The UK Wants Mind-Reading Combat Jets

When images of the Tempest were first released in 2018 it was dubbed the "pregnant pelican"  

BBC: A mind-reading combat jet for the future 

During World War II, Spitfire pilots described their plane as so responsive it felt like an extension of their limbs. 

Fighter pilots of the 2030s, however, will have an even closer relationship with their fighter jet. It will read their minds. 

The Tempest jet is being developed by the UK's BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, European missiles group, MBDA and Italy's Leonardo. 

One feature will be an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to assist the human pilot when they are overwhelmed, or under extreme stress.  

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WNU Editor: The UK and Japan are now working together .... UK to work with Japan on supersonic Tempest fighter jet (The Guardian). The cost is also going up .... UK's Tempest fighter project soars as European rival remains in limbo (TechXplore).

The U.S. Air Force Has A Plan To Field A New Fighter Jet In 5 Years

Concept art released by the the Air Force Research Lab in 2018 shows a potential next-generation fighter concept, or F-X. (Air Force Research Laboratory)

Defense News: The US Air Force’s radical plan for a future fighter could field a jet in 5 years

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Air Force is preparing to radically alter the acquisition strategy for its next generation of fighter jets, with a new plan that could require industry to design, develop and produce a new fighter in five years or less.

On Oct. 1, the service will officially reshape its next-generation fighter program, known as Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, Will Roper, the Air Force’s acquisition executive, said during an exclusive interview with Defense News.

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WNU Editor: When it comes to Pentagon planning and expectations, we should always be skeptical.

Boeing And The Australian Military Have Teamed Up To Develop A Combat Drone Almost As Big As A Fighter Jet

A model of Boeing’s new unmanned aircraft on display in Avalon, Australia, on Wednesday. Photo: jamie freed/Reuters

WSJ: Boeing Teams With Australia On New Fighter Drone

The Loyal Wingman is designed to protect piloted aircraft and carry out surveillance missions.

Boeing Co. has teamed up with Australia’s military to develop a combat drone almost as big as a fighter jet, intensifying a global arms race that has seen China and Russia add new stealth and uncrewed aircraft to their fleets.

The move marks another bet by Boeing on potential export sales as the Pentagon has yet to commit to this type of aircraft, though defense analysts said large, cheaper drones could disrupt sales of existing piloted combat jets.

Boeing last year won three big Pentagon contracts after opting to take initial upfront losses that it aims to recoup in part with higher export sales, boosting the growth profile of its defense unit.

The so-called Loyal Wingman drone unveiled Wednesday builds on this strategy and is set to fly for the first time next year in Australia, operating either autonomously or under the direction of a pilot in an accompanying aircraft.

Australia wants the drone to protect warplanes such as the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 fighter, a cornerstone of the country’s $150 billion upgrade of its armed forces and a key aircraft for the U.S. and a number of allies.

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Update: Boeing’s autonomous fighter jet could arrive next year (Endgadget)

WNU Editor: Boeing is betting on export markets.

France And Germany Want To Develop A Next Generation Stealth Fighter That Will Outclass The F-35

Business Insider: Watch France and Germany's next-generation stealth fighter, a 2-engine jet that looks like it'll outclass the F-35

* The French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation recently published a video that gives a glimpse into what the reported Franco-German next-generation aircraft might look like.
* While it's unclear whether the fighter will be a fifth- or sixth-generation fighter, the focus will probably be on stealth technology and integration with information systems, a military analyst said.

The French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation recently published a video that gives a glimpse into what the reported Franco-German next-generation aircraft might look like.

France and Germany announced last July that they would join forces to build an advanced "European" fighter to replace Dassault's Rafales and Germany's Eurofighter Typhoons, The War Zone reported last summer.

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WNU Editor: Imressive video .... but that is all it is .... an impressive video. Does France and Germany have the resources and money to make it reality .... I have doubts but we shall see.

This Is What Will Replace The F-22 (Update)

A 6th generation fighter concept developed by Boeing for the US Navy (Photo Boeing)

We Are The Mighty: This is what the F-22 Raptor's replacement will be like

The F-22 Raptor is already the most lethal fighter jet ever built, severely outclassing virtually every other aircraft of a similar class fielded by the rest of the world’s air forces.

But with the advent of newer anti-aircraft defense systems, stealth-defeating tracking technologies and the entrance of countries such as China and Russia into the stealth fighter foray, the F-22 will eventually need to be replaced with something even more powerful.

With the looming retirement of the F-15C/D Eagle, its secondary air superiority fighter, in the next decade, the Air Force has begun taking strides towards designing the F-22’s follow-on in order to maintain its combat edge over every other air force in the world.

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Update: The U.S. Air Force's Plan To Replace The F-22 Raptor Is Taking Shape (August 26, 2017).

WNU Editor:  It definitely has a " different look".

The Pentagon Wants To Build A Better Plane

The Boeing / NASA X-48B blended-wing design research aircraft in September 2010, NASA/Tony Landis

David Axe, Reuters: The Pentagon again vies to build a better 'X-plane’

After decades of being MIA in the skies, Washington is getting back into the business of building cutting-edge experimental aircraft that can expand the boundaries of state-of-the-art aerial.

With this, the United States could reclaim its long-prized title as the world's leader in high-tech aerospace developments -- a title that Russia and China are now ferociously working to win.

A new generation of experimental airplanes, or "X-planes," could lead to profound advances in civil and military aviation, which would boost the American economy, as well as U.S. military might.

They are the aerospace equivalent of science experiments. The more X-planes flying that test out new ideas and hardware, the faster the military and industry can improve blueprints for production-model aircraft. They don't even need to be tied to any larger military or civil aircraft program, known as a “program of record.”

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WNU Editor: Here is a good breakdown on how dominant America is when it comes to military aircraft .... This map shows how many more military aircraft the US has than every other country on earth (Business Insider).

Is This The Future Of Military Aircraft?

The Telegraph: Is this the plane of the future?

KLM's sleek and streamlined AHEAD aircraft is one of many proposed aircrafts that could radically change the way we fly.

The plane of the future could well be a sleek and streamlined aircraft with a “blended wing” if proposals by the Delft University of Technology in Holland and Dutch carrier KLM come to fruition.

A blended wing is one that is seamlessly connected to the plane rather than attached separately to the fuselage and it’s one of a number of innovations that has been mooted as a result of the AHEAD study the two organisations collaborated on. Standing for Advanced Hybrid Engine Aircraft Development, the study saw academics, manufacturers and aviation experts consider how higher-tech aircraft could be developed and the aviation experience enhanced.

WNU Editor: The article focuses on the civilian market .... but you have to wonder about the military aspects for this design.

Will The F-35 Be The Last Manned Fighter Jet?

Photo: Future US Navy fighter jet concept. National Interest

Todd Harrison, Forbes: Will The F-35 Be The Last Manned Fighter Jet? Physics, Physiology, and Fiscal Facts Suggest Yes.

Earlier this month Navy Secretary Ray Mabus remarked that the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter “should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.” This sparked a lot of discussion both inside and outside the military about the advantages, vulnerabilities, and ethical concerns of armed remotely piloted aircraft. I think Secretary Mabus is likely to be proven correct in his prediction because physics, physiology, and fiscal facts are on his side.

First, the way air-to-air combat is conducted has changed. As my CSBA colleague, Dr. John Stillion, notes in a recently released report, Trends in Air-to-Air Combat: Implications for Future Air Superiority, ”over the past few decades, advances in electronic sensors, communications technology, and guided weapons may have fundamentally transformed the nature of air combat.” He goes on to write that for about the first fifty years of aviation, “pilots relied on the human eye as the primary air-to-air sensor and machine guns and automatic canon as their primary weapons.” But the human eye can only spot an aircraft-sized target up to about 2 nautical miles in range, and aircraft cannon are only effective to less a nautical mile.

Update: The U.S. Miilitary's Fighter Aircraft Crisis: What Comes After the F-35? -- James Hasik, National Interest

WNU Editor: The U.S. Air force has a different point of view from the Navy Secretary .... Air Force Begs To Differ With Mabus: F-35 Not Last Manned Fighter (Richard Whittle, Breaking Defense).

The U.S. Navy Wants It's Future Fighter Jets To Have An Artificial Intelligence Platform

Boeing concept for F/A-XX. Boeing Image

Navy’s Next Fighter Likely to Feature Artificial Intelligence -- Dave Majumdar, USNI News

Artificial intelligence will likely feature prominently onboard the Pentagon’s next-generation successors to the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor.

“AI is going to be huge,” said one U.S. Navy official familiar with the service’s F/A-XX effort to replace the Super Hornet starting around 2030.

Further, while there are significant differences between the U.S. Air Force’s vision for its F-X air superiority fighter and the Navy’s F/A-XX, the two services agree on some fundamental aspects about what characteristics the jet will need to share.

“I think we all agree that we have to work on PNT [Positioning, Navigation and Timing], comms, big data movement between both services,” the official said.

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My Comment: Weapon systems running on AI platforms .... someone has been watching too many Terminator movies.

Hypersonic Attack Planes Coming Soon?

X-20 DynaSoar and X-15 pilot Neil Armstrong. Via Boeing and NASA

Here Come the Hypersonic Attack Planes! -- Steve Weintz, War Is Boring

From Nazi origins to the Cold War—and beyond

Like a bolt out of the blue, Lockheed Martin’s renown Skunk Works publicly teased one of aviation’s great snark hunts—revealing plans for a successor to the SR-71, the legendary Mach 3+ reconnaissance plane designed with slide rules and retired when the Millenials were born.

That 55-year old aircraft, originally developed as an uber-interceptor, still holds the record for fastest sustained supersonic flight at 2,100 miles per hour—much faster than a .50-caliber bullet.

But the new plane just announced, the SR-72, will fly twice as fast—so fast that at top speed the very air entering its engines will be moving as fast as an SR-71. Keeping combustion and thrust going under such conditions has been likened to lighting a cigar in a hurricane. The SR-72’s planned ability to go from a standing start to Mach 6 and back again is a hat trick no one has been able to pull off. Yet.

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My Comment: I am not familiar with the technology .... but I suspect that the big obstacle in developing such a program will be this.

How The Air War Era Began In 1911

Photo: Giulio Gavotti at the controls of a Farman biplane, Rome 1910

Libya 1911: How An Italian Pilot Began The Air War Era -- BBC

Italy recently said it was ready to join in Nato's air attacks on targets in Libya - and with the announcement came a sense of history repeating itself.

It was in Libya, almost exactly a century ago, that a young Italian pilot carried out the first ever air raid.

During fighting in November 1911 between Italy and forces loyal to the Turkish, Ottoman Empire, Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti wrote in a letter to his father: "Today I have decided to try to throw bombs from the aeroplane.

"It is the first time that we will try this and if I succeed, I will be really pleased to be the first person to do it."

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My Comment: We have certainly gone a long way since 1911.

How New Tech Is Making Old Fighter Jets More Lethal

Giving Sight Back To An F-15C Golden Eagle -- Popular Mechanics

Precision is something that 30-year-old warplanes lack. But they can be retrofit. Here’s how the Air Force made the F-15C lethal once again.

The Air Force this year deployed F-15C Golden Eagle warplanes with new active electronically scanned arrays (AESA) that can track more targets with precision and can guide several missiles at once. AESA’s digital beams, which replace radar that turns mechanically, are agile enough to spot cruise missiles and enable the F-15C to shoot them down with air-to-air missiles.

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My Comment: In an age of budget cuts and tight money .... I am sure some bean counters are looking at these cost savings.

Wanna Know What U.S. Warplanes You’ll Tangle With In The Future? Visit An Aerospace Model Shop.

At Northrop Grumman’s model shop in El Segundo, California, Gary Miley applies gel to form a mold he will use to create a model blank. (Chad Slattery)

From Air And Space Smithsonian:

Shortly after 9 p.m. on a rainy February night in Los Angeles, Tony Chong switched on his home computer, logged into eBay, and began his nightly aircraft hunt. For more than two decades, Chong had been making exquisite aircraft models at Northrop Grumman’s display model shop—and collecting the rare desktop models his company and other U.S. airplane makers distributed to promote their programs. Often the listings on eBay were for castoffs, but that night in 2005 one model gave him a jolt: Painted in mottled camouflage and balanced on a familiar pentagon base, it was an 18-inch-long concept model of a Northrop Grumman FB-23 advanced bomber.

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My Comment: This is a fascinating read on the future of military aviation .... read it all.

Warplanes Of The Future?

WK1 lands back at Mojave after first post-storage test flight
(all photos Tom Norris/Chris Ravelo)

“Eve” Mother-Ship Could Form Basis of Future Warplanes -- War Is Boring

On Monday Secretary of Defense Robert Gates toured the Texas factory where defense firm L3 adds sensors and other electronics to Beechcraft King Air passenger planes. The resulting $17-million MC-12W spy plane, with 37 on order, is one of the new “fast, inexpensive, simple and tiny” weapons that is fueling the evolution of the U.S. military from an 20th-century industrial force, to a faster, more adaptive, modern institution. “The best solution isn’t always the fanciest or the most expensive,” Gates said. Responsiveness, affordability and sheer numbers represent a sophistication all their own.

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My Comment: This was all science fiction 10 years ago .... and today .... it is reality.

The Future Of Air Defense

F-22 (Photo from Joint Service Open House)

From New Wars:

I just can’t imagine we will always get away with sending our few and pricey stealth fighters into high risk areas when there seems to be so many other alternatives, such as UAVs, cruise missiles, and legacy fighters equipped with HARM and jamming devises. Via Danger Room, David Axe provides another excuse to dump the F-22 Raptor:

In a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of Joints Chief of Staff, defended Gates’ position — and whipped out a new argument for why Raptor-making should end. Faced with shutting down either Lockheed Martin’s F-22 production line, or Boeing’s competing F/A-18E/F fighter, for cost reasons, Cartwright said he asked the military’s regional commanders what air capabilities they needed most. They chose “electronic warfare,” a.k.a. “radar jamming,” Cartwright said. That meant keeping the Boeing jet, for only it has a dedicated jammer version, the EA-18G Growler…

But the F-22’s electronic-attack skills have remained dormant, while the Air Force focuses on honing the jet’s air-to-air prowess, and improving vexing maintenance problems. The Raptor won’t be able to jam enemy radars, until 2011 — and then, only half the fleet will have that capability. The Raptor suffers other, serious limitations, that haven’t been widely reported. As many as half of the jets already paid for, lack modern dogfighting systems, such as helmet-mounted sights.

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My Comment: Most (if not all) future wars will be against low-tech armies and insurgencies. $300 million dollar planes to use in such a fight makes little if any sense.

But one can say the same thing about nuclear weapons, Trident submarines, and ABM systems. Why build them when they cannot be used in the wars that we are presently in ... or will be in the future.

Hmmm .... the answer is that they all do serve a purpose and that is they provide deterrence ..... a military strategy that has both merit and value when countering other powers .... both small and large.

How the War In Iraq And Afghanistan Is Fought -- A Look Inside The Air Force's Control Center For Iraq And Afghanistan

From U.S. News And World Report:

Far from the physical battlefields, analysts and targeters hunt the enemy and initiate airstrikes

COMBINED AIR AND SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER, MIDDLE EAST—As the grainy intelligence video unfolds, one of Iraq's many jauntily decorated trucks rolls to a stop carrying passengers who are, according to U.S. military officials, insurgents from outside of Baghdad. An unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, has detected infrared signals—traces of heat—on the antiaircraft artillery gun mounted on the flatbed, which suggests that it has been recently fired.

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My Comment: Predators, satellites, GPS, laser guided missiles, etc. .... the future battlefield will be done by people who cannot be shot at, wounded, or kill. For Islamic militants in Iraq or Afghanistan, I am sure that the thought that is going through their minds right now is ..... how can you fight an enemy like that.