Japan Eyes 6th Generation Fighter

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by FredT

 

Given the length of time modern war planes take to develop if this project gets off the ground I will have grey hairs by the time the aircraft enters service . Really its another high tech expensive design that can't be mass produced . By the time elected leaders and other people wake up to this fact if they ever do it will be far to late .

Cheers xpert11.

I'm sorry, but the Spitfire or the P-51 doesn't cut it in this day and age. The times of producing 10,000 units of a 'it will do' design are well and truly over when each aircraft of your oppositions airforce can engage 6 - 8 targets at 100 miles and run away from your superior numbers without ever coming anywhere near your engagement range.

Aircraft have gotten more and more complex, and development times have grown and grown over the years because they need to.

The mass produced point is also disingenuous - 150 years ago it was difficult to mass produce a light bulb, but today we mass produce much more complex items in less time.

Originally posted by RichardPrice
I'm sorry, but the Spitfire or the P-51 doesn't cut it in this day and age. The times of producing 10,000 units of a 'it will do' design are well and truly over

No its just a case of people failing to heed the lessons from history . Just ask the Germans how there high tech geared military faired against the western allies.

when each aircraft of your oppositions airforce can engage 6 - 8 targets at 100 miles and run away from your superior numbers without ever coming anywhere near your engagement range.

What tripe the hoards will get you eventually in the air or on the ground . Modern war planes and warships have a common flaw they lack the ability to sustain a great deal of damage . The force that has the lower tech , cheaper design will be able to replace its losses unlike its higher tech counterpart .

Aircraft have gotten more and more complex, and development times have grown and grown over the years because they need to.

Now that is a load of rubbish alright its only the Military Industrial Complex that likes things that way . No design should take more then eighteen months from the drawing board to regular service .

The mass produced point is also disingenuous - 150 years ago it was difficult to mass produce a light bulb, but today we mass produce much more complex items in less time.

You find that even if it were possible to mass produce such a complex design which it isn't the cost per unit would be to high to even consider such a thing .

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by FredT

 

"Fly by light" is probably a translation hickup - I would imagine they are talking about controlling the drone with light emissions. IR would not be difficult to use and not all that dissimilar from commercial technologies (Havoc Heli! - or Picoo Z, whichever marketing name you're familiar with). The only problem is that these don't work too well in the day, and everyone you would want to be hiding from is going to have equipment designed to search you out.

Fly by Light refers to utilizing fiber optics instead of data cabling for the flight control system.
High power microwave systems interfere with the electronic data transmission of fly by wire control systems. Sheilding helps but AESA and other more focused HPM can easily crash a wired system hence the need for data trans via fiber optics.

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by xpert11
reply to post by FredT

 

Given the length of time modern war planes take to develop if this project gets off the ground I will have grey hairs by the time the aircraft enters service . Really its another high tech expensive design that can't be mass produced . By the time elected leaders and other people wake up to this fact if they ever do it will be far to late .

Cheers xpert11.

I'm sorry, but the Spitfire or the P-51 doesn't cut it in this day and age. The times of producing 10,000 units of a 'it will do' design are well and truly over when each aircraft of your oppositions airforce can engage 6 - 8 targets at 100 miles and run away from your superior numbers without ever coming anywhere near your engagement range.

That said - if I have 12 aircraft to every one of your high-tech aircraft.... I don't have to worry about engaging you in the air. With high-yield ordnance becoming rather prolific these days, it's not like I can't completely dismantle your war machine with 30% of my force. With unmanned and autonomous designs - it's not really an issue to find pilots when they come factory certified.

Quantity has a quality all of its own. There's a balance to be had between the two. Air superiority designs - like the F-15 and F-22 need to be both dependable and disposable. It's always good not to lose forces - but it's part of war. You can't fight a 'perfect' war - particularly not against an opponent of similar capability. If you rely too heavily on survivability of costly designs, you will either have too few uber-craft to address the threat, or too much area to deploy effectively. Either case renders you impotent if there are more enemies than you have sortie-hardpoints, or enemies where you have no sortie-hardpoints.

Aircraft have gotten more and more complex, and development times have grown and grown over the years because they need to.

This is not exactly true. The objectives of design have shifted. Take, for example, the JSF - which has been put-together in far shorter of a time span than the ATF. I'm no fan of the JSF, and I believe the project has suffered from development-creep (as did the ATF) - but one must remember that the threats in the world have shifted considerably over the past twenty years. When the ATF project was commissioned - the USSR was still around, as was the need to protect Europe and NATO powers against an offensive strike by the USSR. The Berlin Wall came down around the same time the fly-off between the YF-22 and YF-23 took place and the competition was finally decided. Before development of the F-22 production model could hardly begin, the very purpose of the aircraft's commissioning had come into question.

Who/what is it going to fly against? Why can't the F-15 do it - we didn't lose a single one in the Gulf conflict. Furthermore - the effectiveness of multi-role aircraft (such as the F-18) had been demonstrated. The ability to strike both air and ground targets with the same air-frame was being considered essential - a role the F-22 was -never- designed for with its shallow munitions bay tailored for air-to-air ordnance. Before long - we saw the F-22 being designed to take on roles that were well outside of the original ATF contract. Technologies that sprouted up during the time of development were also trialed on the F-22 (such as the ceramics used on the TVC nozzles) - stuff that was dropped into the program.

Aircraft like the F-18 E/F Super-Hornet only had about five years from development to production, and eight years between development and service. Of course - neither of those were considered 'rush' priority - something projects like the P-51 had going for them. Though it should also be noted that the P-51 was "under development" for its entire service history - the D-model that everyone thinks of was one of the later evolutions of the original design. So - even the P-51 took a few years to develop, even though the first airframe of that designation took to the air in record time.

The mass produced point is also disingenuous - 150 years ago it was difficult to mass produce a light bulb, but today we mass produce much more complex items in less time.

Parts of aircraft are mass-produced.. but the airframe, itself, is still pretty much assembled by hand - particularly in the age of composite airframes, where mass-production processes are still on the horizon. How they do that is not necessarily classified - but it's a 'dark art' of the industry. You could call that "above top secret" - there's more spy-wars going on between industries of different nations (and of fellow nations) than anything else. Everyone really IS after his Lucky Charms - or... the secret to making them, at least. (Note - that's not necessarily saying that product, in particular, is all that special or secretive of a manufacturing process, but you'd be surprised what you use every day and is made by some rather clever and closely guarded manufacturing methods).

Anyway - the whole thing is pretty moot. There's a point where it doesn't make sense to build a more sophisticated aircraft at the cost of serviceable numbers. There's a point where sophistication doesn't need to be sacrificed for serviceable numbers.

Everyone has a different opinion on where that balance is, and it all depends upon factors that will be unique to each engagement in each theater and campaign - factors that can't be accurately predicted when commissioning the design.

Generally speaking - you're better off to go with numbers. Sophistication has an exponential curve to cost-effectiveness. Spending twice as much on a more sophisticated computer will likely only net you 20-30% more effective power. Your goals will determine your choice of expenditure, but your choice will likely be influenced by whether or not you are simply wanting to build the ultimate gaming rig for the time, or outfit your friends/family with systems.

Likewise, if you are simply wanting to build an aircraft to see what you can do with it and technology - that's one thing. If you are looking to build a main-stay fighter, that's another.

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by Curious and Concerned

 

I'm not aware of anything approaching the capability to jam such a system. The system's nominal voltages are rather large and difficult to induce over the distances involved. Furthermore, we already use shielding systems to prevent interference from local sources - such as the electrical generators, radar, jamming equipment, etc. You're more likely to jam your own aircraft's FbW than anyone else is.

I'm not aware of any either (although intelgurl mentioned microwave systems). However, that doesn't mean there won't be the technology in 10 years time, if not now. If you're going to be investing so much into a fighter, you don't want it to be obsolete in a few years. So I don't see why you wouldn't use fiber optics as a control mechanism (except of course, financial issues if that were a problem). As I said, it would be far harder to mess with optics than electical data transmission.

Imagine a satellite based weapons platform with the capability to induce high voltages on directed targets. It could render an entire air force obsolete. This is just an idea of course, not claiming that this is within the realms of present day science. But one day, it could be. Who knows?

reply to post by Curious and Concerned


It really doesn't make sense. You are going to have to have a receiver and amplifier to command your actuators. While shielding that will be a bit easier than shielding whole data-lines, it's not all that difficult to shield existing systems. Though I suppose an optical fiber system could be quite a bit lighter and made more redundant.

I'm not saying it's bad to use fiber optic controls... just that it doesn't make sense as an attempt to avoid jamming. There are far better uses for fiber optic buses in a jet. Why FbL would be given honorable mention over unified optical data buses and photon-based computing is beyond me. Interestingly enough - we already use those systems (minus photon-computing) in the F-16D being sold to the UAE. Well... we don't really use them - we just built them a better system than we use, funny enough.

The Japanese can do what they want... but - honestly, they need to focus on more deployable designs. Since they are a small nation, they can afford to focus more on uber-specs than crush-with-numbers, but all the latest and greatest technologies do not, a good fighter, make. They want to build a stealth craft to 'bring the noise' ... which is simply an oxy-moron. Even my beloved F-23 was designed with a compromise of noise-bringing and stealth.

They would be better off making two or three different aircraft than the one they are proposing. I know that a lot can be done with replaceable assemblies and modular designs - but they are stretching this one a bit too thin, and have been taking movies far too seriously.

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by Curious and Concerned

 

It really doesn't make sense. You are going to have to have a receiver and amplifier to command your actuators. While shielding that will be a bit easier than shielding whole data-lines, it's not all that difficult to shield existing systems. Though I suppose an optical fiber system could be quite a bit lighter and made more redundant.

So it does make sense then?

I'm not saying it's bad to use fiber optic controls... just that it doesn't make sense as an attempt to avoid jamming. There are far better uses for fiber optic buses in a jet. Why FbL would be given honorable mention over unified optical data buses and photon-based computing is beyond me. Interestingly enough - we already use those systems (minus photon-computing) in the F-16D being sold to the UAE. Well... we don't really use them - we just built them a better system than we use, funny enough.

It seems as though your saying its bad to use fibre optic systems(or is it?). May I ask what this "unified optical data buses and photon-based computing" is?

6 gen fighter planes would be something like a f22 raptor but then with optical stealth and space capability and energy weapons and laser defence systems ..

but when seeing all those japanese anime series I wonder why the japanese don't work towards something like in those scifi anime series and build things like they imagion up in those series.

reply to post by Curious and Concerned


I'm not saying it's bad - just that it doesn't make sense to say it's to combat jamming. While Intelgurl says the capability exists - I'm skeptical. It would have to be done at rather short ranges, or you would have to have numerous oversights.

Unified fiber data buses are just what the title implies - a data bus that can handle the data from all of the aircraft's systems. Fiber optic lines have the bandwidth to deal with such massive amounts of data, and allow your radar to communicate with your infra-red, RWR, etc. Essentially - you compress (if necessary) and broadcast what is going on over the data bus with appropriate protocols. This improves combat awareness, allows for weapons to be targeted from just about any sensory or network data, and makes upgrades much easier (rather than talking to another piece of equipment, it talks to the bus, which utilizes pre-established protocols - regardless of what the equipment attached to it is). Fiber optics are the only medium we have that can really deal with it all.

'Photon computing' is a term I threw out off the top of my head. Regardless of what it gets called - it's the same principle of using electrons in current computing operations, except the process is now done with photons. As I understand it - it's different from 'quantum computing' - but not excluded from it.

One such development in the field: physicsworld.com...

It is 'simply' a photon-based amplifier - which is the basis for all logic gates we presently use. Thus, it's -possible- to create a computer based around light as opposed to voltage potential or electrical current flow. A similar type of system was described in Micheal Crichton's novel: "Sphere." Albeit, it's a brief mention.