12 new stealth aircraft headed toward service

foreign [Music] troduced the world to stealth Aviation all the way back in the 1980s but today the stealth Revolution is going as strong as ever in fact as we speak there are at least 12 new stealth platforms and active development all around the world let's talk about what these jets are and what they'll mean for the future of Air Combat I'm Alex Hollings and this is air power [Music] foreign America's 34-year Monopoly on stealth Aviation ended in 2017 when China's Chengdu j-20 Mighty Dragon first entered service and although Russia was following pretty closely behind today America's lead in low observable Aviation remains pretty significant the U.S is the world's only nation with two operational stealth Fighters and it's also the only nation with a fleet of heavy payload stealth bombers but the rest of the world is working toward closing that Gap not only are 13 American Allies now operating their own f-35s but there are a bunch of new stealth platforms actively being developed within the secret of confines of r d facilities all over the world but before we dive into them I want to be clear that stealth aircraft are subject to two very different kinds of information operations conducted by both hostile and friendly Nations alike some try to hide their Advanced efforts behind a veil of classified funding While others will often overstate their technological or manufacturing capabilities especially in relation to stealth as a part of geopolitical posturing as a result there are sure to be some stealth aircraft and development that are widely under discussed or reported on and there are likely many others that enjoy much more media attention than they really probably deserve so that's sort of my disclaimer that this list shouldn't be seen as exhaustive in some of the aircraft on it may not really deserve to be here so with all that in mind here's a quick summary of all the stealth aircraft in active development today and how they're intended to stack up against the relatively few stealth platforms that are already flying and we'll start with the good old us of a which currently has three new stealth aircraft in disclosed active development programs Two fighters and one bomber the first fighter comes from the Air Force in the Next Generation air dominance program which aims to field a replacement for the world's first operational stealth fighter the legendary F-22 Raptor this new jet will fill the air superiority roll and be purpose built to dominate air-to-air combat for years to come even as new stealthy competitors begin to emerge while few firm details have been released about this new Fighter the Air Force did acknowledge that a technology demonstrator has already flown all the way back in 2020. this new jet is expected to be even stealthier than the F-22 or F-35 thanks in some small part to potentially using Advanced radar absorbent materials or because of the omission of conventional vertical tail surfaces the ngad fighter is expected to operate alongside a constellation of drone wingmen that will leverage artificial intelligence to execute complex operations after taking their cues from the ngad pilot themselves up next is the Navy's new fighter being developed under the name fax at least for now it's expected to emerge in the 2030s as a replacement for the fa-18 Super Hornet and it'll fly alongside f-35cs for decades to come this program is expected to share a number of common systems with the Air Force's ngad effort though the aircraft themselves will almost certainly be different an emphasis on modular system design in both the Navy and Air Force efforts will allow even dissimilar looking fighters to share a great deal of commonality internally and that's what we'll probably see out of the fax which is a few years behind ngad this fighter is also expected to fly alongside drone accomplices and will almost certainly place a huge emphasis on increasing payload capacity and unrefueled range all with an eye toward offsetting the Strategic advantage that China's long-range anti-ship missiles have created in the Pacific in other words the Navy needs Fighters that can fly off of American carriers and engage Chinese targets from far enough away that they don't turn the carriers into targets themselves and then comes the B-21 Raider which we all got our first glimpse of back in December this new stealth bomber is expected to replace fleets of both America's existing stealth bombers the B-2 Spirit as well as the supersonic b-1b Lancer the B-21 is being built by the same firm responsible for the B2 spirit before it and despite the very similar look they claim that it represents a huge leap in low observable technology the Raider is smaller than the B2 it'll replace but what it lacks in payload capacity it aims to make up for with Mission versatility not only is it designed to be optionally manned but as what will likely be the stealthiest aircraft in history when when it enters service the Raider is also intended to serve as a high-powered sensor node for battle networks an intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance platform and of course as a nuclear weapon delivery vehicle that will bring the Airborne leg of America's nuclear Triad into the 21st century now let's head across the Pacific to America's biggest Global competitor China which was the first nation outside of the U.S to field its own stealth aircraft thanks of course in no small part to a whole bunch of Espionage and intellectual property theft today there are at least two stealth aircraft inactive development headed for Chinese runways and the not too distant future the first is the Shenyang fc31 sometimes called the j-31 or the j-35 now many people have accused China's j-20 of being little more than an amalgam of design traits borrowed from America's F-22 and F-35 and Russia's defunct Mig 1.44 program and this new stealth fighter the j31 appears to be more of the same but just because China has a tenacity for advancement through theft doesn't mean that this jet can be readily dismissed aside from conventional Runway duty this twin-engine fighter is probably destined for service aboard China's growing Fleet of aircraft carriers which currently operate the often troubled j-15 the j-31 flew for the first time in 2012 and today there are at least three prototypes flying once fielded this jet will represent a significant leap in China's carrier capability set though the nation's diesel chugging carriers will still be largely relegated to operations near Chinese or other friendly ports and then we have China's H20 which is the nation's first homegrown stealth bomber effort rumors about a Chinese stealth bomber have been swirling ever since the late 90s when China reportedly got their hands on the wreckage of an F-117 that was shot down over Yugoslavia but discussions about the H20 really heated up back in July of 2014. when the state-run China Daily Newspaper highlighted the nation's efforts to field in and I quote InterContinental strategic bomber capable of penetrating enemy air defenses the article outlined the need for a bomber that could carry 10 tons of ordinance for a minimum of 8 000 kilometers or around 4970 miles without refueling in 2018 China seemingly confirmed that their age 20 would leverage a flying wing design reminiscent of America's own B2 in a video released by the aviation industry Corporation of China an aircraft that looked an awful lot like a flying wing sat under a drop cloth in a strikingly similar presentation to Northrop grumman's own Super Bowl commercial for their forthcoming B-21 Raider a pentagon assessment released in 2021 indicated that this new stealth aircraft likely meets leads China's intended aims though it looks as though this platform will probably be closer to the B2 in capability than the forthcoming B-21 and now let's move over to Russia Russia's stealth efforts have long been hampered by the nation's struggling economy and international sanctions which have only worsened since invading Ukraine last February nonetheless there are at least two stealth aircraft currently in development for the Russian Federation but at this point it's unclear when if ever these Jets could ultimately fly the first is the su-75 Checkmate in July of 2021 Russian aircraft manufacturer UAC unveiled the nation's newest stealth fighter the LTA checkmate at the max air show near Moscow the unveiling received massive Global exposure with Russian officials claiming this new fighter would not only compete with stealthy Jets like the F-35 but it would somehow do it for as low as 30 million million dollars per airframe of course the unveiled aircraft was nothing more than a wooden mock-up and to date there hasn't been any appreciable forward movement in the Checkmate program Russia of course has famously struggled to fund further development and production on the su-57 and is probably hoping foreign investors will step in to pay for development of the Checkmate in recent Russian media coverage it even looks as though the government isn't sure the Checkmate is a stealth fighter at all which could be pretty damning considering the su-57 which they often call stealth actually has a radar cross-section that's around the same size as some fourth generation Fighters when flying clean like the fa-18 Super Hornet for a nation that prioritizes information operations over actual military capability the Checkmate seems to be more of the former than the latter and then we have the tupolev Pack D.A because like China Russia is also looking to field its own heavy payload stealth bomber to counter the threat posed by America's B-2 and forthcoming B-21 now Russia did say that they intended for the PAC da to make its first flight this year but that timeline has almost certainly collapsed thanks to Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine analysis of the PAC da is pretty limited by the fact that this bomber doesn't even exist and as such it's subject to both intentional propaganda and unintentional misconceptions published in open source Outlets according to Tas a media outlet that is owned by the Russian government this new bomber will utilize a flying wing design much like the B-2 Spirit it'll be subsonic and have heavy payload capabilities that'll include the ability to launch cruise missiles Precision bombs and even Hypersonic weapons this bomber if it ever manifests will probably aspire to match the B2 in capability rather than exceed it up next is NATO's favorite Frenemy turkey with the the Turkish Aerospace Industries tfx late in 2022 turkey gave the world its first look at the progress on their prototype of this new stealth aircraft which aims to be the nation's first indigenous fifth generation fighter using that fifth generation designation offers us some important insight into the level of capability that this aircraft is aiming for something in the range of existing stealth Fighters like the F-22 and the F-35 rather than something much more advanced that might be touted as sixth generation this program has been underway since 2010 and turkey intends to unveil their first completed prototype later this year as you almost certainly know Turkey did have plans to purchase f-35s to fly alongside this homegrown fighter But after those plans fell through concerns were also raised about the nation's ability to Source American-made fifth generation engines as such this aircraft may be forced to to fly with older engines and that'll compromise some degree of its low observability turkey hopes to have this fighter in service by 2028 but that timeline seems pretty optimistic now let's head back out to the Pacific to South Korea and Indonesia with the kf-21 now this is an unusual entry on this list because it doesn't really boast a lot of the capabilities that are really required for stealth aircraft like the ability to carry its Munitions internally but this South korean-led effort has fielded an aircraft that's undoubtedly stealthier than any fourth generation fighter in service and there has been discussion of this platform transitioning to carrying internal payloads and later iterations the kf-21 made its Maiden flight in July of last year and conducted its first supersonic test flight just a few weeks ago the kf-21 block 1 aims to be an air superiority platform that'll replace the very dated f4s and F5s South Korea has in service with plans for a block 2 version to increase its capability set to make it into a truly multi-role platform now let's move on to the UK Italy maybe Sweden and now Japan and the global combat air program or gcap which is also sort of the UK's Tempest program The uk-led Tempest effort was recently merged with Japan's FX program to produce what has been called the global combat air program or gcap this effort aims to field a sixth generation Fighter by 2035 leveraging some of the same capabilities touted by America's ngad and fax efforts like flying with AI enabled drone wingmen this stealth aircraft is slated to replace the UK's eurofighter typhoon Fleet as well as other jets in service for Italy and Japan and maybe Sweden I say maybe because when it was recently announced that the UK in Italy would partner with Japan and Sweden was oddly left out of the announcement so it's not really clear if they remain as invested as they were when they signed a memorandum of understanding for tempest back in 2020. link the American efforts there are several new technologies mentioned as possibilities for tempest from adaptive cycle engines to directed energy weapons but it's hard to say exactly what capabilities this fighter will bring to bear until the program has either matured or its actual maturity is disclosed but it seems all but certain that this platform will be a real performer and while we're talking European stealth fighters let's talk about the future combat air system from France Germany and Spain initially a partnership between just France and Germany that began in 2017 Spain recently joined this program that aims to also field a sixth generation fighter akin to those in development within Allied Nations like ngad and Tempest and like those Fighters they this next Generation stealth aircraft will leverage drone wingmen that take their cues from the crude primary Fighter the first test flights for the fcas fighter are expected to take place in 2028 or 2029 but it's unclear if that goal is oriented toward a technology demonstrator that may or may not resemble the Fighter's actual final design like America's efforts this program has been touted as a system of systems highlighting its focus on network connectivity and data fusion with uncrewed platforms a full-scale mock-up of this fighter was unveiled in 2019 but as the war zone noted at the time that mock-up was probably a representation of one of a number of potential designs and that brings us to our last entry for the day in India in the advanced medium combat aircraft or amca program India's first indigenous fifth generation fighter reportedly went through the critical design review last December and aims to fly its first prototype in 2028 once again that fifth generation designation gives us some insight into its Ambitions seemingly aiming to field a broadly capable stealth aircraft that leverages some degree of data Fusion but without the Cutting Edge Tech under development for so-called sixth generation Jets India of course was an early partner in Russia's su-57 felon program then known as the PAC fa but they bailed out on their Russian Partners seemingly as a result of its underwhelming stealth performance but with China already Fielding the j-20 and working toward Fielding the j-31 India is invested in Fielding a low observable jet that can stand and swing with China's best efforts it isn't uncommon today to find people arguing that the days of stealth are coming to an end thanks to Hypersonic missiles and Advanced Air Defense systems but the truth is it seems far more likely that stealth will become much more prevalent in all military Aviation applications as costs come down and Technology becomes more common but as we've discussed in the past stealth is not a capability that you either have or don't it really denotes where you fall on the observability Spectrum either on the high observable or the low observable sign and as it gets cheaper to field aircraft on the lower observable side of that Spectrum we can expect to see more aircraft fielded that do but it's important to note that the next generation of stealth aircraft will be even further down that low observable Road the F-117 the F-22 Raptor the B2 Spirit and the new ngad fighter are all called stealth but they all actually represent different stealth Technologies and different ways to leverage them the fact of the matter is stealth isn't going anywhere but how stealthy you have to be for us to call you stealth well that may just change in the coming day AIDS and on that ends yet another edition of air power from sandbox news I'm Alex Hollings make sure you swing by sandboxnews.com today and every day for all the latest in news entertainment and motivation from all around the force if you got anything out of today's video make sure to click like And subscribe down below and leave me a comment so I know what I should cover next and of course don't forget to tap on that Bell icon so you never miss a drop from sandbox news foreign foreign

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 490,045

Keywords: STEALTH, STEALTH AIRCRAFT, STEALTH FIGHTER, STEALTH BOMBER, B-21, B21, F35, F22, FAXX, NGAD, KOREAN STEALTH FIGHTER, J-20, J20, H20, H-20, PAK DA, SU 57, SU57, TEMPEST

Id: iwP3ULB_tMw

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 10 2023