New Stealth Fighter 6th-Gen
Prototype Flies in Record
Time, Invisible and Deadly
PJ Media,
by
Stephen Gree
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
9/18/2020 4:41:12 AM
A new stealth fighter prototype has taken to the skies, Air Force acquisition chief William Roper casually let it be known on Tuesday.
Move over, F-22 Raptor — there’s a new kid in town.
Well, maybe not quite yet, but also maybe years sooner than anyone expected or even dreamed.
The Air Force “secretly designed, built, and tested” the prototype in just one year, which is unprecedented in recent decades.
Can you say, “Make procurement great again?”
Reply 1 - Posted by:
watashiyo 9/18/2020 6:49:32 AM (No. 544295)
Democrats would scrap this one when they win. .....and leak the secret to China for a penny.
16 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Miceal 9/18/2020 7:01:58 AM (No. 544307)
Looking at the canopy placement, that IS NOT a fighter. No reward visibility available unless there is a bank of cameras giving the pilot a "6 o'clock" view. Might be a replacement for the "F117" as a penetrating bomber.
2 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Highlander 9/18/2020 7:02:56 AM (No. 544308)
I was taking a mechanical drawing class with an instructor who was a pilot. He told me (this was in 1973) it takes ten years, from the design board to flight, to have a plane like the B-52 in the air. Reading this article, I realize how far we came in advancing our technology in unbelievably short time, which is amazing.
12 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 9/18/2020 7:26:25 AM (No. 544346)
I suspect the Chinamen already have a copy and have gone into production......
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
MickTurn 9/18/2020 8:28:56 AM (No. 544407)
Wait for it, the procurement folks will hire the usual suspects to build the plane and they will muck it up on purpose to get contract changes for Millions extra...production will be delayed and it will be beset with massive cost over runs...History is a very fickle Master!
8 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
seamusm 9/18/2020 8:37:19 AM (No. 544420)
I hop it can easily lay waste to its predecessor - which the ChiComs have already stolen.
5 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
bpl40 9/18/2020 8:48:53 AM (No. 544437)
Not only the NGAD but in every military area the Chicoms are going to 'demand' that capabilities giving the US armed forces unilateral superiority be killed before they are born. That is the price of the $1.5 billion given to Hunter. And Biden will willingly pay it.
7 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
Pearson365 9/18/2020 9:16:03 AM (No. 544456)
What will muck this aircraft up will be:
A. The Navy demanding its carrier version, which requires a far heavier airframe.
B. The Marines who want a vertical takeoff version
C. The Air Force generals who want a do everything plane that does nothing well.
D. The lack of Air Force pilots. Currently, AF is short 750 pilots.
E. The lack of skilled ground crews to maintain this and all current aircraft
F. Congress, from rewarding certain contractors to cutting defense spending
G. A $350 million price tag per plane, something we can no longer afford. And do we actually need since our wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Somalia required the Soviet era A10 and the flying antique, the B-52.
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Strike3 9/18/2020 10:26:56 AM (No. 544555)
Yes, it does look more like a bomber but the control surfaces indicate high maneuverability. It's hard to tell from just a cursory outside view. I would guess that it has enough advanced electronics and speed that it doesn't have to be concerned with what's visible behind it. It can probably take out targets from both high altitude and from a few hundred feet above the deck and the targeted country will not not even know what hit it.
Just when China was feeling their oats by getting a few more ships into the water, they must now deal with this. It sucks to be an enemy of America.
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
czechlist 9/18/2020 10:52:17 AM (No. 544588)
#2 and #9
The images are not the actual aircraft. The links to the Popular Mechanics story specifically says they do not know what it looks like nor its performance nor who the contractor is.
I hope this somehow puts an end to the lengthy procurement competitions which take so long that the system is obsolete before it goes into production. I worked in aerospace defense for 35 years and was always p.o. ed when the media would blame contractors for cost overruns as price gouging. The problem is almost always the pentagon wanting upgrades to meet threats which were not imagined or prioritized when the system objectives were originally specified.
3 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
snowoutlaw 9/18/2020 12:43:37 PM (No. 544713)
The Space Force also needs a version.
1 person likes this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
DVC 9/18/2020 12:57:01 PM (No. 544731)
How many are aware that The Zero shut down the F-22 Raptor production line far short of the number of aircraft that the USAF needed, and then ordered all the tooling and fixtures for the F-22 to be destroyed?
Evil, anti-American thug-in-charge wanted to make sure that it would be economically impossible to restart the F-22 production line once he was out of office.
So - we have far fewer F-22s than we need, but, in a perverse way, that need provided the opening for this next gen aircraft, more advanced, more capable than the F-22. I suspect that President Trump had a hand in the near miraculous one year development to a flying prototype. The fact that it is secret, and that kept Congress' sticky, obstructive fingers out of it, probably has a lot to do with the super speed.
Bravo, President Trump. Best President in my lifetime.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 9/18/2020 1:06:07 PM (No. 544742)
#2, forward "visibility" is now a mix of real and synthetic.
I had the opportunity to wear a F-35 helmet a year ago, and talk about the way it works in reality with a F-35 pilot. The helmet has a bulging, odd looking visor which is a reverse projection screen for multiple data projectors, also built into the incredibly complex helmet/data interface/weapons sight.
On the F-35 the pilot can, via images projected on the visor, literally see THROUGH the aircraft in all directions. The fact that the metal structure is in the way is irrelevant because the image of what is beyond is seamlessly projected in front of the eyes.
Each helmet is individually fitted and very carefully adjusted to give a seamless match between the synthetic images (from radar, infrared and optical sensors, including sensors not on the aircraft) and the real world seen through the visor directly.
I was pleased that the helmet technicians who were showing me my relative's helmet offered to let me wear such an amazing piece of technology. Not as awkward as it looks.
https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/helmet
2 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 9/18/2020 1:09:17 PM (No. 544744)
#3, I, too, took mechanical drawing classes in HS and college. And by the early 1980s was using the first simple electronic drafting systems. By the time I retired a few years back, we had the ability to build extremely detailed 3D solid models of exceptionally complex machines, and to "walk through" them and look at them in great detail, to understand fits, possible interferences between parts, etc.
With modern design systems and a whole bunch of good designers, you an do a lot in a short period, if you can get the politicians out of the way. I think Trump has managed to get the politicians out of the way.
We need Trump re-elected.
4 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
MrDeplorable 9/18/2020 2:16:02 PM (No. 544796)
#13, it gives me chills to read what you wrote but it also gives me hope. Thanks!
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Miceal 9/18/2020 4:26:32 PM (No. 544903)
Sorry for the repost. Thanks to 13 for spinning me up on the current optics. I retired in 1994 and have not kept up on what is current...
1 person likes this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 9/18/2020 5:02:23 PM (No. 544931)
#15 &16, you are welcome. I have been a tech geek since I was about 6 years old, worked in the weapons industry and have had family member in the USN/USMC fighter community since the 1950s until today. I have been enamored of the weapons tech, and my engineering career was in military weapons design and manufacturing. I was always in awe (still am) of those who fly these machines and fight with them, always trying to have them teach me about their jobs. Bad eyes kept me out of the military cockpits, a lifelong regret.
I'm old and retired now, but when my active duty relative offered to take me to the flight line and show me "his birds" (F-35s) and then the squadron helmet techs permitted me to see, handle and wear the system, I was really pleased and amazed, too. It was a great honor for me to be able to see what our 'best and brightest' are using now to be able to keep us free. I am very aware that few civilians get to be close to this stuff and learn much about it.
And I am sure that this new prototype bird will have even more of the same amazing American ingenuity and technology.
2 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Highlander 9/20/2020 6:42:35 AM (No. 546287)
Reply 14; In 1973, we were knuckle draggers in comparison to what there is now. I wonder if a draftsman is still a thing, like a stagecoach driver.
0 people like this.
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