The US has built and flown a prototype Next Gen fighter...
I am deliberately not mentioning specifics. But the indications are there if you're looking in the right places.
First example: pilots from a particular community 'disappear' for months at a time. When they come back, they're unable to say where they have been or what they have been doing - i.e. they don't even bother with a cover story. In this particular case, the suspicion is that they are rotating in and out of TDYs to fly an optionally-manned platform. This may well be it: https://theaviationist.com/2014/03/2...over-amarillo/
Second example: I am aware of recruitment into a black programme that is operational in nature and favours those who have been assigned to a small set of specific white world squadrons (i.e. these particular squadrons act as clearing houses into the programme). Recruitment into this programme has been active for a decade or more and these aircrew use cover stories.
First example: pilots from a particular community 'disappear' for months at a time. When they come back, they're unable to say where they have been or what they have been doing - i.e. they don't even bother with a cover story. In this particular case, the suspicion is that they are rotating in and out of TDYs to fly an optionally-manned platform. This may well be it: https://theaviationist.com/2014/03/2...over-amarillo/
Second example: I am aware of recruitment into a black programme that is operational in nature and favours those who have been assigned to a small set of specific white world squadrons (i.e. these particular squadrons act as clearing houses into the programme). Recruitment into this programme has been active for a decade or more and these aircrew use cover stories.
subtle difference in planfom, then again we have not seen what the B-21 wing looks like from top or side, just the front now.
cheers
Anyone seen this recent N-G video and the mystery single seat CGI r that was in their previous company video is a tad clearer.
Air & Space Mag article
Some parts of the article are not ageing well. The T-7 is proving Roper wrong in terms of digital design - and he was gone as soon as they could get him moved along.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2023...-deal-in-2024/
US Air Force plans to award Next Generation Air Dominance deal in 2024
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force plans to award a contract for its Next Generation Air Dominance platform in 2024.
The service said in a Thursday release that it sent industry a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for the secretive and highly classified NGAD program.
The release of this solicitation formally begins the process of selecting a contractor to build the Air Force’s next advanced fighter system, which will replace the F-22 Raptor. The solicitation came with requirements the Air Force expects companies to include in their NGAD designs.
However, this solicitation and source-selection process does not include the drone wingmen the Air Force refers to as collaborative combat aircraft, the service said….
Kendall and other service officials said last year they hope to start fielding the crewed component of NGAD by the end of the decade, with collaborative combat aircraft possibly arriving first.
In June 2022, Kendall raised eyebrows when he said at a Heritage Foundation event that the service had “now started on the EMD program to do the development aircraft that we’re going to take into production” — a remark that some took to mean NGAD was already in the engineering and manufacturing development stage.
Kendall later walked back those comments, explaining that he was using the term EMD in a colloquial sense. He said NGAD was still being designed and had not yet gone through the Milestone B review process.
Milestone B marks the point where a program’s technology maturation phase finishes and an acquisition program formally starts in which the service takes its preliminary design and focuses on system integration, manufacturing processes and other details ahead of production.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an email to Defense News that when the source-selection process finishes, NGAD will go to the service’s top acquisition official — who is now Andrew Hunter — for the Milestone B decision to award the EMD contract to the winning company.
Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have expressed interest in pursuing the Air Force’s NGAD contract.
It’s unclear how much the contact would be worth, but Kendall told lawmakers in an April 2022 hearing that each aircraft could cost “multiple” hundreds of millions of dollars, though he did not get specific about the potential price tag.
US Air Force plans to award Next Generation Air Dominance deal in 2024
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force plans to award a contract for its Next Generation Air Dominance platform in 2024.
The service said in a Thursday release that it sent industry a classified solicitation for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for the secretive and highly classified NGAD program.
The release of this solicitation formally begins the process of selecting a contractor to build the Air Force’s next advanced fighter system, which will replace the F-22 Raptor. The solicitation came with requirements the Air Force expects companies to include in their NGAD designs.
However, this solicitation and source-selection process does not include the drone wingmen the Air Force refers to as collaborative combat aircraft, the service said….
Kendall and other service officials said last year they hope to start fielding the crewed component of NGAD by the end of the decade, with collaborative combat aircraft possibly arriving first.
In June 2022, Kendall raised eyebrows when he said at a Heritage Foundation event that the service had “now started on the EMD program to do the development aircraft that we’re going to take into production” — a remark that some took to mean NGAD was already in the engineering and manufacturing development stage.
Kendall later walked back those comments, explaining that he was using the term EMD in a colloquial sense. He said NGAD was still being designed and had not yet gone through the Milestone B review process.
Milestone B marks the point where a program’s technology maturation phase finishes and an acquisition program formally starts in which the service takes its preliminary design and focuses on system integration, manufacturing processes and other details ahead of production.
Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said in an email to Defense News that when the source-selection process finishes, NGAD will go to the service’s top acquisition official — who is now Andrew Hunter — for the Milestone B decision to award the EMD contract to the winning company.
Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin have expressed interest in pursuing the Air Force’s NGAD contract.
It’s unclear how much the contact would be worth, but Kendall told lawmakers in an April 2022 hearing that each aircraft could cost “multiple” hundreds of millions of dollars, though he did not get specific about the potential price tag.
Here is a video by pilotphotog channel theorising about what NGAD characteristics should be.
cheers
cheers
3 Demonstrators & Combined Test Force stood up
Check out latest L-M video and the last sequence @0:26 please
And there are three demonstrators for NGAD supposedly
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...trators-report
plus at Edwards Combined Test Force has stood up.
https://www.edwards.af.mil/News/Arti...ation-testing/
cheers
And there are three demonstrators for NGAD supposedly
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...trators-report
plus at Edwards Combined Test Force has stood up.
https://www.edwards.af.mil/News/Arti...ation-testing/
cheers
Last edited by chopper2004; 1st Jul 2023 at 10:36.
Interesting comments earlier this week, suggesting NGAD is being very closely watched WRT drone developments:
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/...-choices-loom/
No.1 son is currently doing an aerospace engineering degree - says there is some fascinating material in the public domain (if you know where to look) alluding to some of the research being done on new materials and morphing intakes that will enable transition from hi-bypass supercruise to true fighter-type performance.
https://breakingdefense.com/2024/06/...-choices-loom/
No.1 son is currently doing an aerospace engineering degree - says there is some fascinating material in the public domain (if you know where to look) alluding to some of the research being done on new materials and morphing intakes that will enable transition from hi-bypass supercruise to true fighter-type performance.
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Selected members of Congress have been allowed to see the prototype.
I wonder how they did the reveal, makes me think of Mitchell Gant walking around the hangar door and seeing Firefox for the first time complete with dramatic music.
I wonder how they did the reveal, makes me think of Mitchell Gant walking around the hangar door and seeing Firefox for the first time complete with dramatic music.
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...-kendall-says/
Next-gen fighter not dead, but needs cheaper redesign, Kendall says
Engine for US Air Force’s NGAD aircraft could be pared down to cut costs
Next-gen fighter not dead, but needs cheaper redesign, Kendall says
Engine for US Air Force’s NGAD aircraft could be pared down to cut costs
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2024...-kendall-says/
Next-gen fighter not dead, but needs cheaper redesign, Kendall says
Engine for US Air Force’s NGAD aircraft could be pared down to cut costs
Next-gen fighter not dead, but needs cheaper redesign, Kendall says
Engine for US Air Force’s NGAD aircraft could be pared down to cut costs
That's the reply of a gadfly or troll.
Not a good look LO, given your "I am a professional journalist" line (which is true, of course).
What you are seeing is one of the undocumented rules of the Acquisition Process: that's the step (apparently required) where the proposal is put in, rosy predictions of cost and schedule are presented (previous step) and then as the "digging into how to actually get this done" commences (my Army colleagues call this "doing the stubby pencil work") this step is the "uh, it's gonna cost a bit more than that, actually" arrives and the ones who pay for it begin to get cold feet.
This killed the A-12, among other programs. But it didn't kill the F-18E/F nor the F-35.
And I guess it didn't completely kill the Zumwalt class, but given that short production run maybe it should have?
Not a good look LO, given your "I am a professional journalist" line (which is true, of course).
What you are seeing is one of the undocumented rules of the Acquisition Process: that's the step (apparently required) where the proposal is put in, rosy predictions of cost and schedule are presented (previous step) and then as the "digging into how to actually get this done" commences (my Army colleagues call this "doing the stubby pencil work") this step is the "uh, it's gonna cost a bit more than that, actually" arrives and the ones who pay for it begin to get cold feet.
This killed the A-12, among other programs. But it didn't kill the F-18E/F nor the F-35.
And I guess it didn't completely kill the Zumwalt class, but given that short production run maybe it should have?
