In the division of the “ghost works” of Boeing, between secret materials and innovations, the first prototype of the heir system of the F-35 is under construction. Will fly in 2028, a year earlier than planned
Last week the number one of the US aviation, secretary Gary A. Ashworth, had declared that the new Sixth Generation weapon system, namely the F-47 hunting of the Ngad program (Next Generation Air Dominance), should carry out its first flight by anticipating the time initially expected by a year. And during his opening speech at the “Air, Space and Cyber” conference, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General David Alvin, had said: “We must proceed quickly, we are almost 2026 and the project team is busy flying the first prototype in 2028 instead of in 2029”.
Production and secrecy
At the moment the details of the aircraft that have been made public are few, but it is known that the production of the main parts of the structure is already underway at the Boeing plant in St Louis, in Missouri, as General Alvin himself confirmed. The first fuselage will be assembled at the Boeing projects Advanced Projects, or the “Phantom Works”, literally “Ghost works”, in the protected departments such as the Advanced Coating Center and the Advanced Assembly Facility, places in which no one who is not closely involved in the works can enter.
Features and performance
Alvin, last May, had shown a graph that indicated that the F-47 would be operating by 2029 and would have a combat ray of over 1,000 nautical miles (over 1,900 km) and flown at a speed higher than Mach 2. Numbers that aroused amazement in technicians around the world, at least considering that the current F-22 Raptor manages to be operational within a ray of 1,100 km and a higher maximum speed A Mach 2, while the F-35 has a slightly higher combat range but a maximum speed 1,6 (slower also because it does a different job from that of a pure interceptor). The strength of the new project will certainly be the stealth performance, or of very small visibility even to the most modern radars, a feature that if in the raptor is now limited, it will still persist for a few years in the F-35.
Technological evolution
Like airplanes, radar systems also evolve and can now count on data communication networks integrated by the satellites, and these see the wing plant instead of the front or lateral section of the airplane. At the moment the Pentagon has planned the realization of 185 specimens, but immediately these will have to be able to operate together with collaborative drones (CCA). Certainly the definitive form of the airplane will not be what we can see today in the designs and in the diffuse images, above all because if the autonomy has to be thus extended, it serves internal space for fuel and this means that the size of the hunting could be more generous than those of its predecessors.
The Pacific requirement
The requirement of extended autonomy is fundamental for the Pacific scenario, where the distances between the bases and possible routes followed by the aircraft carriers are enormous. This feature also means greater weight, but there is an advantage: being able to embark on long -haul missiles such as those in gestation. Among these, for air-air combat there is the “Joint Advanced Tactical Missile” or AIM-260 JATM, so far limited by the need to be housed in the F-22 and F-35; Or the SM-6, bigger, and the AIM-174B Gunslinger which is now hanging on the external pylons of the f/a-18 EF Super Hornet.
Advanced technologies and materials
Other characteristics of the F-47 will be predictive maintenance (it is the same airplane that communicates what it is necessary to control and repair), adaptive propulsion (the engine used, the Pratt & Whitney XA103 ACE, will change the ratio of hot/cold air according to the situations), as well as the use of advanced (classified) materials that have so far been used marginally. These are hybrid composite alloys based on titanium, tungsten, ceramic and niobio, used to give structural resistance, heat and promoting the anti-radar capabilities of the aircraft. In particular, the niobio is known for resistance to heat and corrosion and for this reason it is placed in the alloys of special steels, in the creation of superconductors for magnets.
