What Are the Challenges in Developing Sixth Generation Fighter Jets?

[MotoH]

The Sixth Generation Fighter

By John A. Tirpak
Executive Editor The technologies are emerging, but what’s needed is a program to pull them together.

Within the next few years, we will begin work on the sixth generation [fighter] capabilities necessary for future air dominance.” The Secretary of the Air Force, Michael B. Donley, and the USAF Chief of Staff, Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, issued that statement in an April 13 Washington Post article.

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2009/October 2009/1009fighter.aspx"<clicky!

Well it is interesting, a lot of it seems science fiction at the moment, but who knows what the future holds!

 

[Cyrus]

Interesting link, I will read it tomorrow when I have time. I'm glad to see you taking interest in reading these kinds of articles. Keep it up.

 

[Brian_C]

Has the F-22 or F-35 ever been used in a combat situation? It seems pointless to speculate about the next generation of fighters when the combat readiness of the current generation is unknown.

 

[RonL]

Has the F-22 or F-35 ever been used in a combat situation? It seems pointless to speculate about the next generation of fighters when the combat readiness of the current generation is unknown.

I would think knowing what a plane can and cannot do is enough, a combat situation would only help to show what the other plane can and cannot do. It might boil down to the skill of each pilot and the future might be more remote control??


P.S. I also will have to read the link a little later. :)

 

[MotoH]

The US will always have to be ahead of the other nations involved in controlling the skies. Russia and China will be producing 5th gen. fighters within the next 10 years (Russia's T-50 I believe, can not remember China's). So we need to start thinking about the 6th generation.

The F-22 Raptor started its design phase in the 1980s, so a 6th gen won't be expected until the 2030's at least. Of course the Raptor program has been shut down in favor of the cheaper F-35 Lightning II, which just so happens to have the same airframe cost of the F-22 (currently $200 million USD per plane)

Of course the Lightning II is much more of a multi-role aircraft than the near strictly air superiority F-22

For the 6th Gen. fighter they are moving towards a more unmanned approach, but are trying to achieve the balance between the thinking capacity of a human, and the flight capabilities of a UCAV.

 

[FredGarvin]

The Air Force is so funny some times. They can't read the tea leaves on this? They seem to continually think that they get a blank check for whatever aircraft they ask for. I certainly hope they are thinking in the next century this might happen. Today's battles have created a lot of critics of the whole fighter evolution which is why the F-22 has been stopped in production. I think the next generation will have to be a huge, quantum leap in performance/ability before a new program is allowed to enter production any time soon.

 

[mgb_phys]

The Air Force is so funny some times.

Remember they are locked in a constant deadly battle with their historical enemy - the Navy.

So while the navy demands more aircraft carriers and nuclear subs to deal with terrorists in land locked Afghanistan the airforce needs more advanced air superiority fighters to deal with the same people.

Meanwhile the army would probably like some new boots, or at least new laces for the old ones

 

[MotoH]

Dont forget the National Guard! I see that they are upgrading from the Fokker E.I to a P51d Mustang! Huge leap in technology for them!

The Sixth Gen. fighter will have stuff from science fiction on it! It reminds me of this:
http://www.cinemaspy.com/img/user/VIPER%20MK%20II%20IN%20HANGAR%20BAY%201.jpg

 

[FredGarvin]

Not the new Viper. You need to dig up one of thebetter looking Vipers:

Sexy.

 

[MotoH]

A question to think about,

What will the 6th gen. be like?

From the sounds of it, even though most of the things said are just speculation. It seems like it will be more of a mobile command center (something like AWACS) with the mixture of a futuristic AC-130U gunship.

 

[fifihawkins]

The F-22 Raptor started its design phase in the 1980s, so a 6th gen won't be expected until the 2030's at least.

Surely that's not a given? When people are enthusiastic and have gumption, they can produce very quickly. This happened with the P-51 Mustang, for instance:

In April 1940, the British Air Purchasing Commission approached North American Aviation with the intent of having them build P-40's for the RAF. Since the P-40 design went back to 1933, James H. "Dutch" Kendelberger, the president of North American offered to build an entirely new advanced fighter using the same Allison V-1710-39 engine, used on the P-40. [...] North American's only previous fighter experience was with the NA-50A, but Dutch collaborated with J.L. "Lee" Atwood to formulate an outline for the project. The British agreed on the new type, NA-73X, only on the stipulation that a prototype be on hand within 120 days. North American designers Raymond Rice and Edgar Schmued, the latter had worked for Fokker and Messerschmitt in 1925, immediately set about meeting the requirements. A prototype was finished in 117 days minus the engine. Wheels also had to be borrowed from an AT-6 trainer. Six weeks later, and after several modifications, the aircraft took to the air October 26,1940.

(emphasis mine, http://www.aviation-history.com/north-american/p51.html" )

--Fi

 

[MotoH]

Look at the planes that are already in the air by that time though. The ME-109 was already in the air by the early 30's, so the Mustang wasn't some huge technological leap like the F-22 was.

The 6th gen is going to be nothing like anything that is flying today, and most of the technology that will most likely be used on the 6th gen either is in early development, or hasn't been invented yet.
(again this is mostly assumption)

 

[fifihawkins]

Look at the planes that are already in the air by that time though. The ME-109 was already in the air by the early 30's, so the Mustang wasn't some huge technological leap like the F-22 was.

The ME-109 was introduced in the late 1930s - the first flight was in '35 and the introduction in '37 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Bf_109" ). So, if you're serious about making this comparison and using the timeframe of 20 years (2010-2030), shouldn't we be looking at the state of aircraft design in 1920?

 

[MotoH]

No. The 6th gen isn't going to be anything like the current production planes of right now, just like the F-22 wasn't like anything in production at the start of its design phase. (F/A-18, F-16, somewhat the Rafale) and currently the 6th Gen. will be far different from the Typhoon, T-50 (PAK FA), or any other current 4th/5th gen airframe.

The ME-109 and P-51 is like the F-22 and the F-35, they are closer in development to each other, and are both very similar aircraft. The P-51 was very easy to design once they saw the ME-109, just like the F-35 was much easier to build once the logistics were out of the way with the F-22.

 

[fifihawkins]

I take your point, but what about planes like, say, the Hurricane? It first flew in 1935, same as the ME-109:

At that time, RAF Fighter Command comprised just 13 squadrons, [...] all biplanes with fixed-pitch wooden propellers and non-retractable undercarriages. The design, started in early 1934, was the work of Sydney Camm.
Sydney Camm's original plans submitted in response to the Air Ministry's specification were at first rejected (apparently "too orthodox," even for the Air Ministry). Camm tore up the proposal and set about designing a fighter as a Hawker private venture.

(emphasis mine)

Isn't this an example of creating a revolutionary new plane design within the space of a year?

 

[Cyrus]

I take your point, but what about planes like, say, the Hurricane? It first flew in 1935, same as the ME-109:


(emphasis mine)

Isn't this an example of creating a revolutionary new plane design within the space of a year?

You're not going to produce a 6th gen fighter in under ten years. It's just not going to happen - period.

 

[fifihawkins]

You're not going to produce a 6th gen fighter in under ten years. It's just not going to happen - period.

What are the factors preventing that from happening? And why would it take longer to produce a 6th generation fighter than it did to actually invent the aeroplane?

 

[Cyrus]

What are the factors preventing that from happening? And why would it take longer to produce a 6th generation fighter than it would to actually invent the aeroplane?

Because aircraft are designed on CAD systems, which means literally millions of parts must be made, evaluated, and tested. Then the tooling for all those parts have to be made (and made around the world), shipped to a main assembly plant, integrated, inspected. Then there is the butt load of bureaucracy and FAA hoops to jump through.

 

[FredGarvin]

To my knowledge, the FAA does not have any governance in military applications. It is only when someone wants to register a vintage military aircraft. That being said, the service branch the aircraft is for is usually a lot more strict in its qualifications (mil aircraft are qualified, civilian aircraft are certified).

The thing about this thread is that the OP and others seem to think that aircraft are designed by one or two guys and then it is spread out to a factory floor to make. That can't be farther from the truth.

 

[fifihawkins]

The thing about this thread is that the OP and others seem to think that aircraft are designed by one or two guys and then it is spread out to a factory floor to make. That can't be farther from the truth.

I agree that right now that isn't how planes are made. But it is how some planes have been made - indeed, how the plane was made - so we know that it is possible to make planes that way. I'm not really asking is not how planes are currently made - that's easy to find out. But with serious imagination, criticism, creativity, ambition and courage, applied to both the design of the plane itself, and also in determining things like the laws and bureaucracy governing aircraft qualifications, we could create a significantly better plane than the ones we have now in way less than a decade.

 

[MotoH]

The thing about this thread is that the OP and others seem to think that aircraft are designed by one or two guys and then it is spread out to a factory floor to make. That can't be farther from the truth.

And where did you get this bit of knowledge from any of the posts?

 

[RonL]

And where did you get this bit of knowledge from any of the posts?

I would think he got that from talk about WII planes being the brainchild of one or two men, also a time when someone's word was trustworthy enough, that a verbal commitment, was in most cases all that was needed to move forward.

 

[fifihawkins]

Because aircraft are designed on CAD systems, which means literally millions of parts must be made, evaluated, and tested. Then the tooling for all those parts have to be made (and made around the world), shipped to a main assembly plant, integrated, inspected.

Wait, I don't understand. Do you mean that having things like CAD, 3D simulations, fast computers and high-volume mechanized production make it slower to produce an airplane than using drawing boards, pencils, slide rules, prototype testing etc?

 

[fifihawkins]

I would think he got that from talk about WII planes being the brainchild of one or two men, also a time when someone's word was trustworthy enough, that a verbal commitment, was in most cases all that was needed to move forward.

Sydney Camm's original plans submitted in response to the Air Ministry's specification were at first rejected (apparently "too orthodox," even for the Air Ministry).

The air ministry had specifications, criticized and reviewed plans submitted to them and made decisions on what plans they would accept and what they wouldn't, based presumably on the pitch for the new design. That's more than a verbal commitment to build a good plane.

 

[FredGarvin]

And where did you get this bit of knowledge from any of the posts?

From extremely naive statements like this:

The ME-109 and P-51 is like the F-22 and the F-35, they are closer in development to each other, and are both very similar aircraft. The P-51 was very easy to design once they saw the ME-109, just like the F-35 was much easier to build once the logistics were out of the way with the F-22.

 

[MotoH]

So somehow saying that designing similar aircraft is synonymous with having 1 or 2 people building an aircraft?

 

[FredGarvin]

Saying that designing any aircraft today is easy is. Yes. It proves you have absolutely no clue what so ever as to what goes into a modern combat system like an aircraft. To liken the F-22 and the F-35 is ludicrous. Looking somewhat alike does not mean that they are copies.

 

[Brian_C]

I attended a seminar given by an engineer from Lockheed Martin who said that they have 30 laboratories dedicated to the development of the F-35. That's a huge amount of manpower relative to almost every other aircraft program, and that doesn't take into account other partners in the JSF program such as BAE or Northrop Grumman.

 

[MotoH]

Saying that designing any aircraft today is easy is. Yes. It proves you have absolutely no clue what so ever as to what goes into a modern combat system like an aircraft. To liken the F-22 and the F-35 is ludicrous. Looking somewhat alike does not mean that they are copies.

Oh really? They must not use any tech on the Lightning II that was on the Raptor. Apparently you have missed my point entirely. If something has been designed and has been proven to work well, why wouldn't you use it on another fighter with modifications to a specific application? What you are saying is that the F-35 is some revolutionary new piece of equipment, which it is not.
The F-22 is an AtoA fighter with ground capabilities, and the F-35 is a multirole suited more towards ground attacks. I never said the Lightning II was an F-22 with a new paint job, but a lot of the tech has been switched over, with some upgrades from the F-22 to the F-35.

 

[minger]

Just a quick point. Some of the next-gen UAV (subsonic even) engines are 5 yrs away from the demonstrator phase.