Boeing artist’s conception of a potential design for F/A-XX. Boeing Photo
Posted on 12/26/2013 8:42:07 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
The U.S. Navy expects to undertake an analysis of alternatives (AoA) for its F/A-XX next-generation replacement for the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet starting in fiscal year 2015.
The new aircraft and its associated “family of systems” would be expected to become operational around 2035.
“We’re doing study work right now to neck down what it is that we’re going to spend our money on in the analysis of alternatives,” Rear Adm. Mike Manazir told USNI News on Dec. 20. “But at the beginning of fiscal year ’15, we will start that analysis of alternatives, which will then start the acquisition process to get an airplane in 2030.”
The Navy does not yet know what kind of aircraft the F/A-XX will be, but the service is working on defining exactly what capabilities it will need when the Super Hornet fleet starts to exhaust their 9,000-hour airframe lives around 2035.
“Right now our effort is take the F/A-18E/F off and list everything you lose,” Manazir said. “Now, how do you service that?”
For example, the Super Hornet is regularly used as a tanker. But if another jet like the Navy’s future Unmanned Carrier Launched Airborne Surveillance and Strike (UCLASS) aircraft can fulfill that role—and sufficient numbers of that aircraft are procured—the F/A-XX would not be required perform the aerial refueling tanker mission.
Though the Navy does not yet have a concrete vision for what the F/A-XX might ultimately turn out to be, there are certain attributes the service must have.
“You have to have something that carries missiles, you have to have something that has enough power and cooling for directed energy weapons and you have to have something that has a weapons system that can sense the smallest radar cross-section targets,” Manazir said. The F/A-XX family of systems might also incorporate the use of cyber warfare capabilities at a tactical level.
The Navy would develop the F/A-XX having fully understood the capabilities the Lockheed Martin F-35C Joint Strike Fighter and UCLASS bring to the carrier air wing.
“We’re looking to replace the F/A-18E/F with an understanding already of what the F-35C has brought to the air wing, what the UCLASS mission set is,” Manazir said. The Navy is working very closely with the U.S. Air Force—which is working on its own F-X replacement for the Lockheed F-22 Raptor–on developing the F/A-XX.
“We’re completely stitched together with the Air Force,” Manazir said. “We’re looking at joint capabilities and cooperative capabilities that would be the same in the airframe.” The Air Force and Navy aircraft would share weapons and sensor technologies, even if they are different airframes. One particular area of close cooperation is aircraft propulsion where the two services are collaborating on advanced variable-cycle engine technology.
“We’re very cooperative on engine technology,” Manazir said. “Of course, they want to go long distances very fast, and so their airframe looks a little different from ours. We want to have those same attributes, but we have to get in on and off the carrier.”
But ultimately whatever the F/A-XX turns out to be, it will be designed defeat most dangerous of adversaries anywhere on the globe.
“We definitely need to maintain overmatch of the adversary by bringing those effects to the battlespace with whatever is on the aircraft carrier,” Manazir said.
Boeing artist’s conception of a potential design for F/A-XX. Boeing Photo
How does it dogfight without a tail fin?
Get rid of those crappy Super Hornets and bring on the Super Tomcats!
I remberwhen the Hornets were brand spankin new. Dang, I am older than dirt.
Just modify these babies to be stealthy. Always thought the F7U was the neatest looking plane out there but I heard it had a few flaws.
vectored trust.
That looks a lot like the planes they decided not to build a while back... Aurora or something??
Lived on Lake Worth, immediately opposite the runway at Carswell AFB and the General Dynamics plant back in the early fifties. They built the B-36 there.
We also got a lot of F7U traffic. As I recall, the runway at the Grand Prairie NAS, where Chance-Vought's plant was located, couldn't handle the F7U. As a consequence, the newly built planes were trucked to Carswell, re-assembled and flew out of there.
The F7U very graceful plane in the air. In the landing pattern, Cutlasses often executed a very tight turn off their downwind leg and into final -- as if they were landing on a carrier (even though they had about 10,000 ft of runway to work with at Carswell).
How the heck does that work?
Nah, F-111 is the coolest ever (but not applicable to this discussion as I don’t believe they ever got the carrier version to work)
Moved in to Fort ‘Wurth’ in 75 when Carswell was a big BUFF base. When they went out on an alert the house would shake like there was an earthquake and we’re 10 miles from the base. Sure was nice to see them big things fly.
Were you there when the 36 went into the lake or when they had a tornado on the flight line?
It uses FM protocol... “F’ing magic”. ;-)
I thought the F-35 was going to take carre of all the needs. It is such a wonderful and capable airplane.
Thrust vectoring?
Sideways.
The bat shape is inherently unstable without a tail fin.
In the old days, a plane like this would be nearly unflyable.
Computers making micro adjustments in the wings keep it stable and can make breathtaking dog fighting moves by a controlled destabilization in a pre programmed fashion to get the proper acrobatic result.
was the neatest looking plane out there but I heard it had a few flaws.Yes, the Vought F7U Cutlass never made it to the potential it offered. Underpowered and a step or two past the technology of the day, the Cutlass operational life was very short.
Naval aviators called the F7U the "Gutless Cutlass" and/or the "Ensign Eliminator" or, in kinder moments, the "Praying Mantis."
The most lasting claim to fame for the Cutlass was it service as the prototype of the hood ornament of the 1955 and 1956 Chevy BelAir.
Another similiar jet the Navy/Marines never got full use of is the Douglas F4D Skyray (later re-designated F-6 Skyray):
Although the Skyray was in service for a relatively short time and never entered combat, it was notable for being the first carrier-launched aircraft to hold the world's absolute speed record, at 752.943 mph, and was the first United States Navy and United States Marine Corps fighter that could exceed Mach 1 in level flight.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/F7U-1_CVB-41_launch2_1941.jpg
http://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large/1956-chevrolet-belair-hood-ornament-3-jill-reger.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_F4D_Skyray
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/F4D_Skyrays_VMF%28AW-114%29_USS_FD_Roosevelt_1959.jpg
Heh ...heh ...heh.
Indeed, we were there for the one in the lake.
The B-36 made a lot of noise, too. But it was more of a low-frequency buzz than a roar. When they would take-off over us, they would often set up a vibration that would shake the plates out of the cabinets over the kitchen counter.
After a while, you got so used to the "buzz" that you didn't hear it...until it stopped. And that's what happened that night.
My parents and I were sitting on the living room floor -- playing canasta, as I recall -- when we all looked up at each other and said a variant of "huh?". A take-off had been aborted...a not uncommon event, the damn things were so huge and heavily laden...but there was no wind-down of the props. Just a sudden, and alarming, silence.
We went out back...and there she was. In the lake, directly off the end of our dock, nose up, tail up, broken in half. Burning.
Two deaths were reported. Had they made it a few hundred yards further, we'd have been among the casualties.
It's safe to predict that whatever it "turns out to be", it'll cost upwards of half a billion apiece in 2013 dollars, it will be purchased on a cost plus contract, and we'll only be able to afford enough of them to put a dozen or so on each CV.
Pfui.
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