Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on September 18, 2024 at 18:20:10 PST:
The Joint Strike Fighter program aimed for a jet fighter to replace the F-16, F-18, A-10, and Harrier in service with the US Air Force, US Navy, and US Marines, and the British armed forces. This is why the F-35B is the first supersonic VTOL jet fighter to operate with the American and British armed forces, because the Marines and the RAF and Royal Navy were keen to eventually replace their Harriers with a new VTOL jet aircraft able to travel supersonically. As a matter of fact, the cancellation of Hawker Siddeley P.1154 program before any aircraft could be completed and the terminating of the Rockwell International XFV-12 VTOL fighter program at the prototype stage left the US and UK reliant on the high subsonic Harrier as the only fixed-wing VTOL combat jet to support ground forces in conflicts in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Had Rockwell International had worked out the bugs that precluded the XFV-12 prototype from achieving an untethered vertical takeoff, the USAF and US Navy would have been operating the XFV-12 rather than the F-35 with conjunction with the Marines' Harriers. The Air Force Research Laboratory today released a new concept video of the LCAAPS (Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Platform Sharing) program to develop a series of combat and non-combat drones sharing some degree of commonality to reduce development costs, with the double-delta "Species 1" drone being the main UAV and featuring underwing hardpoints for air-to-air missiles. The USAF thus is keenly betting that even if budgetary constraints have forced it put the NGAD program on pause for now, it could view the "Species 1" component as a fiscally affordable tailless alternative to the NGAD because it may double as both an air superiority fighter and interceptor.
In Reply to: The redesigned NGAD posted by Altner on September 17, 2024 at 9:08:05 PST:
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