Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on June 20, 2024 at 16:37:59 PST:
The US Air Force last March reconsidered plans to start retiring the F-22 in 2030, and I should emphasize that the USAF’s plan to procure 200 NGAD fighters by the 2030s is quite modest compared to the original Air Force plan in the late 1980s and early 1990s to procure 750 F-22s in terms of unit quantity because given that only 195 service test and production F-22s were built. Due to its budget cuts for the F/A-XX program, the US Navy could decide to greenlight an attack version of the MQ-25 Stingray studied by Boeing last April for full-scale development and production as a semi-interim replacement for the Super Hornet pending the fielding of the F/A-XX because the proposed armed version of the Stingray could give Navy a stealthy aircraft designed for the same attack role as the A-6 Intruder and the cancelled A-12 Avenger II. As a matter of fact, the early 1990s A-X program (renamed A/F-X in late 1992) was the Navy's second chance to field a stealthy replacement for the A-6, but ended up being shelved in favor of the cheaper Super Hornet alternative to the cancelled A-12 for budgetary reasons. The Navy may have to procure a total just 120 examples of whichever design wins the F/A-XX competition for fiscal reasons because the hoped-for-procurement of 858 A-12 Avenger IIs by the US Navy and Marine Corps prior to the A-12's cancellation in early 1991 (by which time construction of several A-12 airframes was underway) proved too ambitious and lofty with little regard for forthcoming cuts to the Navy's budget for carrier-based aviation.
In Reply to: Re: Is the NGAD program in danger? posted by Altner on June 20, 2024 at 8:50:09 PST:
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