Moderadores: Lepanto, poliorcetes, Edu, Orel
USAF: UAVs could start replacing manned fighters in mid-2020
As older F-16s approach the end of their service life in five to eight years, the USAF may consider replacing the manned fighters with attritable unmanned air vehicles (UAV).
The service wants to rethink the way it does aerial combat using new technology, including attritable UAVs, says General James Michael Holmes, the head of Air Combat Command.
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“As we go forward in the future, what I would rather build is a capabilities roadmap that shows how we’re going to accomplish the missions for the Air Force that we traditionally have done with [manned] fighters.
The first opportunity to add attritable aircraft to the USAF inventory could come with the retirement of F-16 Block 25 and Block 30 aircraft in the mid-2020s. Sometime in the next five, six, seven or eight years, depending on budgets and capability, we’ll have to decide what we’re going to do about those airplanes. And so, there’s an opportunity there if we want to cut in something new – low-cost attritable loyal wingman, the different things that we’re looking at and experimenting with.”
After those fighters, the F-16 Block 40 and Block 50, which have substantial airframe life remaining, but need modernisation upgrades, could be on the chopping block, he says.
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The F-35A has been criticised for having a limited combat range of 600nm (1110km), insufficient to avoid a surprise hit by China... In part to solve that limitation, the Air Force Research Laboratory and Kratos Defense have been developing the XQ-58A Valkyrie, a low-cost UAV with a 1,500nm combat radius. The attritable aircraft could be flown independently or as a loyal wingman alongside manned aircraft.
The range problem is also influencing the USAF’s thinking on its next-generation fighter development programme, called Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD), says Holmes.
“So as you look at NGAD, and you look at the follow-on programmes, I wouldn’t expect it to produce things that necessarily look like a traditional [manned] fighter, in that same kind of swap between range and payload and distance that we’ve done in a traditional fighter,” he says... How about the unmanned, low cost of tradable options? And, how might they do those same missions?”
Ultimately, it might mean the USA’s next fighter aircraft is unmanned.
“What we’re concerned about at Air Combat Command is not necessarily whether it’ll be a manned fighter, but how are we going to provide the capabilities that the joint force depends on us to do?”
https://www.flightglobal.com/military-u ... 78.article
Roberto Montesa escribió:https://publicaciones.defensa.gob.es/revista-de-aeronautica-y-astronautica-891-revistas-pdf.html
Magnifico resumen en el articulo sobre la generacion futura.
"La hipótesis más probable es que el avión disponga desde sus inicios de un radar AESA avanzado de funcionamiento en la banda X (aunque dada la tendencia actual no es descartable la integración de radares adicionales basados en la banda L, previsiblemente en los bordes de ataque del ala o en ciertas zonas de la sección del morro), dotado de diferentes modos de búsqueda aire aire –tanto BVR (beyond visual range) como ACM (air combat maneuvering)– y aire suelo, así como un EOS (Electro Optical System) de dimensiones más contenidas que los dispositivos existentes en la actualidad. "
Pathfinder escribió:No sé porqué, pero el foro corta muchas de las imágenes grandes, sin hacer un escalado. Al menos en mi ordenador, aparece así.
Orel escribió:China dice que el año que viene hará el primer vuelo su primer prototipo de nueva generación:
http://alert5.com/2020/06/30/china-to-f ... next-year/
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