Sixth Generation Fighter Already Flying

LordSunhawk

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According to Defense News the USAF has already built and flown... in under a year... a full-scale prototype 'with mission equipment' of the Next-Generation Air Defense fighter.

Under. A. Year. It took the F-35 a decade to reach this same milestone in development. Everybody else is struggling to field their first 5th generation bird, and here the USAF has managed to sail right past all of them while doing the Teddy Roosevelt 'what's up bitches'.

I wonder if the unexpected flights of supposed F-117's that have been occurring all summer were actually cover for test flights of the new bird?
 

LordSunhawk

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The T-7 Red Hawk is an early example of the methods they are talking about, and it went from paper concept to flight in 3 years, and will be entering service next year at the latest. *five* years total.

This is a massive game changer, the Air Force is talking about returning to the development cadence of the 1950's with completely new designs every few years in order to meet a desire to reduce the mean time in service of airframes to under 15 years, thus massively reducing the costs associated with maintaining the planes in service.
 

Bacle

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It kinda looks like an F-22, with the tails taken off.

Wonder if this was what people saw in Portland.
 

Sailor.X

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According to Defense News the USAF has already built and flown... in under a year... a full-scale prototype 'with mission equipment' of the Next-Generation Air Defense fighter.

Under. A. Year. It took the F-35 a decade to reach this same milestone in development. Everybody else is struggling to field their first 5th generation bird, and here the USAF has managed to sail right past all of them while doing the Teddy Roosevelt 'what's up bitches'.

I wonder if the unexpected flights of supposed F-117's that have been occurring all summer were actually cover for test flights of the new bird?
This smells of back engineered Zentraedi technology. :p
 

Zachowon

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The US military is switching how they fight wars. From the COIN we have been doing, we are switching to Force on Force. To do that we must become the best damn and most damn advanced that we once were and not let the others catch up~
 

Doomsought

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The US military is switching how they fight wars. From the COIN we have been doing, we are switching to Force on Force. To do that we must become the best damn and most damn advanced that we once were and not let the others catch up~
Speaking about changing how we fight wars, about how long do you think it would take to adjust to the need to face a peer or near peer opponent after so many years of asymmetrical warfare?
 

Zachowon

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Did the chemtrails of these fancy new planes cause the wildfires in Oregon? :unsure:
Obviously
Speaking about changing how we fight wars, about how long do you think it would take to adjust to the need to face a peer or near peer opponent after so many years of asymmetrical warfare?
We have been switching for at least a couple years, as every one that goes through schoolhouse (AIT) are learning force on force over COIN. My AIT taught us both, with Force on Force being the main part of it.
So we can now honestly enough
 

Tiamat

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Now, it's entirely possible the concept itself has been getting tested perhaps a bit longer than a year....they just haven't been telling anyone. :cool: If so, I definitely smell Skunkworks...it is where the F117 was built and tested, after all, and those have been spotted flying lately as Sunhawk noted.

The design resemblance to the F-22 (kinda sorta) doesn't surprise me at all, the F-22 is an insanely capable bird that got a bit shortshifted by changing priorities and the F-35 program.
 

LordSunhawk

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The thing is, those Nighthawk flights? They only were identified as such *based on callsigns*.

So those might well have been the new NGAD birds flying.

Considering that Boeing evidently proved out the system with the Red Hawk, I'm thinking Phantom Works is involved, perhaps in conjunction with the Skunk Works.

Regardless, by going to a rapid development cycle tempo we are pretty much leveraging our strengths and forcing everybody else into even more expensive 'keep up with them or we are SO screwed' mode.

All of the so-called 'peer' and 'near-peer' competitors are struggling to field 4th and early 5th generation birds, none are really in actual service nor combat tested. And here we are going 'Well, 6th gen looks nice! And we've got 6.1 coming in 2 years! Try to keep up, lardbutts!'
 

Zachowon

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The thing is, those Nighthawk flights? They only were identified as such *based on callsigns*.

So those might well have been the new NGAD birds flying.

Considering that Boeing evidently proved out the system with the Red Hawk, I'm thinking Phantom Works is involved, perhaps in conjunction with the Skunk Works.

Regardless, by going to a rapid development cycle tempo we are pretty much leveraging our strengths and forcing everybody else into even more expensive 'keep up with them or we are SO screwed' mode.

All of the so-called 'peer' and 'near-peer' competitors are struggling to field 4th and early 5th generation birds, none are really in actual service nor combat tested. And here we are going 'Well, 6th gen looks nice! And we've got 6.1 coming in 2 years! Try to keep up, lardbutts!'
We are done with mainly fighting COIN, so we decided to show our enemies that ya know what, we have not been stalling in tech development like they think we have been
 

Tiamat

I've seen the future...
It's also all based on geopolitical realities and practicality. While the U.S. had been farting around with COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia has been rearming and up to all sorts of malarkey, ditto for the Chinese, especially the Chinese, and while both have a shared mutual distrust with each other going back decades, one can argue both despise the U.S. even more. You can draw your own conclusions from that. And then there's always the other regional threats...

If you want Peace, Prepare for War.
 

Zachowon

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It's also all based on geopolitical realities and practicality. While the U.S. had been farting around with COIN in Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia has been rearming and up to all sorts of malarkey, ditto for the Chinese, especially the Chinese, and while both have a shared mutual distrust with each other going back decades, one can argue both despise the U.S. even more. You can draw your own conclusions from that. And then there's always the other regional threats...

If you want Peace, Prepare for War.
Oh for sure. Of course woth us switching back to proper warfare all bets are off on development
 

bullethead

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AFAIK, there hasn't been an actual image of the prototype shown yet, so no one actually knows what it looks like.

Anyway, I can believe the design was done in a year and a prototype built if there was no bureaucratic barriers to getting the work done, like the pre-JSF Skunk Works used to operate. The less layers of bureaucracy and approval something has to go through, the faster it gets done.
 

LordSunhawk

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A few more data points.

Turns out the 3 year turnaround for the eT-7A Red Hawk (note that the Air Force is adding the lower-case e to the prefix of any 'digitally designed' craft until they hit IOC) is a bit misleading, the first 2 years were spent purely dealing with bureaucracy and finalizing the partnership with Saab. From the point where they began actual design work to first flight was under a *year*.

The Red Hawk is also specifically designed for ultra-rapid assembly. On a F/A-18 it takes 24 hours to assemble the fuselage, on the eT-7A it takes *fifteen minutes*.

I've also found a podcast from Aviation Week that has a lot of gems in it.

 

Zachowon

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A few more data points.

Turns out the 3 year turnaround for the eT-7A Red Hawk (note that the Air Force is adding the lower-case e to the prefix of any 'digitally designed' craft until they hit IOC) is a bit misleading, the first 2 years were spent purely dealing with bureaucracy and finalizing the partnership with Saab. From the point where they began actual design work to first flight was under a *year*.

The Red Hawk is also specifically designed for ultra-rapid assembly. On a F/A-18 it takes 24 hours to assemble the fuselage, on the eT-7A it takes *fifteen minutes*.

I've also found a podcast from Aviation Week that has a lot of gems in it.

Wait is the eT-7A the next gen? or just the trainer for said next gen
 

Bacle

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A few more data points.

Turns out the 3 year turnaround for the eT-7A Red Hawk (note that the Air Force is adding the lower-case e to the prefix of any 'digitally designed' craft until they hit IOC) is a bit misleading, the first 2 years were spent purely dealing with bureaucracy and finalizing the partnership with Saab. From the point where they began actual design work to first flight was under a *year*.

The Red Hawk is also specifically designed for ultra-rapid assembly. On a F/A-18 it takes 24 hours to assemble the fuselage, on the eT-7A it takes *fifteen minutes*.

I've also found a podcast from Aviation Week that has a lot of gems in it.

15 minutes, on a possible prototype...fuck a duck.
 

LordSunhawk

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The eT-7A Red Hawk is the new trainer for the air force, comprising a complete system for all air training needs (past primary training, which is still in a prop job IIRC).

Here's where things really get interesting. The eT-7A was picked as the winner of the contest as a clean sheet design that would be ready faster than the competition. Except the two competitors *were already in service with other countries*. The digital design system used for the Red Hawk is *so* good that it could build a brand new aircraft from the ground up FASTER than two other major contractors could start production of already in-service and operational trainers that already met all the design goals.
 

Zachowon

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The eT-7A Red Hawk is the new trainer for the air force, comprising a complete system for all air training needs (past primary training, which is still in a prop job IIRC).

Here's where things really get interesting. The eT-7A was picked as the winner of the contest as a clean sheet design that would be ready faster than the competition. Except the two competitors *were already in service with other countries*. The digital design system used for the Red Hawk is *so* good that it could build a brand new aircraft from the ground up FASTER than two other major contractors could start production of already in-service and operational trainers that already met all the design goals.
This means a whole new thing should they do the same for the next gen jet.

but is the eT-7A the plane everyone is talking about?
 

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