pacific. USAF says the F22 will be obsolete in the 2030s so it needs to be a flying wing
I know dog fighting is dead, but how would a flying wing do in a dog fight?
It would do very poorly. That said, it seems the name of the game is stealth and lots of missiles. The sixth-gen fighter could be a more conventional design with a fast-moving flying-wing missile truck companion drone.
It would snap an AIM-9X straight behind it, or launch missiles from it's accompanying drones, or engage the enemy directly behind it with a laser
Flying wings aren't conducive to high transsonic or supersonic flight.
What's the line between a flying wing and a delta wing? Maybe NGAD looks like a Draken sans vertical stabilizer.
It'll have the air intakes on top in order to make It more stealthy, but at expense of maneuverability. So NGAD will be going long range, stealth, interceptor which will leverage long range missiles, longer combat range and drones to achieve superiority over 4.5th and 5th gens
This is more of a lifting body than a true delta wing. Kinda like the J-20.
who says anything about the flying wing participating in a dog fight? Unleashing it's drones to dogfight would be much more effective.
NGAD will be a fat f35 , maybe even use the same engine but 2 of them that way they can save money developing and improving engines for both.
more weapons,more range, possibly a 2 man plane.
Literally describing the B-21 raider.
B-21 is a little -too- fat for a fighter
F35 is 30 ton max takeoff, NGAD will be ~60-70.
>NGAD will be ~60-70.
I assume the source here is your ass.
Adaptive cycle engine seems to be a definite thing about NGAD, and that will also be adapted for the F-35 according to public information
also having the widely exported f35, the b21 and the NGAD fighter use the same engines is gonna save a shitton in spending and logistics.
IMO it's gonna be a twin engined,faster F35 with a lot more internal space (usable with either weapons or extra fuel) and/or some kind of stealthy drop tank built into the design to give it 3000km+ combat radius (vs the f35s 1200km) before aerial refueling considerations.
Sixth Gen is undefined right now. It will definitely include drone wingman integration. The other thing that seems like it will be common is a very powerful power plant so that it can utilize lasers for interception, both for its own defense and screening friendly positions and ships.
I think talk about ramjets and significantly higher speeds is bullshit. We will probably just see iterative improvements here.
Shit like mostly electric power and beaming energy in from satalites with solar panels is pure sci-fi. A California company is just now doing that for stationary commercial power and it is a long ways away from viable. Stuff like jets being able to climb to low orbit are also fantasy. I've only seen this truly moronic shit mentioned for the new Mig, which is supposedly capable of space flight and Mach 6-7 with ramjets lol.
>California company is just now doing that for stationary commercial power and it is a long ways away from viable
so that means darpa had been doing it for twenty years
If DARPA had an efficient means of sending energy from solar satalites down to Earth we'd be seeing it already. It's too valuable not to use commercially. That and fusion are two of the best bets for energy independence and curbing use of fossil fuels. That tech would be a massive tool against Russia. The biggest threat to Russia isn't NATO, it's working tocamaks that are going up in the US and southern France. Once Europe's heating can be done without gas, Russia becomes irrelevant and collapses if it doesn't modernize.
They need to learn 2 code, not take more gas for long term security.
Plus, you still need better batteries, sulfur-lithium or something better to make it possible to run your military off them. I think we will get there, but not for 20-30 years.
At that point there will be big changes. For one, once you have efficient coil guns and batteries that will keep them working for days, plus a way to deliver power, conventional firearms and artillery are out. Coil guns are way quieter, shoot way faster (negating armor) can have far lighter ammo, and make no smoke. DARPA did have a 120mm coil gun mortar for a hybrid engine Humvee replacement, but it go dropped in procurement. Pretty beat though.
phase locked masers + rectennas are efficient. The trick is getting the large mass into space in the first place.
Rockets will never be efficient for the amount of mass needed for a full solar grid.
They need to get working on the coil gun/mass driver space catapult. There is a cool new thing that's been done where the tube of the coil gun is filled gas, allowing a ramjet to turn on once the launch vehicle hits suitable velocity.
Space catapult is the way to go. Also for nukes since interceptors best hopes of eliminating ICBMs is early in the flight path, but hitting Mach 6-9 out the gate makes that significantly more difficult.
I also want these so battleships can come back and lob projectiles at each other or land targets from potentially hundreds of miles away at insane velocities.
DARPA had a working plasma railgun and deep sixed it. I don't even care if it was expensive and fragile, they should have at least kept a few up so that we could send them to Ukraine. I want drone footage of a Russian tank column wandering into another ambush, and this time a donut shaped bolt of energy blows up one of the tanks while shooting ball lightning everywhere.
RAM/SCRAM has no use in a fighter anyways. The operation modes require design drawbacks that would limit all purpose capability. High alt, high speed, high temperature flight is a totally different regime than 50k feet at mach 2+
You make a fighter a RAM mach 5 plane and it is very limited with only one purpose, intercept, which is a dead doctrine because of modern missile defense.
Checklist for 6th gen.
No vertical tail
Super cruise
High output generators
Directed energy defensive abilities
Optionally manned
Agile wingman integration
Combined cycle
Anything above that probably won't make it in
>No vertical tail
All the 6th gens are likely to have tails.
>Super cruise
>High output generators
yep
>Directed energy defensive abilities
none of these will have mature systems at IOC
>Optionally manned
>Agile wingman integration
yep
>Combined cycle
I think you mean variable cycle/bypass, combined cycle is something difference entirely.
The main thing you're leaving out is the software "cloud" that all the jets, drones and missiles will be working within. A big part of that will be how much we let AI take over. Tempest has shown some interesting peaks at neural and vitals monitoring by the plane to determine when someone is becoming overloaded at which point it steps in to manage peripheral tasks.
Pathetic. The MiG-41 has defensive lasers, a max speed of Mach 4.3 and can enter space, while also being optionally manned and likely having a full complement of hypersonic weapons by then.
And initial flight is planned for 2025, not years and years from now like Western jets. The Mitsubishi F-3 isn't going to be ready until the 2030s lol. Looks like the F-35 is already obsolete.
The Russians can't afford to produce that at scale if they test it successfully.
>The MiG-41 has
>And initial flight is planned
lmao. It's also using bootleg Pentium 2 CPU comrade
They need to swallow their pride and produce a joint 5.5-6th gen with China or just not have more than 1 or 2 of them
Literally less believable than Space Marines. Good luck with your wet brain though Sasha
>our 5th gen fighter is in the single digits of production numbers but our ultra advanced 6th gen superplane is right around the corner guys I swear
It'll have drone wingmen. Probably one variant that's a missile truck and one that's very stealthy for forward recon. It'll also probably have longer range than the f35 for use in the pacific.
yeah
>Will a 5th gen just be a 4th gen with stealth?
So how fast will it actually be?
We have absolutely no idea, bro. All we're going off of is that they're making an aircraft that's such an improvement over the F-35 that it's considered "next gen". The thing could phase shift into another plane of existence for stealth and countermeasure purposes. It could attack enemy aircraft directly with its radar waves. It could achieve FTL travel with an internal warp drive. We simply don't know.
Flying wing carrier that shitout drones would be kino.
A flying wind drone that has an enormous missile armament is likely, imo.
>ace combat in real life
I hope not
Why would you want to control drones while piloting a jet?
Send in drones to hunt/destroy SAM sites, send in drones as decoys for SAMs and then engage w/ HARMS, send in drones for recon, send in drones to harass enemy fighters and then engage from BVR from a safe distance
They can carry an enormous amount of missiles and would be more stealthy than an airframe with a wienerpit.
>alternatively
They could be extremely fast, stealthy, and be used to do dangerous recon.
One drone type to scout, another to carry lots of missiles. The piloted aircraft engages enemy aircraft and calls for missiles from the drones.
I wonder if this means we'll see 2 seaters again with one person focused on piloting and the 2nd on everything drone related.
It’ll be large, slower flying and less maneuverable than a standard fighter jet. It’s going to have massive range and internal weapons bay. It’s going to be optionally manned with lasers to shoot down incoming missiles. It’s going to have great EW and sensor integration. It’ll command drones. It will be the stealthiest plane by far from a radar and infrared standpoint.
It’s going to be hard to detect and if you detect it, you won’t get a lock on it. If you manage to get a lock on it, lasers will destroy the missile.
It’s going to completely change how people think of fighters. It’s more of a air dominance platform than a traditional fighter.
This is my prediction.
So it's going to be a B-21? Drones can carry the radars, there should be full sensor fusion. Imagine a B-52 worth of AIM-260s, or you could go bigger and air launch SM-6.