U.S. Navy Starts Search for a Sixth Generation Fighter

Daily Tech ^ | April 17, 2012 10:47 AM | Shane McGlaun

[maddog55]

New fighter will complement the F-35

The F-35 program is still ongoing and infamously over budget, yet the U.S. Navy is kicking off the early steps in the search for a sixth generation fighter to replace the current F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. This first step in searching for new fighter aircraft is a Request for Information from companies interested in participating with the program.

The document reads, "To support OPNAV N98’s request, this is a Pre-Material Development Decision (MDD) market survey for the purpose of determining market interest, feasibility, and capability of potential sources and does NOT constitute a Request for Proposals. NO SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS EXIST AT THIS TIME."

You may be wondering if this means that the F-35 as far as the Navy's concerned could be dead. Well, this new program has no bearing on the F-35 - the Navy document states the new sixth generation fighter will complement the F-35 and a planned unmanned aircraft.

"The intent of this research is to solicit Industry inputs on candidate solutions for CVN based aircraft to provide multi-role capability in an A2AD operational environment. Primary missions include, but are not limited to, air warfare (AW), strike warfare (STW), surface warfare (SUW), and close air support (CAS).

“Also, consider the ability of your concept to provide other capabilities currently provided by strike fighter aircraft, such as organic air-to-air refueling (AAR), Tactical Reconnaissance, Surveillance and Target Acquisition (RSTA), and airborne electronic attack (AEA). "

Interestingly, the Navy is accepting pitches for unmanned, optionally manned, and manned aircraft. The fighters proposed could be brand-new, clean-sheet designs or concepts derived from current aircraft. Of all the missions the aircraft should perform, one the most interesting is the ability to refuel other fighters in the air.

[DManA]

Odd use of the word “search”. As if the plane exists out there somewhere and they just have to find it.

[GonzoGOP]

New fighter will complement the F-35

That statement assumes that the F-35 actually enters service. Since it turns out the carrier version of the F-35 can't actually land on a carrier that is going to be a problem. With its massive budget overruns and no planes in squadron service the F-35 looks like a prime candidate to get it's budget cut to 0 by either a Romney or second term Obama administration.

They should have built both the built the X-32 along with the F-35. Sure the F-35 was the only one with VTOL capability, but if, as it turn out it did, Lockheed Martin can't build the F-35s at least there would have been a fall back position for land bases and big deck carriers. Kind of like how the F6F Hellcat was a fallback for the F4U Corsair.

[EQAndyBuzz]

Organics.

Microchip US soldiers uniforms for IFF. Create an organic compound that can eat through something. Give it a 24 hour shelf life before it destroys itself. Design it based on DNA, which can identify age, sex, etc.

Put 50,000 of the little buggers into the micro-robots being developed for spying, Fit it into a drone and release onto the battlefield.

No need for a plane

[USNBandit]

Of all the missions the aircraft should perform, one the most interesting is the ability to refuel other fighters in the air.

I don't know why this would be interesting. Using a drone for Navy style tanking would be easy. Program an orbit, track, or course and the manned aircraft come in and plug as they need to. In Navy tanking the tanker needs to be in the right place at the right time and that is about it. It does take some skills to work the pattern as the recovery tanker, hawking low fuel state birds. A good recovery tanker will be just upwind when the low state airplane reaches the ship. If the low state aircraft gets waved off or misses the arresting gear he should be able to look just in front of him and see the tanker waiting. The A-6 guys were awesome at that.

[freedumb2003]

>>That statement assumes that the F-35 actually enters service.<<

The F-35 JSF is the perfect example of the old adage that a camel is a mouse built to government specifications.

It was a great idea — combine the F/16 and F(A)/18 into a single low cost homogeneous platform — basically make a Southwest Airways maintenance model. Make it better than the rest but not the best of the best (that was supposed to be the F-22).

And I was its biggest fan.

They screwed that up so badly that the F-35 being built doesn’t even resemble what was envisioned. Billions of dollars thrown away with no discernible ROI.

As I said before, the stalwart F/16 and FA/18 are good for another 20 or 30 years until the US Government decides it really wants a real MRF platform. I don’t think this “search” will result in one.

[GonzoGOP]

The F-35 JSF is the perfect example of the old adage that a camel is a mouse built to government specifications.

Unfortunately the government never wanted the F-15, F-16 or F-18 in the first place. John "40 seconds" Boyd forced them on the desk pilots. He is unfortunately no longer around to focus the minds of the procurement pencil warriors. The F-15's motto of "not a pound for air to ground" made it the best fighter in the sky for nearly 30 years. The F-35 is a Ferrari dumptruck. It can't do any job well and costs too much to buy in the first place. Heck it costs more per plane than the F-22 and that is better than the F-35 at both air to air and air to ground.

A good fighter can still drop bombs, especially with the development of JDAMS. But there isn't much you can do to turn a bomb truck into a fighter.

[freedumb2003]

The F-35 is a Ferrari dumptruck.

LOL -- I am SO going to steal that term!!!!!

[Tallguy]

Kind of like how the F6F Hellcat was a fallback for the F4U Corsair.

Different era. Aircraft now are built by consortia to spread the risk. Back in those days and with a major war going on Grumman could offload the Wildcat production to the Eastern Aircraft Group (General Motors) and begin re-tooling for the Hellcat all while the Hellcat's design was still being worked out (testing the Zero captured in the Aleutians).

The Brits taught us how to use the Corsair on a carrier flight deck, but by then the Hellcat was beginning to supplant the Wildcat. I don't think that there was a plan there. Just the way it worked out.

I'm skeptical about semi-autonomous drones and their capabilities in A2A and Close-Air Support. But I'm thinking that another manned 'bridge' between the drones and 4th/5th generation fighters may be redundant given that we're talking about 2030 as a target date -- and that will undoubtedly slide to 2040 or later.

[Rannug]

All we hear are the shortfalls of the F-35. How about some good news?

[molson209]

Boeing X-32 ?

[FreeAtlanta]

autonomous - Humans can't handle the G-s that the machines can.

[FreeAtlanta]

It has wings.

[Rannug]

LMAO

[GonzoGOP]

The Brits taught us how to use the Corsair on a carrier flight deck, but by then the Hellcat was beginning to supplant the Wildcat. I don't think that there was a plan there. Just the way it worked out.

Actually in that case it was very much a plan. The Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine came out and the Navy wanted a plane to use it. The F4U had the best potential, but was a very complex aircraft. The F6F was a much simpler design. They knew it would work and that they could get it into production quickly. So the Navy ordered both with the F6F as the backup. And it was a good thing they did because while the F4U was a great aircraft, depending on it alone would have stuck the navy with the F4F all the way into 1944.

In foreign service the Hawker Hurricane was a backup to the more complex Spitfire. Both served side by side with the cheaper to produce Hurricane actually doing most of the work in the Battle of Britain.

A contract of this type where the more complex aircraft actually came in on time was for the B-29 Superfortress and B-32 Dominator. Both were 4 engine very long range bombers using the Wright R-3350 engine. The B-32 was designed as a backup aircraft if the cutting edge B-29 hadn't worked out. Since the B-29 did work out the B-32 is just a footnote in history.

This sort of thing was very common up until the Robert McNamara era.

[maddog55]

There isn’t any...

[GonzoGOP]

All we hear are the shortfalls of the F-35. How about some good news?

The Russians and the Chinese are trying to build similar aircraft so they are going to go broke too.

Russian T-50


Chinese J-20 prototype.

[Jack Hydrazine]

It’s not odd if you are looking for other countries to make your fighter jet for you because it’s way cheaper!

[jmax]

Bring back the F-4 Phantom ............

[knarf]

"Odd use of the word “search”. As if the plane exists out there somewhere and they just have to find it."

Found it .... BTW, Newt could get THIS job done, y'know