NGAD: America's Masterstroke in Sixth-Gen Fighter Innovation (Reupload)

imagine an aircraft that breaks all the rules one that sets a new standard for what human beings are capable of creating imagine an aircraft so advanced in its technological capability so capable of blurring the lines between man and machine that it and its human pilot form a symbiosis that science fiction writers couldn't dream of and imagine an aircraft despite its small size that can outclass and handily defeat any plane in the skies today it's the one plane to rule them all if the United States Air Force has its way the aircraft we're describing is closer than we might think so close in fact that a prototype has already taken to the skies this aircraft if it does exist is the brainchild of the Air Force's next Generation air dominance program or ngar and it's slated to make even the Air Force's own F-22 Raptor and F-35 lightning II obsolete one way or another this will not be the last time you hear us talk about engad or Mega projects the program is currently in his early stages with the vast majority of the answers we're most curious about being guarded under lock key and top secret classification but here in the engad's first days before it's even received its proper name we're going to take a deep dive into what a Next Generation fighter aircraft might be and what we know about the engad and when if ever it might take command of the Skies [Music] in March of 2014 the defense Advanced research projects agency or DARPA announced that it had completed its so-called air dominance initiative study an investigation into the Technologies and resources that would define the next generation of aerial combat in response to the study the United States Air Force kicked off the engad program alongside the U.S Navy who kicked off a separate emgad program that's basically looking to do the same thing and which we're all going to assume is going to follow after the Air Force's version today's episode is sponsored by War Thunder River dreamed of commanding over 2 000 tags 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look for most of the World building a Next Generation fighter would translate to building a so-called fifth generation plane fifth gen fighter aircraft have a few key characteristics enhanced stealth capabilities the ability to fly at Super Cruise Advanced avionics and super maneuverability all of which put them a league above the fighter aircraft that most of the world possesses but the United States as well as China and if you're particularly gullible Russia all have fifth generation Fighters already meaning that for the US a Next Generation fighter would move toward territory the world hasn't attempted to Traverse a sixth generation fighter it's obviously very hard to put a finger on precisely what will Define a sixth generation aircraft partly because oh we just won't know until someone actually builds one and partly because whichever country is next up in building a really Advanced aircraft is probably going to call it sixth generation just because nobody else can really correct them without building their own but military experts have identified a few key characteristics that future Sixth Gen aircraft are likely to possess and what that Liz doesn't include is well just as important as what it does a sixth generation aircraft at least generally is not going to be wasting its time in close quarters aerial dogfights with other combat aircraft instead it'll be more than able to shoot down aircraft using long-range weapons before the enemy aircraft can even see them and perhaps before the enemy aircraft even knows that the sixth generation fighter is there instead Sixth Gen Fighters will likely have enhanced abilities to attack ground targets engage in electronic and cyber warfare and even even travel into space and as in all things 21st century Automation and artificial intelligence are also crucial in a sixth generation aircraft which will likely be able to operate in both manned and unmanned modes finally there was sit at the center of a battlefield in a command and control role communicating with unmanned drones other fighter aircraft soldiers on the ground tacticians at a base far from conflict and even the plane's own Suite of hyper Advanced sensors and Technology data Fusion machine learning and even virtual reality tools for Pilots could all play a central role in the fighter aircraft to come stealth technology might become even more advanced and some theorists believe that directed energy weapons that is lasers might be included with 6th generation aircraft too now a quick look at the United States current air force compared to the rest of the world might have you asking the question of why exactly would the U.S need a sixth generation aircraft so quickly although China's j-20 fighter is being mass produced it's still vastly outnumbered by American 5th generation Asian planes and the oncoming j31 is unlikely to turn the tides the Russian su-57 appears to be a hell of a dud and although we've done a recent video on some of the other fifth generation aircraft popping up around the world it's unlikely that any of those aircraft will be mass produced within the decade the American F-35 with software updates is expected to remain in Frontline service for a very long time and given that thousands of these planes are already built or on order it doesn't seem feasible that any other world power could possibly catch up but a closer look at the world suggests that some Nations might be looking to skip over fifth generation Fighters entirely and instead go straight for Generation 6. Japan's FX program may include sick generation elements and although we take this with some healthy skepticism Russia has claimed that it started work on the PAC DP aircraft a super Advanced Interceptor India has also made Illusions to their desire to lay the groundwork for 6th gen research and the future combat air system a collaborative effort between Britain Sweden is a France Germany and Spain Endeavors to bring Europe its first indigenously produced 6th gen aircraft finally and most concerning for the U.S China has built on its successful production of the j-20 with exploratory Research into a sixth generation fighter of their own taken together this spells the sort of trouble that the American Military loves to address an urgent reason or maybe a convenient excuse depending on how you see it to throw a metric ton of money at the Air Force's r d budget in the hopes that the American Military might just remain ahead of the curve on the American side the Air Force and the Navy both expect to retire a number of older fighter aircraft in the coming decades with no new orders of f-35s expected to replace them meaning that if the U.S is going to keep its bases when aircraft carriers stocked then a sixth generation fighter is the best way to do it [Music] the exact participants in the end guys like most other things about the program are currently unknown but given that Lockheed Martin Boeing and Northrop Grumman have all expressed their own dedication toward researching sixth generation Technologies it's probable that at least one and perhaps all three of those companies are involved with the engad program Lockheed Martin in particular has produced both of America's fifth generation Fighters suggesting that they might be especially well equipped to help the Air Force out on this one what we do know is that once DARPA had completed its exploratory study they launched a second program this time with the goal of developing X Planes experimental planes that the US government can then test tweak and refine at their Leisure a year later the Air Force announced their experiority 2030 plan which didn't call for the development of a specific plane but instead a list of technological capabilities which could then be adapted into multiple aircraft eventually the 2030 plan became the end Gap plan which according to the Air Force has four publicly acknowledged technological priorities the program is supposed to produce Advanced engine technology providing more power for the same amount of fuel while also running cooler engines it's looking to include uncrewed aircraft which we'll definitely talk about later in addition to Amanda superiority Fighter the program will develop new Composites and structures to perform the job of an aircraft better while being lower cost and the eventual finished product will include a range of sensors and electronic capabilities that should significantly run up anything that you could attach to a plane today and although the end gear program is fairly new or at least bat swap but public believes the Air Force announced in 2020 that they had already designed assembled and flown a technology demonstrator prototype it's unclear just how many of the features eventually intended for the fighter were ready for inclusion in this early prototype but two years later the Air Force announced that the engads technology was far enough along that the program was moving into the engineering manufacture and design phase that is to say the Air Force already has the bulk of the Technologies they need to incorporate into the fighter so now it's just a matter of finalizing the craft itself and figuring out how its production lines are going to work what the Air Force has announced is that their technology demonstrator has broken a lot of Records although whether those are altitude speed payload design or some other sort of record is completely unknown and despite a couple of pieces of artwork by Lockheed Martin which depict a super Advanced manned fighter that some analysts believe might be the endgad there is no way to verify any aspects of the engad's true outward appearance it's hard to say whether this means that the hard part is over or whether it's just getting started but regardless we're currently three years past the announcement of a flight demonstrator the F-22 program took seven years to get from the first flight of an industry prototype to the first flight of a development version of the plane while the F-35 program took six years to go from the first flight of an experimental craft to the first flight of a production line model suggesting that at this stage the engad is probably roughly halfway between demonstrator and the beginnings of assembly line production using the F-35 program as a comparison experimental versions of the crafted completed flight testing by the three year mark and though we certainly can't confirm that the end guard has done the same it's entirely feasible that some folks with a very high security clearance might have a clear idea of the plane both inside and out one other detail that the Air Force has revealed is the ngad's price tag the program requested an allotment of 1.66 billion dollars in 2023 with projections indicating that it will need another 11.7 billion dollars between 2024 and 2027. these are a significant hike when compared to the program allotments prior to 2022 which called for under a billion dollars annually but according to the Air Force themselves a billion dollars might not get the US very far when it comes to the aircraft itself Air Force secretary Frank Kendall has indicated that a single engad aircraft is likely to cost well into the hundreds of Millions for a single one that may be comparable or greater than the F-22 use price tag of 143 million dollars in today's money and it certainly outpaces the F-35 at 75 million dollars a piece but given that the Air Force and navy have well over a thousand f-35s on order the ngaz projection might not be too daunting for America's military superbudget finally we've got to discuss the idea that the so-called digital Century series a reference to a policy that the Air Force procedure in the 1950s and 60s in the original Century series The Air Force responded to the development of rapidly advancing jet technology by producing relatively quick runs of variety of aircraft prioritizing flexible production lines and adaptability because they knew that any aircraft they produced in a given year would probably be obsolete 10 years later today's Air Force is hoping to develop that same flexible production ability producing a higher number of aircraft designs and production lines in order to cope with the rapidly changing demands of the digital world this could potentially mean that different companies might receive contracts to work on the same aircraft but say an aircraft design firm might get a long-term contract to produce multiple aircraft designs which that then pass off to a company whose contracts allow it to produce all of the aircraft they can only for the completed aircraft to move into the care of a company contracted to give it Operational Support during its service life the implications of this approach could be game changing not just for the American military-industrial complex but for the Air Force as well while the F-35 by example is expected to have a service life through the 2070s the nguard program might actually be meant to field a whole collection of aircraft Each of which would assimilate the top of the line technologies that the program is trying to provide now this obviously would be a bit of a dream situation for us here on Mega project and it would be a fascinating process to observe as short runs of individual aircraft quickly responding to the needs of a given moment is pretty interesting stuff having these aircraft built in a modular approach where various individual systems can be rapidly overhauled and reintegrated into a given old or new aircraft it would bring a sort of cutting-edge Versatility that modern Air Forces can only dream of an April 2022 Announcement by the Air Force Chief of Staff who disclosed that the engad's flight control and mission system software would be developed separately gave at least one early hint that this is precisely where the engad program is headed thank you and there's one other Wrinkle in the ngad program that we've really really got to talk about here and that's the concept of the loyal wingman a series of uncrewed drones that secretary Kendall has announced will fly directly alongside the engads man fighters in a 2023 conference in Aurora Colorado Kendall announced that the Air Force is looking for initial run of 200 engad Fighters which in itself was a big Revelation but he also specified that along with the 200 Fighters the Air Force expects to procure a thousand drones to back those planes up in combat of those thousands 400 will be allotted to the engad fighters basically two drones per Fighter the other 600 will fall in behind 300 specially modified F-35 Fighters potentially with the option to upgrade the rest of the F-35 Fleet to get drone buddies of their own drone wingmen are one of those things that have been talked about in military Aviation for decades but they're particularly difficult to build and before 2023 there were only minimal indicators that they might pass from science fiction into science fact While most drones are either controlled by operators on the ground or otherwise have fairly simple functions to carry out by themselves in the sky a wingman for a fighter aircraft would have to be fully autonomous and capable of participating in fast-paced unpredictable aerial combat with no dependence on outside input after all it would be basically unfeasible to employ enough drone operated teams to keep a thousand Wing men uavs in the sky at a given time it's a very tough challenge to design but it's exactly what the Air Force is hoping to introduce named the collaborative combat aircraft or CCA this loyal wingman drone is said to be able to participate in electronic attacks and carry and fire air-to-air air to service missiles since stealthy aircraft need to store their missiles and internal weapons Bays they can't carry very many but a pilot with two drones worth of additional missiles is a hell of a lot more dangerous on the battlefield drone wingmen could also be able to sacrifice themselves in a battle environment far more easily than a human pilot would transforming U.S air power into a force where two-thirds of its airborne casualties won't matter much in the long run making a whole range of previously Unthinkable attack and defense tactics perfectly reasonable these drones could also fly complex patterns without having to worry about the effects of g-forces and there'd be quite a bit easier and cheaper to produce than an equal number of additional angad Fighters the Air Forces service acquisition Chief Andrew Hunter is on record describing the CCA wingman as very much within grasp strongly implying that they're likely to enter service around or at the same time that the engad starts showing up in Air Force squadrons according to secretary Kendall quote one way to think of ccas is as remotely controlled versions of the targeting pods electronic warfare pods or weapons now carried under the wings of our crude aircraft end quote this could potentially be a way of simplifying the technology required for a drone wingman after all even current fifth generation Fighters are meant to conduct air-to-air combat very long range with the basic assumption that if they find themselves needing to dogfighting Close Quarters then something has gone very very wrong as such it may be a lot more feasible to teach these ccas to stay close to their man fighter plane and launch weapons as needed with more advanced aerial combat capabilities coming later Brigadier General Dale White who oversees the Air Force's program on Advanced aircraft has specified that much of the AI and aircraft team operating programs needed for the ccas already exist as part of the Air Force's so-called project skyborg and the xq-58 valkyrie prototype is expected to be a test bed for future advancements [Music] so if the engad really is what it appears to be the final and perhaps most critical question is when will the program's first fighter aircraft enter active service in 2022 Air Force secretary Kendall has stated that at least some of the engad's capabilities will be delivered by 2030. but this is obviously very vague Kendall also stated that the engad would be approaching production by the end of the decade but as for how that squares with only some of the engad's capabilities being available by then is hard to say perhaps the Air Force really does intend to pursue several iterations of a fighter aircraft with their first iteration featuring only a smaller proportion of the engad's eventual Suite of Technologies or perhaps one of Kendall's statements was meant to take precedence over the other one it comes from the US Navy rather than the Air Force which is working on its own ngad program but also looking at the production of a new Surface warship and new submarine according to the Navy the engad program will begin acquiring production line aircraft before either their warship or submarine programs award any contracts and given the Navy's Reliance on the F-35 for the latest fighter acquisition it's entirely possible that the fighter attack aircraft they're looking at for their engad is the same one that the Air Force wants this could imply production line assembly beginning within the next four to six years with deliveries on an aircraft matching up well against the timeline that secretary Kendall provided and since the Navy has a number of other programs waiting for approval we can reasonably assume that they've got some very clear expectations around their own acquisition timeline and a second indicator comes from the Air Force's statements about its F-22 fighter which despite being a cutting-edge fighter even some 20 plus years after it first took to the skies well it's getting old and it's not likely to be survivable in air-to-air battles far past 2030. the Air Force's decision to Fast Track the engad likely isn't a coincident and it's understandable that they might want to be able to slot a new fighter cleanly into the combat role that the F-22 leaves behind that being said a number of Air Force and Pentagon Personnel have expressed skepticism about the prospect of having a production line and guard Fighter by the end of the decade given the Myriad delays behind the F-22 and F-35 programs a little bit of concern about such an ambitious timeline is already understandable but with only a few years between now and 2030 it becomes less and less likely that the Air Force can thread that particular needle in time perhaps a delivery timeline closer to 2035 will make a bit more sense and for the record it's highly unlikely that any other Nation would have their own sixth generation aircraft any time remotely close to that deadline so at present that's all we know about the engad about its technological sophistication its potential Innovative approach to short-run high-tech aircraft creation and about when we might expect to see it in the skies but with such a potentially groundbreaking aircraft one that seems to be just inches away from an official announcement you can bet that we'll be back here on Mega projects one day diving into the sixth generation fighter plane or even multiple planes that the engad will introduce to the skies so thank you for watching today I hope you enjoyed the video if you're hungry for more thrilling battles and immersive combat then it's time to play War Thunder join millions of players and experience the most comprehensive vehicle combat game ever made click the link in the description below to play War Thunder on PC Playstation Xbox series X and S and the previous generation of console and thank you for watching [Music] thank you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 415,364

Keywords: 6th generation stealth fighter, 6th generation fighter jet, stealth fighter jets, next generation fighter jet, 6th generation fighter jets, fighter jet engine, united states air force, ngad fighter jet, next generation air dominance, fighter jet, fighter jets, revolution engine, military technology, technology, ngad fighter, us ngad, fighter, air force, ngad, 6th gen, us navy, us military, ngad vs f22

Id: GYJsgfKEqTY

Length: 21min 59sec (1319 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 09 2023