USN calls for new fighter - they never learn

[Heathrow Harry]

According to Flight this week the USN are looking for a new fighter for post 2030

They want persistent air defence capability, air to air refueling, tactical recce, surveillance, target acquisition, airborne electronic attack - can be manned, optionally manned, unmanned

has to fly faster, fly further and linger longer than current designs with a greater payload

Once again reaching for the moon looking to spend zillions before it's cancelled

[GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU]

How many will the usual PPRuNe suspects want us to buy?

[Flyingblind]

Ah!

The USN is in luck, I am in the position to offer the Navy a modernised, network focused, force multiplying, negative war-fighter deficit, pro US job creating, fixed price do-able system of systems!

I call it the UAS-A12 the III, or if our clients prefer, the USA-12 Revenger III.

[Willard Whyte]

According to Flight this week the USN are looking for a new fighter for post 2030

What are they going to do with all the (virtually) factory fresh '35s, I wonder.

[Willard Whyte]

Last edited by Flyingblind; 28th Apr 2012 at 11:33. Reason: picture of an A12 Avenger did not work.

http://i50.tinypic.com/qnwc5l.png

http://www.freeimagehosting.net/v8pvf

[Flyingblind]

Many thanks Willard, and nice images too!

[airpolice]

Dead in the water (no pun intended) obviously.

As you have shown your hand in a demo without "US Navy" painted on thee aircraft they will dismiss your submission and buy something more expensive.

[Ivan Rogov]

As an aside isn't the A-12 a very 2nd generation 'stealth' LO. I'm guessing F-22, F-35 PAK-FA and J-20 would be grouped as 3rd generation.
Therefore what ever it is they want in 2030 probably won't use current LO solutions, maybe multi-spectral 'cloaking' devices will be available by then that allow more freedom for aerodynamic flair?

[Nadder]

This weeks flight magazine article says it need not be a new design but could be an already existing a/c type.

[Ivan Rogov]

Super....... duper Hornet? :O

[GreenKnight121]

What are they going to do with all the (virtually) factory fresh '35s, I wonder.

Use them as planned.


The USN has made it very clear that this is to partner with the UCAV program as the replacement for F/A-18E/F... NOT F-35C!

F-35C has, for the last 5 years or so, been scheduled to only replace F/A-18A/B/C/D Hornets, not Super Hornets.

The USN staked its bet on a UCAV only" SH replacement some 5 years ago, and there was not supposed to be another manned carrier-fighter bought, but the USN has backed off this.



Of course, journos with: an axe to grind/desire to "sex the story up" to boost sales/complete ignorance/refusal to believe they are being told the truth, and random internet posters with the same issues, are blathering on about how this is actually a substitute for F-35C... but they are very wrong.

[Lima Juliet]

I wonder if WO'S will bid...

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/images/typhoonn1.jpg

:}:}:}

[Just a spotter]

WW's pics are a nice updating of an Ho 229.

JAS

[Willard Whyte]

Use them as planned.

Yawn.

It was a rhetorical, tongue in cheek, question. I wasn't looking for an answer.

[BEagle]

According to Flight this week the USN are looking for a new fighter for post 2030....

F35D/E/F......??

I gather that the USN have also now realised that drones (of whichever 3-or 4-letter abbreviation/acronym/initialism is currently in vogue) aren't exactly living up to their protagonists' boasts.....:rolleyes:

[Lightning Mate]

You can delete your post now.

Thank you kindly for the re-size - deleting my post. :ok:

[Willard Whyte]

Likewise. I don't have a problem with screen resolution so it all looked perfectly normal to me :p

[LowObservable]

"F-35C has, for the last 5 years or so, been scheduled to only replace F/A-18A/B/C/D Hornets, not Super Hornets.

"The USN staked its bet on a UCAV only SH replacement some 5 years ago, and there was not supposed to be another manned carrier-fighter bought, but the USN has backed off this."

Not entirely correct.

The JSF has never been intended as the SH replacement, in part because IOC was originally planned to be only 11 years after the SH with deliveries completed in the early 2020s. On the other hand, the SH was never intended to be the C/D replacement, but this will begin to happen willy-nilly if production is continued.

I don't think that there is. or has ever been, a USN commitment to UCAV. Rather, when the J-UCAS program came apart in 2005-06, the Navy recognized that it could be used to demonstrate the principle of a CV-based unmanned stealth platform and persisted with X-47B.

[Dengue_Dude]

Do you reckon they'd notice if we repackaged the Canberra again? We could even stick a hook on it, I'm sure we've got a few left . . .

[Thelma Viaduct]

I think you're all barking up the wrong tree.

Search for 'Boeing F/A-XX', the A-12 concept is even older than Beagles' piss stained cruddies.

[Heathrow Harry]

PP - wasn't the problem with the A-12 that it had to have such enormous cutouts for all the kit they wished on to it, or rather IN it, so it just couldn't be built due to the structural issues and their affect on weight.....

[GreenKnight121]

The 3 main problems with A-12 were:

1. Insufficient knowledge/experience of the bid-winning companies with advance composite structural/surfacing materials*, leading to manufacturing & design problems, which led to both:

2. Massive cost over-runs. McDonnell Douglas/General Dynamics won the bid with a target price of US$4.38 billion and ceiling price of US$4.84 billion for the design/development portion, while the losing Grumman/Northrop/Vought team had declined to enter a final bid after they determined they couldn't bid for less than US$6 billion. At the time of cancellation, cost over-runs meant that the end cost of the development phase would be at least equal to that G/N/V estimate, and likely higher. The main factor here was difficulties in designing and fabricating with the new composite materials and in manufacturing components with those materials.

3. A bad design in general. The airframe design was deemed "unsatisfactory" by the USN, whose experts had concluded that the aircraft would have insufficient reserve aerodynamic stability for safe recovery aboard a carrier with any battle damage to control surfaces, or malfunction of same. Since many USN aircraft of all types have successfully recovered aboard with such malfunctions and/or damage, I can see why the USN would not be happy with McD/GD.



I personally believe that, due to Northrop's recent experience with large structural/surfacing materials on the B-2 (Northrop was also a major partner in the F/A-18 Hornet, responsible for the composite structures in that aircraft), that they had a much better "handle" on those materials and on designing and building structures with them. I expect that this is why their bid was so much higher... they had a much more realistic grasp of what it would take to actually deliver the aircraft!

Also, I believe that, with Grumman & Vought's extensive experience with carrier aircraft (as well as Northrop's Hornet experience), they would have delivered a design with greater "damaged/malfunction" aerodynamic stability as well as better structural design & execution... likely at the same or less cost than the failed McD/GD design!

I know that McD had a long history of building carrier aircraft... but I think the engineers from GD managed to over-ride any objections from McD about the design.

GD had been expected to supply a navalized variant of the F-16 in the mid-1970s for the USN's F-4/A-7 replacement program (both the USAF & USN/USMC were supposed to buy the same aircraft), but their F-16N was considered by the USN to be a poor carrier aircraft, something GD dismissed as "the Navy is being too picky". This is what made the USN have McD/Northrop create the F/A-18 Hornet from Northrop's YF-17 Cobra design.

{edit: GD was also responsible for the failed F-111B, which led to Grumman building the F-14.

Funny how failed two GD carrier-fighter designs led to two excellent carrier-fighters being built by other companies.}

[XV277]

NATF re-born?

Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF) 1990-1991 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/natf.htm)