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Meanwhile, USAF just fully designed and tested a 6th generation fighter [1] in record time [during 2020]: https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/

Meanwhile, USAF just fully designed and tested a 6th generation fighter [1] in record time [during 2020]: 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-... They say the key to the record time was an 'all virtual' prototype design and test process. I found that pretty fascinating. 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth-generation_fighter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixth-generation_fighter

hef19898 5y ago
Dassault did something similar like 10 years ago with one of their business jets. In that case, it was also to showcase the capabilities of Catia. Still amazes me, on the one hand you have the Air Forces one-year project. On the other hand you have the German Air Force that needs more than that just ginish the first draft of the requirements document for an existing plane.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Don't rule out the design/development of other planes in US arsenal. The F-35 is just in the news here this week (yeserday maybe) about it being a meh plane because of the bureaucratic process. The Air Force project seems to be an outlier and definitely not the norm.
  - MaxDPS 5y ago
    That’s true, though given this success, hopefully they can name it the norm going forward.
    - justapassenger 5y ago
      I'd love that as well, but research projects are very very very different from actual huge contracts. Especially with how politically engineered supply chain has to be in USA. And changing that isn't technical challenge - it's political one, and no one will dare to do it.
      - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        The F35 is a primarily a sink for public cash that happens to fly. There is literally no incentive to make these projects cheap, fast, and economically streamlined. The lifetime cost is projected to be $1.7tn. Someone is getting very rich off that. For comparison, the entire Manhattan Project cost the equivalent of $30bn in modern money.
        justapassenger 5y ago
        > The lifetime cost is projected to be $1.7tn. Someone is getting very rich off that. Tons of people are getting rich off that, and tons of people are being elected for the office. Military spending is one of the biggest government welfare programs in USA.
SkyMarshal 5y ago
I agree. Not only did they digitally prototype the fighter, but also its entire manufacturing process. That’s something new AFAIK.
- dylan604 5y ago
  Sounds like a step that Tesla skipped. In the VFX world of movies, this is known as PreViz. I remember when the 3D rendering first came to CAD. One of the projects my dad was working on discovered that if they built it exactly to the plan's specifications, there would have been plumbing pipes running through other pipes. Lots of value in these kinds of looking at things digitaly before doing it physically
- photoGrant 5y ago
  Not new. See: Road Vehicles
rad_gruchalski 5y ago
Sure, but how many people USAF has and how many billions did it cost? Compare that to Boom. Also, USAF does not have to comply with civil aviation regulations.
- nradov 5y ago
  Military aircraft don't have to go through the FAA certification process but the actual requirements are generally even more rigorous. So that doesn't save anything. Most of the work is typically done by the manufacturer's employees.
InvisibleCities 5y ago
Well that’s good. How’s the F-35 coming along?
- knowaveragejoe 5y ago
  Apparently quite well if you look past the decade-old takes on it.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    That’s the point that of the grandparent post - timelines have slipped a lot.
thereddaikon 5y ago
With modern combat aircraft the easy part is the working airframe actually. The YF-22 first flew in 1989 and finally entered service as the F-22 in 2005. F-35 had a similarly long development time and while its technically been operational for years, its software is like a modern EA release. A lot of the good stuff missing and available as later DLC. They are still patching in drivers for weapons that legacy aircraft already support. While its definitely good that NGAD has produced a flying prototype so quickly, it isn't proof that they have achieved the goal of faster development. The primary hinderance has been and still is the software. The defense industry has been slow to adopt modern coding practices. Sometimes that's a good thing. But on the balance its bad. F-35's software development has all of the hallmarks of a project saddled with a great deal of technical debt combined with outdated practices and overburdened with compliance.
- jupp0r 5y ago
  What makes you think that Boom won't have a long time to go fixing their software after they have a flying prototype?
  - akiselev 5y ago
    Stuff in civilian aviation is designed to be certified before its flown commercially, stuff in military aviation is designed to be adapted on an evolving battlefield.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Boom production models will use COTS avionics just like every other business jet manufacturer. They'll have to write custom flight control software but that will be much easier than on a military aircraft. No weapons, no external stores, no defensive systems, no tactical data link, no complex navigation modes, etc.
    - ineedasername 5y ago
      Except they'll need to write that flight control software themselves, for a plane so different from modern aircraft that there are literally no experts in software design for this class of aircraft. (Outside of anyone doing it for the military, and I can't imagine they'd be allowed to repurpose that work.) There will need to be a whole lot of new software development, along with the corresponding review process by the FAA. Simpler than a complex military fighter, but there's no COTS solution for the software and that's a huge part of this project.
ErikVandeWater 5y ago
I'm very hesitant to take anything "DefenseNews" says at face value. Obviously heavily pro-military just by the title, as if the military is only used in a defensive manner.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  Like it or not, the term "defense" to mean something military-related is all over the Department of Defense, the defense budget, and defense contracting. While you are welcome to write off all these sources as ideologically contaminated, I think there must surely be better reasons to do so than their use of the term "defense". And, of course, you'll deprive yourself of news about specific technological developments.
nradov 5y ago
Building a flying airframe is relatively easy now. The slow expensive work tends to be in weight reduction, software development, and systems integration. But hopefully the Air Force has learned something from the problems in the B-2, F-22, and F-35 programs.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Milkman128 5y ago
im surprised we are still making manned aircraft. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/ai-just-beat-human-f-16-pilot-dogfight-again/167872/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/ai-just-beat-h...
drewpc 5y ago
This is fascinating. This reminds me of a book I read about John Boyd [1] who fought the Air Force to develop theorems about aircraft performance, namely the Energy-Manueverability Theory [2]. He went on to mathematically prove why certain aircraft would fail to live up to their assigned missions and help design the F-15, F-16, and other aircraft. Albeit, the mathematics of a "perfect aircraft" lost when faced with the bureaucracy of the government. 1 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy–maneuverability_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy–maneuverability_theory
THATthereguy 5y ago
Thanks for the links, didn't know the USAF had done decided to go on house for their prototype. This caught my eye: "the first Air Force aircraft to be built using the 'holy trinity' of digital engineering, agile software development and open architecture"
nomoreplease 5y ago
I was wondering what the timeline/records were but the article didn't say. Maybe it was kept secret?

hef19898 5y ago

Dassault did something similar like 10 years ago with one of their business jets. In that case, it was also to showcase the capabilities of Catia. Still amazes me, on the one hand you have the Air Forces one-year project. On the other hand you have the German Air Force that needs more than that just ginish the first draft of the requirements document for an existing plane.

dylan604 5y ago
Don't rule out the design/development of other planes in US arsenal. The F-35 is just in the news here this week (yeserday maybe) about it being a meh plane because of the bureaucratic process. The Air Force project seems to be an outlier and definitely not the norm.
- MaxDPS 5y ago
  That’s true, though given this success, hopefully they can name it the norm going forward.
  - justapassenger 5y ago
    I'd love that as well, but research projects are very very very different from actual huge contracts. Especially with how politically engineered supply chain has to be in USA. And changing that isn't technical challenge - it's political one, and no one will dare to do it.
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      The F35 is a primarily a sink for public cash that happens to fly. There is literally no incentive to make these projects cheap, fast, and economically streamlined. The lifetime cost is projected to be $1.7tn. Someone is getting very rich off that. For comparison, the entire Manhattan Project cost the equivalent of $30bn in modern money.
      - justapassenger 5y ago
        > The lifetime cost is projected to be $1.7tn. Someone is getting very rich off that. Tons of people are getting rich off that, and tons of people are being elected for the office. Military spending is one of the biggest government welfare programs in USA.

SkyMarshal 5y ago

I agree. Not only did they digitally prototype the fighter, but also its entire manufacturing process. That’s something new AFAIK.

dylan604 5y ago
Sounds like a step that Tesla skipped. In the VFX world of movies, this is known as PreViz. I remember when the 3D rendering first came to CAD. One of the projects my dad was working on discovered that if they built it exactly to the plan's specifications, there would have been plumbing pipes running through other pipes. Lots of value in these kinds of looking at things digitaly before doing it physically
photoGrant 5y ago
Not new. See: Road Vehicles

rad_gruchalski 5y ago

Sure, but how many people USAF has and how many billions did it cost? Compare that to Boom. Also, USAF does not have to comply with civil aviation regulations.

nradov 5y ago
Military aircraft don't have to go through the FAA certification process but the actual requirements are generally even more rigorous. So that doesn't save anything. Most of the work is typically done by the manufacturer's employees.

InvisibleCities 5y ago

Well that’s good. How’s the F-35 coming along?

knowaveragejoe 5y ago
Apparently quite well if you look past the decade-old takes on it.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  That’s the point that of the grandparent post - timelines have slipped a lot.

thereddaikon 5y ago

With modern combat aircraft the easy part is the working airframe actually. The YF-22 first flew in 1989 and finally entered service as the F-22 in 2005. F-35 had a similarly long development time and while its technically been operational for years, its software is like a modern EA release. A lot of the good stuff missing and available as later DLC. They are still patching in drivers for weapons that legacy aircraft already support. While its definitely good that NGAD has produced a flying prototype so quickly, it isn't proof that they have achieved the goal of faster development. The primary hinderance has been and still is the software. The defense industry has been slow to adopt modern coding practices. Sometimes that's a good thing. But on the balance its bad. F-35's software development has all of the hallmarks of a project saddled with a great deal of technical debt combined with outdated practices and overburdened with compliance.

jupp0r 5y ago
What makes you think that Boom won't have a long time to go fixing their software after they have a flying prototype?
- akiselev 5y ago
  Stuff in civilian aviation is designed to be certified before its flown commercially, stuff in military aviation is designed to be adapted on an evolving battlefield.
- nradov 5y ago
  Boom production models will use COTS avionics just like every other business jet manufacturer. They'll have to write custom flight control software but that will be much easier than on a military aircraft. No weapons, no external stores, no defensive systems, no tactical data link, no complex navigation modes, etc.
  - ineedasername 5y ago
    Except they'll need to write that flight control software themselves, for a plane so different from modern aircraft that there are literally no experts in software design for this class of aircraft. (Outside of anyone doing it for the military, and I can't imagine they'd be allowed to repurpose that work.) There will need to be a whole lot of new software development, along with the corresponding review process by the FAA. Simpler than a complex military fighter, but there's no COTS solution for the software and that's a huge part of this project.

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

I'm very hesitant to take anything "DefenseNews" says at face value. Obviously heavily pro-military just by the title, as if the military is only used in a defensive manner.

fennecfoxen 5y ago
Like it or not, the term "defense" to mean something military-related is all over the Department of Defense, the defense budget, and defense contracting. While you are welcome to write off all these sources as ideologically contaminated, I think there must surely be better reasons to do so than their use of the term "defense". And, of course, you'll deprive yourself of news about specific technological developments.

nradov 5y ago

Building a flying airframe is relatively easy now. The slow expensive work tends to be in weight reduction, software development, and systems integration. But hopefully the Air Force has learned something from the problems in the B-2, F-22, and F-35 programs.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Milkman128 5y ago

im surprised we are still making manned aircraft. https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/ai-just-beat-human-f-16-pilot-dogfight-again/167872/ https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/ai-just-beat-h...

drewpc 5y ago

This is fascinating. This reminds me of a book I read about John Boyd [1] who fought the Air Force to develop theorems about aircraft performance, namely the Energy-Manueverability Theory [2]. He went on to mathematically prove why certain aircraft would fail to live up to their assigned missions and help design the F-15, F-16, and other aircraft. Albeit, the mathematics of a "perfect aircraft" lost when faced with the bureaucracy of the government. 1 - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38840.Boyd 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy–maneuverability_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy–maneuverability_theory

THATthereguy 5y ago

Thanks for the links, didn't know the USAF had done decided to go on house for their prototype. This caught my eye: "the first Air Force aircraft to be built using the 'holy trinity' of digital engineering, agile software development and open architecture"

nomoreplease 5y ago

I was wondering what the timeline/records were but the article didn't say. Maybe it was kept secret?