How the sixth generation fighter jet will end the air war

The next generation of fighter jets could bring greater speed, range and the ability to penetrate deep into enemy airspace – and may have a new type of engine, experts and a US Air Force official said. retired.

The aviation world has seen five generations of fighters, from the subsonic F-86 Saber after World War II to the current F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Currently, militaries around the world are working on jets that they believe will represent a high enough level of technology to qualify as sixth generation aircraft.

And while the exact description of the sixth-generation aircraft has yet to be set in stone, experts agree on some common characteristics, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Clint Hinote told Defense News.

The Air Force’s effort to build a sixth family of fighter systems is known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, and experts say the platform will be asked to do many things.

“You want it to be fast, you want it to fly high,” said Hinote, who was the Air Force deputy chief of staff for strategy, integration and requirements. “You want it to fly a long distance. You want it to be as subtle as possible – not just on the radar waves… [but also] and infrared light.”

Hinote and Heather Penney, a retired F-16 pilot and senior resident at the Mitchell Center for Aerospace Studies, say speed, stealth and speed will be among the fighter’s most important attributes. the sixth generation – especially if it is necessary to cross. long distances in the Pacific and access to airspace controlled by China.

“Range and penetration capabilities will be very important for sixth-generation aircraft, especially as we look to the Pacific theater with China as our primary threat,” Penney said.

Fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-22 and F-35 were conceived at a time when the U.S. military was still focused on Europe and NATO, Hinote said.

“The [F-35] requirements were developed immediately after the Cold War,” Hinote said. “He is a short-term fighter. That makes sense in NATO, where you have hundreds of corridors everywhere you have to operate. It doesn’t make sense in the Pacific, where the situation is very different [and] you only have a few ways to work. “

It needs to be able to communicate without giving away its position, Hinote said, and it must be able to carry larger payloads than what fifth-generation aircraft carry today.

“That allows you to get to the battlefield and the spiritual realm where you can assert your will by using the power, if necessary, of the concept of spiritual superiority,” Hinote said.

And the ability to save the plane without damaging its damaged livery will be critical, Penney said.

He said that early versions of stealth technology on aircraft such as the F-117A Nighthawk and B-2 Spirit bomber were simple and difficult to maintain.

Stealth has evolved significantly over the years to become more effective and reliable, Penney said, and the stealth capabilities of the sixth-generation fighter also need to take another step forward. depend and provide good performance.

Hinote and Penney said that the next generation of aircraft must take a lot of detailed information and combine it in a way that will organize the battlefield.

The aircraft of the sixth type “must not only be able to have advanced sensors, not only facing forward, but on the back side, looking across. [multiple] phenomena” such as radar, infrared and other waves, Penney said.

And the Air Force wants the NGAD to join AI-operated drone wings known as joint combat aircraft, or CCA, as part of a “family of systems” concept. CCAs can perform strike missions, jam enemy radars, conduct recon, or act as decoys.

The Air Force has planned for the NGAD to have a new type of power system known as an adaptive engine, which can switch to different, more efficient modes depending on the flight situation. Pratt & Whitney and General Electric Aerospace are developing their own adaptive engines as part of the Next-Generation Adaptive Propulsion program.

An adaptive engine, however, can be very expensive, Hinote said. And with serious financial problems prompting the Air Force to reconsider NGAD plans and designs, the service is considering reducing its engine to lower the cost of the NGAD.

Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said in a June interview with Defense News that making the NGAD engine smaller and less complex is an option being considered.

But better dogfighting skills may not be on the list for sixth-generation fighters, Hinote said. He doesn’t expect those planes to have advanced slow-moving or heavy-duty cannons that would allow fighters to target each other at relatively close quarters.

“The F-22 can be superior [angle of attack] in ways we have not seen,” said Hinote. “The Sukhoi Su-57, the same thing. I don’t think it’s important for forcing the air over the Pacific.”

The Department of Defense does not maintain a rapid tax on aircraft generations. But in 2017, a spokesman for Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia spoke about it.

In his column, Jeffrey Hood of the 633rd Air Base Wing’s public affairs office said the first generation of fighter jets that emerged after World War II took advantage of new airframe and wing technology. exploded, unlike the perpendicular wings that were common before. But those fighters, like the F-86 Saber, were limited to sub-sonic speed and machine guns.

Everything changed after Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. This opened the door to a second generation of jets, such as the F-104 Starfighter, which could break Mach 1 even Mach 2, and carried radar and wind. – to the wind, Hood wrote.

The third generation – which included the Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom – incorporated advanced radars and precision-guided missiles that could engage enemies beyond line of sight. Next came the F-14 Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F-18 Hornet – fourth-generation fighters capable of moving at high G-forces, using attachments of digital data to share information, according to many goals. , and hit targets on the water with laser devices or GPS guidance.

In a 2016 study published by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, Gen. Jeff Harrigian, who has since retired, said fifth-generation fighters such as the F-22 and F-35 include stealth, improved defense, detection and jamming capabilities, combined. avionics, and more.

And depending on one’s perspective, the first sixth-generation aircraft may already be flying.

Northrop Grumman introduced its B-21 Raider as the first fighter of the sixth generation. In an interview with Defense News ahead of the B-21’s 2022 launch, a Northrop official said that the bomber, the use of open architecture, and the use of advanced networking technologies and data sharing to connect sensors to guns in multiple locations. is “the first of the sixth generation system.”

That capability is probably enough to qualify the B-21 as a sixth-generation aircraft, Penney said, though he said its high classification makes it difficult for outside observers to gauge its survivability. in line with the hype.

Hinote views Northrop’s claims with more skepticism and thinks it’s a marketing ploy, but notes that these promotional comments are matters of opinion.

“If they want to call it the sixth generation,” Hinote said. “I really don’t believe that the stealth characteristics and open design of the B-21 make it a big change from what we have. It’s a step forward, it’s a good step, I’m glad that we do it, but maybe it’s not so big that it really belongs to the human race.”