Fact or Fiction: Next-Generation Air Dominance Aircraft “Flies”

COMMENT

Methinks the US Air Force is unprofessionally cheerleading and stretching definitions of having  “flown” a Next-Generation Air Dominance aircraft, until proven otherwise. The USAF has then prevented any chance of public verification due to its wall of security “classification”. 

What could the Sixth Generation Aircraft “prototype” amount to?

SUMMARY

Wiki reports “On September 14, 2020, the USAF announced [via DefenseNews] that a prototype aircraft part of the Next-Generation Air Dominance [NGAD] program had flown for the first time at the Air Force Foundation's Air, Space, and Cyber Conference. The details remain highly classified. There are no available details about the plane's first flight date and location or capabilities. Additionally, there is no available information on who the manufacturer of the aircraft is.”

DEFENSENEWS ARTICLE

The announcement: came via Valerie Insinna at DefenseNews, who, in an excellent article, reported September 14, 2020:

“The US Air Force has built and flown a mysterious full-scale prototype of its future fighter jet”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force has secretly designed, built and flown at least one prototype of its enigmatic next-generation fighter jet, [Will Roper] the service’s top acquisition official confirmed to Defense News on Sept. 14.

The development is certain to shock the defense community, which last saw the first flight of an experimental fighter during the battle for the Joint Strike Fighter contract 20 years ago. With the Air Force’s future fighter program still in its infancy, the rollout and successful first flight of a demonstrator was not expected for years.

“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference. “We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”

Almost every detail about the aircraft itself will remain a mystery due to the classification of the Next Generation Air Dominance program, the Air Force’s effort for fielding a family of connected air warfare systems that could include fighters, drones and other networked platforms in space or the cyber realm. [IS THAT MEANT TO PROVE “FLOWN”?]

Roper declined to comment on how many prototype aircraft have been flown or which defense contractors manufactured them. He wouldn’t say when or where the first flight occurred. And he refused to divulge any aspect of the aircraft’s design — its mission, whether it was uncrewed or optionally crewed, whether it could fly at hypersonic speeds or if it has stealth characteristics.

Those attributes, he said, are beside the point.

The importance, Roper said...”In fact, [we’ve] not just checked the boxes, [we’ve] demonstrated something that’s truly magical.” ["magical" WTF! Really professional USAF language?]

Now, the Next Generation Air Dominance program, or NGAD, sits at a decision point. Roper declined to say how quickly the Air Force could move its next-gen fighter into production, except to say “pretty fast.” But before the service decides to begin producing a new generation of fighters, it must determine how many aircraft it will commit to buy and when it wants to start purchasing them — all choices that could influence the fiscal 2022 budget.

The program itself has the potential to radically shake up the defense industry. Should the Air Force move to buy NGAD in the near term, it will be adding a challenger to the F-35 and F-15EX programs, potentially putting those programs at risk...and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor.

“I have to imagine there will be a lot of engineers — maybe famous ones with well-known household names with billions of dollars to invest — that will decide starting the world’s greatest aircraft company to build the world’s greatest aircraft with the Air Force is exactly the kind of inspiring thing they want to do as a hobby or even a main gig,” [the USAF's] Roper said.

The disclosure of a flying full-scale fighter prototype could be just what the Air Force needs to garner more financial support from Congress during a critical time where the service is facing budget constraints and needs to gain momentum, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense budget analyst with the American Enterprise Institute."

SEE WHOLE EXCELLENT DEFENSENEWS ARTICLE

COMMENT

The USAF's over-the-top Trumpadorian language suits snake oil selling well!

"Concept art released by the Air Force Research Lab in 2018 shows a potential next-generation fighter concept, or F-X. (Air Force Research Laboratory)" (Courtesy via DefenseNews 2019)

---

This rendering of a Next Generation Air Dominance aircraft, by Lockheed Martin, shows a tailless stealthy future fighter. (Lockheed Martin) (Courtesy via DefenseNews 2019)

---

This artist's rendering from Boeing shows one concept for the Air Force's future fighter, known as Next Generation Air Dominance. (Boeing)(Courtesy via DefenseNews 2019)
---