What Will a Sixth Generation Fighter Look Like? No One Knows, Says ACC Commander

Yet to perfect the 5th Gen planes and already there are speculations/buzz amongst the DOD of 6th Gen plane(s)? Wonder if any of the black budget hardware will be simply transferred/classified/declassified as 6th gen? Some of it can be predicted but there are general outlines and requirements that define the 6th Gen.

WASHINGTON: We aren't quite finished developing and producing our fifth generation aircraft, the F-22 and F-35 stealth fighters, but their time is already running out, the head of Air Combat Command said today. And work has not really begun on a sixth generation aircraft.

LINK

reply to post by hp1229


Could the 6gen be scrapping all military pilot controlled crafts, and relying only on remote controlled drones

And backup by combat ready satellites with Orbit to Ground computer guided missiles

And that if everything else fails, Harp for anonymous destruction

I wonder if moving to pilotless craft is the right way forward? While I understand the physical limitation placed on pilots a reliance on new technologies doesn't always bode well. US Forces learned this lesson to their cost in Vietnam when they flew Phantom F4's up against the various MiGs and other planes flown by Vietnamese and Russian pilots when they were only armed with the supposedly superior technology of missiles. The loss rate for USAF and US Navy pilots soared until the pilots were basically retrained in old dog fighting techniques of WWII & Korea and rearmed with guns.

Is this the US military commanders making a similar mistake as they have done previously by not valuing the expertise and experience of the highly qualified and very skilled pilots and navigators they've spent millions of dollars training?

I wonder if a better way forward would be larger piloted craft that then deployed smaller drones in the battlespace, then you would have eyes and ears in the air in the battespace, but also have the advantage of the unmanned crat for the close in killing.

reply to post by hp1229


The next generation of aircraft will just be flying explosives.

Who needs a million dollar plane when missles that hang out in orbit untill needed can demolish anything, anywhere?

If we are still held to jet turbine propulsion, I would imagine they might be ,

Unmanned, (to overcome the whole gloc issue)
Stealthy (possibly total cloak enabled)
Super Cruise
Multi strike capable
Vstol capable
AI self defense and attack

Sixth Generation aircraft won't be developed without a radical shift in propulsion systems. The ADVENT core engine, just started any kind of testing in September of this year, and is several years away from flight tests, so it's going to be awhile before a Sixth Gen fighter is even on the drawing board. In April of 2009, the Air Force said we were "just a few years away from designing the next generation of fighters". In just the last year or so, they have said there won't be a new fighter, unless there was a jump in technology that would allow a huge improvement in performance (a new engine that gives longer loiter time, more range, etc).

The Lockheed aircraft entry would feature a "self healing" skin capable of releasing a temporary patch over vulnerable areas, such as wheel well doors, or the underbelly of the plane, that would allow it to fly on and land after taking damage.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Citation?

Anyways, I'm curious what led the commander to believe they are "running out of time."

It doesn't seem any foreign adversary is going to field a fighter of equal or greater capability than the F-22/35 any time soon, before 2020 at least.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Sixth Generation aircraft won't be developed without a radical shift in propulsion systems. The ADVENT core engine, just started any kind of testing in September of this year, and is several years away from flight tests, so it's going to be awhile before a Sixth Gen fighter is even on the drawing board.

and even then ADVENT is not really a radical shift as far as I can see - it is an evolutionary step in jet engine design.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


It's not a big leap, but it gives them more of a stepping stone than current engines, and if they use it for sixth gen, it gives an increase over current engines that will be an advantage.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

It's not a big leap, but it gives them more of a stepping stone than current engines, and if they use it for sixth gen, it gives an increase over current engines that will be an advantage.

There you are I was hoping you would pop in and give more input, thanks!

Originally posted by Pants3204
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Citation?

Instead, possible technologies for a next-generation fighter should include "greatly increased speed", more range and new features like self-healing structures and multi-spectral stealth, the company said.

Such capabilities must be supported by new breakthroughs in propulsion, materials, power generation and weapons, Lockheed said, adding some of these are "yet to be fully imagined".

Lockheed acknowledged that breakthrough performance will not come cheap.

www.flightglobal.com...

Anyways, I'm curious what led the commander to believe they are "running out of time."

It doesn't seem any foreign adversary is going to field a fighter of equal or greater capability than the F-22/35 any time soon, before 2020 at least.

edit on 11-12-2012 by Pants3204 because: (no reason given)

If they start developing it now, they will have them in the field by 2030-2035. That's how long a time frame we are talking about for development, and maturation of the technologies. By then the F-22 will be in the same position the F-15 is in now as far as capabilities go. They will be older than the F-15 fleet currently is, and approaching the end of their life cycle in some cases.

Aircraft development has become such a long process, that the current fleet will be falling apart by the time the next fleet is reaching IOC. The early engineers and commanders (Johnson and LeMay) would be rolling over in their graves if they could see what a joke things have become.

errr

NWO + one world government and the need of new 6th generation fighter planes to fight against what exactly..?

Alien invasion..?

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


ADVENT is also only a stepping stone. After ADVENT comes Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD). AETD will power later F-35s, and possibly the sixth generation fighter. Pratt&Whitney is working on AETD based on the PW9000, Rolls-Royce was working on ADVENT, but didn't receive a contract.

ADVENT is being used as almost a technology demonstrator more than anything. Some of the technology will make its way into AETD, but ADVENT is out to prove that adaptive technology does work with modern jet engines, and will give any sixth generation fighter the advantages that it needs. One of the big ones is a 25%+ decrease in fuel consumption over the current state of the art engines. That means more persistence, and longer range for whatever uses it. It also would give more power under various conditions. We won't see a massive leap in engine technology, but we're going to see a jump in engine capabilities by the 2020s.

reply to post by Zaphod58

Blast from the past
ATS_THREAD

I think a sixth generation fighter would have these tech.

It would likely be far stealthier than even the fifth generation aircraft. It may be able to change its shape in flight, “morphing” to optimize for either speed or persistence, and its engines will likely be retunable in-flight for efficient supersonic cruise or subsonic loitering.

This fighter will likely have directed energy weapons—high-powered microwaves and lasers for defense against incoming missiles or as offensive weapons themselves. Munitions would likely be of the “dial an effect” type, able to cause anything from impairment to destruction of an air or ground target.

Materials and microelectronics technologies would combine to make the aircraft a large integrated sensor, possibly eliminating the need for a nose radar as it is known today. It would be equipped for making cyber attacks as well as achieving kinetic effects, but would still have to be cost-effective to make, service, and modify.

Maybee it will reach hypersonics speed, this will require a whole new range of materials development, all of which must operate in that intense heat environment at ... Mach 5-plus.

More importantly, will it be affordable in enough numbers to be useful no matter how cool it is and will it maintain its advantage long enough to justify all the time and NRE.

I wonder if we are going down the wrong path with ever increasing ambition, complexity and cost. We might be better having smaller leaps forward more often. That would limit the advantage that others get through industrial espionage.