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F-X 2012

The Department of the Air Force released a classified solicitation to industry 18 May 2023 for an engineering and manufacturing development contract for the Next Generation Air Dominance Platform with the intent to award a contract in 2024. "The NGAD Platform is a vital element of the Air Dominance family of systems which represents a generational leap in technology over the F-22, which it will replace," said Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. "NGAD will include attributes such as enhanced lethality and the ability to survive, persist, interoperate, and adapt in the air domain, all within highly contested operational environments. No one does this better than the U.S. Air Force, but we will lose that edge if we don't move forward now."

This solicitation release formally begins the source selection process providing industry with the requirements the DAF expects for NGAD, as the future replacement of the F-22 Raptor. The NGAD acquisition strategy will invigorate and broaden the industrial base to deliver rapid and innovative warfighting capabilities. The strategy incorporates lessons learned from recent Air Force acquisition programs and will leverage open architecture standards. This approach will enable the government to maximize competition throughout the life cycle, provide a larger, more responsive industry base and drastically reduce maintenance and sustainment costs.

The NGAD Platform was one of many critical combat capabilities that will enable counter-air missions with the ability to strike both airborne and ground-based threats to achieve air superiority and support the Joint Force. Further information on the NGAD Platform's technical and programmatic details are classified to protect operational and technological advantages. The Collaborative Combat Aircraft program was not part of this NGAD Platform source selection.

The Next Generation Air Dominance study defined the projected threat domains and capability gaps for the 2020-2050 timeframe. DARPA conducted a study of current air dominance efforts in coordination with the United States Air Force and Navy and explore potential technology developmental areas to ensure the air superiority of the United States in the future. The study considered roles of manned and unmanned platforms; the relative performance of alternative integrated systems concepts that combine various mixes of capabilities networked together; and the cost effectiveness of alternative balances of platforms and systems that provide surveillance, command and control, electronic warfare, and weapons functions.

The keywas that technology development should outpace threat development to enable right-time fielding of necessary air dominance capabilities. The 2035 battle space will be a tough, anti-access (preventing U.S. forces entry into a theater of operations), aerial denial (preventing U.S. forces freedom of action in the more narrow confines of the area under an enemy’s direct control) environment, also known as A2AD. This would force both the U.S. and adversary nations to have their respective systems linked via multiple networks. These networks allow forces to exchange battle management command and control data, sensor data, and weapons data across and among the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of warfare.

Innovative platform concepts for airframe, propulsion, sensors, weapons integration, avionics, and active and passive survivability features were explored as a central part of the concept definition effort. This effort also explored the expanded development and use of automated and advanced aerospace engineering design tools, modeling, and simulation in areas that can increase the likelihood of producing more capable products with improved efficiency.

Following the initial multi-agency study, DARPA presented technical challenges to industry to allow them to explore and present potential solutions. Enabling technologies are next generation platforms, advanced networking capabilities, reliable navigation, passive and active defense, electronic attack, area denial, advanced sensors, and cyber technologies. After the study, it was envisioned that high potential prototype programs would emerge to develop technologies for future air dominance. Early planning for future technologies would also help to define the funding baselines for DOD research and development and acquisition programs. This effortwas funded from PE 0602702E, Project TT-07, and from PE 0603286E, Project AIR-01.

The FY 2013-2042 Air Force aviation plan stated it was consistent with the tenets of the January 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance and the US national security requirements. The 30-year Aviation Plan lists an effort to develop a 6th-generation fighter, dubbed F-X, to replace the Air Force’s F-22 Raptors and another 6th-gen jet called F/A-XX that’s slated to replace the Navy’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.

In October of 2012, Frank Kendall, Undersecretary of Defense, tasked DARPA to explore concepts for the next generation of air dominance. In an attempt to break the battle space into smaller pieces, DARPA defined separate focus areas that span capabilities across the air dominance battle space. “This decomposition may not be perfect and would most certainly be fine-tuned over time, but it does provide a logical construct for looking at the future battle space,” said Mark Jefferson, director of Next Generation Air Dominance programs at the Skunk Works®. Breaking next generation air dominance into separate focus areas provides a mechanism to absorb the activities taking place across the air, land, sea, space, and cyber domains in the battle space as well as providing an organizing construct for analyzing it. The fiscal year 2016 budget request included $5,000,000 in the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Navy account for the Next Generation Fighter and $8,830,000 in the Research, Development, Test and Evaluation, Air Force account for the Next Generation Air Dominance program. With the submission of the budget request, the Department of Defense also announced the Aerospace Innovation Initiative (AII), described by the Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics) as a new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-led program, in partnership with the Navy and Air Force, intended to develop technologies and address the risks associated with the air dominance platforms that would follow the F–35.

While these efforts have been described publicly as ‘‘F–X’’, ‘‘F/A–XX’’, ‘‘sixth generation fighter’’, or ‘‘X-plane’’, these efforts not as a single-minded focus on acquisition of the next fighter aircraft, but as a consideration of the broader range of capabilities necessary to ensure air dominance in future conflicts, and supports these efforts as such.

Northrop concepts for a naval F/A-XX and NGAD (NGAD also known as F-X) are noticeably different but share mutual technologies and features. For example, the Navy design appears to have twin engines while the Air Force design appears to only have one. Both concepts appear to be supersonic flying wings designed for broadband all-aspect stealth.

It may be possible that the next-generation fighters could have a lot of excess power available for directed energy weapons. If the Pentagon and industry combine the technologies from the Navy’s Variable Cycle Advanced Technology (VCAT) program whichwas working on an adaptive turbine, this could yield huge performance gains.

Electromechanical actuation offers great potential advantages in improved maintainability, ease of distribution, actuator packaging and installation, system-level power-to-weight ratios, stiffness, installation flexibility, and application-customized designs. These theoretical advantages over hydraulic and pneumatic systems have been recognized for at least forty years. At the same time, hydraulic actuation dominates critical applications in aerospace today, particularly for the movement of aircraft primary flight control surfaces. New aircraft, including the Lockheed Martin F-35, Boeing 787, and Airbus A380, still use hydraulics in primary flight control applications.

Unmanned aircraft programs, including demonstration programs executed by DARPA, may have particular benefit from such actuators, as the inclusion of hydraulic systems adds great expense, complexity, and weight to an aircraft. The military transition path would be inclusion of an actuator into a future aircraft program of a record. Aerospace-grade electromechanical actuators can also find application in the commercial aerospace industry. Itwas an oft-stated goal to move towards more-electric aircraft, however electromechanical actuators have largely been relegated to non- flight-critical applications. A commercial transition path would be development of a flight-grade actuator and inclusion into a future aircraft program of record. As an example, Airbus explicitly states that a move towards electric actuationwas in their long-term goals, as they desire to reduce conversion losses and increase overall systems efficiency.

The Next Generation Air Dominance study defined the projected threat domains and capability gaps for the 2020-2050 timeframe. DARPA conducted a study of current air dominance efforts in coordination with the United States Air Force and Navy and explored potential technology developmental areas to ensure the air superiority of the United States in the future.

The study considered roles of manned and unmanned platforms; the relative performance of alternative integrated systems concepts that combine various mixes of capabilities networked together; and the cost effectiveness of alternative balances of platforms and systems that provide surveillance, command and control, electronic warfare, and weapons functions. Innovative concepts for platform, propulsion, sensors, weapons integration, avionics, and active and passive survivability features were explored as part of the concept definition effort. This effort explored the expanded development and use of automated and advanced aerospace engineering design tools, modeling, and simulation in areas that can increase the likelihood of producing more capable products with improved efficiency.

Following the initial multi-agency study, DARPA presented technical challenges to industry to allow them to explore and present potential solutions as part of the technical feasibility and system integration studies. Enabling technologies are advanced networking capabilities, reliable navigation, passive and active defense, electronic attack, area denial, advanced sensors, and cyber technologies. After the study, itwas envisioned that high-potential prototype programs would emerge to develop technologies for future air dominance. Early planning for future technologies would also help to define the funding baselines for DoD research and development and acquisition programs.

Led by the Skunk Works®, Lockheed Martin has been working alongside the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Air Force, and Navy to determine viable approaches to maintain U.S. air dominance capabilities in the post-2035 world. The major challenge for Lockheed Martin would be integrating across the DARPA-defined domains. Adopting a multi-domain, net-enabled, system-of-systems approach to air dominance development would equip US Joint Forces to achieve the freedom to conduct air operations at any given time and place.

Manned-unmanned teaming not only demands the real-time information exchange capability described above – it’s also something that would likely be required to achieve air dominance for generations to come. Imagine an F-22 or F-35 formation leading four unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on a mission. Now imagine those UAVs acting collaboratively, interpreting a single tactical order from the F-22s or F-35s and splitting that order into individual tasks. That scenario describes collaborative operations – a technology the Lockheed Martin teamwas currently developing and simulating, and more significantly, something that wouldvhelp US fighters maintain control of the skies.

Northrop’s concept for the Air Force NGAD fighter depicted a single-engine flying-wing aircraft armed with a directed energy weapon. According to Northrop, directed energy weapons and thermal management for those weapons—and advanced sensors—are going to be the fundamental challenges for a sixth-generation warplane.

In terms of raw aerodynamic performance, the F/A-XX and NGAD are likely to have similar performance to the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor. However, if completed, it would be much stealthier over a wider range of frequencies.

Many emerging and future USAF and USN aircraft programs, including efforts related to Next Generation Air Dominance, drive to demanding actuator packaging requirements that today’s electrohydrostatic or hydraulic actuators cannot easily meet. Lighter, smaller, more reliable actuation technology can help enable game-changing new aircraft capabilities.