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Lots more detail in the original article this one links to: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-air-force-has-built-and-flown-a-mysterio

Lots more detail in the original article this one links to: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-air-force-has-built-and-flown-a-mysterious-full-scale-prototype-of-its-future-fighter-jet/ https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-...

OldHand2018 6y ago
Yeah, that's a really good article, and discloses that what they're doing isn't about a single new airplane. They want to completely change the way the Air Force manages the entire airplane lifecycle: > The main difference is that the Air Force would flip from spending the majority of fighter program costs upfront instead of at the end of the aircraft’s life. To continuously design new fighter jets, the service would keep multiple vendors constantly under contract for the development of new planes, choosing a new design about every eight years. To make a business case that is profitable for industry, it would then buy batches of about 50-80 aircraft every year. > The result is a 25 percent increase in development costs and an 18 percent increase in production costs. However, the price of modernizing aircraft would drop by 79 percent while sustainment costs are basically cut in half, Roper wrote in the paper. > “I can’t make both ends of the life cycle go away; industry has to make a profit somewhere,” Roper said. “And I’m arguing in the paper that if you get to choose what color of money you use for future air superiority, make it research, development and production because it’s the sharp point of the spear, not the geriatric side that consumes so much of our resources today.”
- twic 6y ago
  If a figher plane has a lifespan of 30 years, does this mean that at steady state, the air force would have 1500 - 2400 fighters of 30 different types? Did Hayao Miyazaki take over Air Force procurement, or what? EDIT: Ah, they also reduce the lifecycle to 10 - 15 years. Still wild!
  - jacques_chester 6y ago
    I don't think you should be downvoted, it's a reasonable misunderstanding. The goal is to create a constant pipeline of new planes with short lead times, so that they don't need to have extended lifetimes with expensive maintenance. Personally I feel that's a better approach overall for many mobile capital-intensive systems: military hardware, public transportation and so on. As the interview points out, smaller, more-frequent procurements reduce the risk to suppliers as well. Currently every weapons system project is a existential risk to contractors, so they quite naturally try to push as much back as possible. And so we wind up with parts being built in every Congressional district at vast expense and added complexity.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    USAF has just over 5,600 aircraft in service total, about 5,000 manned, per Wikipedia. There have been about 1,200 F-15s (all variants) built, 555 F-35s, 195 F-22s, and 4,600 F-16s. Not all built aircraft remain in service, nor are all in the US armed forces. Your count at least seems reasonable.
mncharity 6y ago
> and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor. This suggests an utter lack of familiarity with the motivations and capabilities of Musk and SpaceX. Or perhaps they merely needed some text for the link, even if it was silly text?
- mulmen 6y ago
  I think if you put "Elon Musk" in double quotes this makes a lot more sense. SpaceX completely changed the launch costs for the Air Force and NASA. It makes sense they would try to replicate that experience elsewhere.
  - mncharity 6y ago
    Ah, so "and perhaps give a shot at designing an F-35 competitor to someone like SpaceX founder Elon Musk"... hmm.
  - nonesuchluck 6y ago
    > We don’t know which defense contractor designed and prototyped the new jet, though it's almost certainly one of the big aerospace giants (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing). Wouldn't it be interesting if this isn't true tho. What if there's some stealthy startup out there trying to SpaceX the rest of the defense industry?
    - mulmen 6y ago
      Honestly I'd be even more surprised if it was one of the established giants because what a turnaround that would be.
      - mncharity 6y ago
        > AII's goals include strengthening the critically important design teams in the defense industrial base and reducing the lead time for future systems.[1] Apropos a 2015 DARPA program leading to flight demonstrators. So acquisition innovation to improve innovation acquisition. [1] https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/podcast-whats-next-us-air-forces-next-generation-air https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-co...

OldHand2018 6y ago

Yeah, that's a really good article, and discloses that what they're doing isn't about a single new airplane. They want to completely change the way the Air Force manages the entire airplane lifecycle: > The main difference is that the Air Force would flip from spending the majority of fighter program costs upfront instead of at the end of the aircraft’s life. To continuously design new fighter jets, the service would keep multiple vendors constantly under contract for the development of new planes, choosing a new design about every eight years. To make a business case that is profitable for industry, it would then buy batches of about 50-80 aircraft every year. > The result is a 25 percent increase in development costs and an 18 percent increase in production costs. However, the price of modernizing aircraft would drop by 79 percent while sustainment costs are basically cut in half, Roper wrote in the paper. > “I can’t make both ends of the life cycle go away; industry has to make a profit somewhere,” Roper said. “And I’m arguing in the paper that if you get to choose what color of money you use for future air superiority, make it research, development and production because it’s the sharp point of the spear, not the geriatric side that consumes so much of our resources today.”

twic 6y ago
If a figher plane has a lifespan of 30 years, does this mean that at steady state, the air force would have 1500 - 2400 fighters of 30 different types? Did Hayao Miyazaki take over Air Force procurement, or what? EDIT: Ah, they also reduce the lifecycle to 10 - 15 years. Still wild!
- jacques_chester 6y ago
  I don't think you should be downvoted, it's a reasonable misunderstanding. The goal is to create a constant pipeline of new planes with short lead times, so that they don't need to have extended lifetimes with expensive maintenance. Personally I feel that's a better approach overall for many mobile capital-intensive systems: military hardware, public transportation and so on. As the interview points out, smaller, more-frequent procurements reduce the risk to suppliers as well. Currently every weapons system project is a existential risk to contractors, so they quite naturally try to push as much back as possible. And so we wind up with parts being built in every Congressional district at vast expense and added complexity.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  USAF has just over 5,600 aircraft in service total, about 5,000 manned, per Wikipedia. There have been about 1,200 F-15s (all variants) built, 555 F-35s, 195 F-22s, and 4,600 F-16s. Not all built aircraft remain in service, nor are all in the US armed forces. Your count at least seems reasonable.

mncharity 6y ago

> and perhaps give SpaceX founder Elon Musk a shot at designing an F-35 competitor. This suggests an utter lack of familiarity with the motivations and capabilities of Musk and SpaceX. Or perhaps they merely needed some text for the link, even if it was silly text?

mulmen 6y ago
I think if you put "Elon Musk" in double quotes this makes a lot more sense. SpaceX completely changed the launch costs for the Air Force and NASA. It makes sense they would try to replicate that experience elsewhere.
- mncharity 6y ago
  Ah, so "and perhaps give a shot at designing an F-35 competitor to someone like SpaceX founder Elon Musk"... hmm.
- nonesuchluck 6y ago
  > We don’t know which defense contractor designed and prototyped the new jet, though it's almost certainly one of the big aerospace giants (Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing). Wouldn't it be interesting if this isn't true tho. What if there's some stealthy startup out there trying to SpaceX the rest of the defense industry?
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Honestly I'd be even more surprised if it was one of the established giants because what a turnaround that would be.
    - mncharity 6y ago
      > AII's goals include strengthening the critically important design teams in the defense industrial base and reducing the lead time for future systems.[1] Apropos a 2015 DARPA program leading to flight demonstrators. So acquisition innovation to improve innovation acquisition. [1] https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-conference/podcast-whats-next-us-air-forces-next-generation-air https://aviationweek.com/shows-events/afa-air-space-cyber-co...