US To Develop 6Th Generation Fighters To Outrun Russian, Chinese Jets

Sputnik ^ | April 12, 2015

[Strategy]

The US Air Force and Navy plan to pursue the development and acquisition of sixth-generation F/A-XX fighters; they consider the fleet of existing jets incapable of handling their Russian and Chinese fifth-generation counterparts, something which they feel constitutes a real threat to national security.

The Chinese Chengdu J-20 and the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA are becoming a real threat to the US Air Force and Navy, according to The National Interest, an international affairs magazine.

"When you see these next-generation fighters, the PAK-FA out of Russia and the J-20 out of China, and some of their new missile technology, our advantage is dwindling," the magazine quotes one senior industry official as saying, without disclosing his name.

[exnavy]

Star wars fighters.

[DungeonMaster]

Outrun? Obama strategy?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Propaganda.

[glorgau]

Tentatively named the F-36 and will cost $6 billion per plane.

[ClearCase_guy]

I very much support Defense, but they need to spend money smarter. They would be fine with a reduced budget: they just need to stop spending money on stupid stuff. Acquisitions is badly broken.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Who is paying for that?

[max americana]

LOL. Interesting. I watched the PBS show about the development of the Joint Strike Fighter on PBS years ago and it’s informative. From the bidding by Boeing and Northrop to British test pilots handling the fighters over the Cali desert.

[Blood of Tyrants]

“A supersonic, flying wing fighter will likely require smaller missiles, or rely on directed energy weapons like a high energy laser to minimize internal payload volume,” the second official said.

Star Wars fighter indeed.

[DungeonMaster]

Interesting. I watched the PBS show about the development of the Joint Strike Fighter on PBS years ago and it’s informative. From the bidding by Boeing and Northrop to British test pilots handling the fighters over the Cali desert.

I'm pretty sure I saw that too. Talk about a plane designed in a government committee. I'm surprised they didn't ask for warp drive and photon torpedoes. Then we have the humble A-10 which is an obvious step from the P51. No overdesign, just some obvious technological advances and the plane does it's designed mission better than anything.

[Red Badger]

How about to destroy them instead so they won’t even know you are there?....................

[Red Badger]

You and ME AND A DOG NAMED BOO............

[Red Badger]

Directed energy weapons will be cool once they get them down to a size smaller than a school bus...........battery technology is advancing...................

[Nowhere Man]

Tentatively named the F-36 and will cost $6 billion per plane.

Basically when it comes to performance, we have currently reached the plateau we are at roughly 50 years ago. If JFK came back, he said, "I had planes that just went as fast and maneuvered just as well" if he saw what we have today. I admit there have been improvements in electronics and stealth but hey are generally icing on the cake. It does not take much computing power to acquire a target and guide a missile to it, even a computer with a pea brain of 4K or 8K can handle it. We went to the Moon with only a little bit more.

It will become cost prohibitive at some point if we did not cross it already. It's like the old joke that "By 2050, we will only have one fighter where the Air Force uses it on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, the Navy gets it on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and the Marines have it Sunday." B-) My take, keep the F-22's we have, hopefully we can make more. Break one, make one. I'd go with current designs we've been using from the 1970's onward and keep upgrading them if need be. The F-15 SE, Silent Eagle is one, the F-16, I'd keep along with the F-18's. Joseph Stalin did have a point where quantity has its own quality, we need something low cost like the F-5 to fill in the gaps, the F-20 comes to mind. Countries like India and others are correct in upgrading planes like the MiG-21 to more modern standards and if it was me, I would have kept the F-4 and done the same thing.

I know I might get some upset but I always thought the B-2 bomber was a waste, we could have done much better upgrading and adding to the B-1's and B-52's we have now. I'm a big believer in defense but I do see what Eisenhower warned us about as well.

[max americana]

In that show did you notice the spending attitude of these govt contractors? It was the ‘death spiral’ segment where the companies had a budget in mind and they overspent for the prototype.

BOEING: “Ok, we have a better plane than N Grumman”
GOVT OFFICE: “So it was within $50 million?”
BOEING “Wait what, there’s a budget? I thought the prize was unlimited taxpayer money? You mean we can’t bill you 100 million per plane once we win?”

[Red Badger]

Even propaganda can be true..............

[Yo-Yo]

It does not take much computing power to acquire a target and guide a missile to it, even a computer with a pea brain of 4K or 8K can handle it.

Yeah, right up until the point that the aircraft you're trying to shoot down deploys countermeasures.

[Tallguy]

“The Chinese Chengdu J-20 and the Russian Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA are becoming a real threat to the US Air Force and Navy, according to The National Interest, an international affairs magazine.”

It’s still debatable as to what degree either of those 2 “fighters” qualify as 5th Generation since we can’t really know their low-observable characteristics. But what is known is that neither of those planes is as close to actual serial production as the F-35 for all its flaws. Those planes are still closer to prototypes than fighters. Let’s see if either actually reaches production.

[DungeonMaster]

In that show did you notice the spending attitude of these govt contractors? It was the ‘death spiral’ segment where the companies had a budget in mind and they overspent for the prototype.

It's been quite a while but I do remember some very large numbers and no one was under budget.

[biff]

My thoughts exactly. Outrun to me means turn tail and haul a$$. Well, they may be thinking about asset preservation since we will only be able to afford 25 of these new fighters.