Latest news with #F-47NextGenerationAirDominance
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump touts new ‘F-55' fighter jet and upgrades to F-35s and F-22s
Happy Friday! President Donald Trump indicated on Thursday that the U.S. military is considering purchasing a new fighter jet which he calls the 'F-55,' but many details about the new aircraft remain unclear. 'One of the things for the people that are interested in the military that I've asked to look into — the F-35: We're doing an upgrade, a simple upgrade, but we're also doing an F-55 — I'm going to call it an F-55 — and that's going to be a substantial upgrade, but it's going to be also with two engines, because an F-35 has a single engine,' Trump said in Doha, Qatar. 'I don't like single engines.' Trump did not elaborate on the F-55's capabilities, nor did he specify exactly where the aircraft is in the procurement process. 'We're going to do an F-55, and — I think — if we get the right price,' Trump said. 'We have to get the right price.' It remains to be seen exactly how the F-55 would be different from other advanced aircraft, such as the Air Force's 6th Generation F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance fighter being built by Boeing. Trump also announced plans to upgrade the F-22 Raptor — although the F-22's production line closed in 2011. As always, there's much more. Here's your weekly rundown: XM7 magazine capacity debate. An Army captain's searing criticism of the Next Generation Squad Weapon rifle, the XM7, has reignited a never-ending debate about firepower. The XM7 has a 20-round magazine but chambers a larger 6.8mm round than its predecessor, the M4A1. Task & Purpose reporter Patty Nieberg looks into what is more important in battle, more ammunition or heavy caliber rounds, and how it's not always that simple. More than 120 generals and admirals could be cut. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's plan to cull the number of senior uniformed leaders — which he has dubbed 'less generals, more GIs' — could result in more than 120 active-duty and National Guard general and flag officer positions being eliminated, according to the Associated Press. The Marine Corps would be hit particularly hard by the cuts. At this point, it's still unclear exactly how this will play out in practice, whether commands occupied by general officers will be closed, and if so, what will happen to those senior leaders once they're out of a job. Moving money from the barracks to the border. The Defense Department is considering shifting more than $1 billion from 'base repairs, troop relocation costs and service member pay and benefits' to fund operations along the southern border, Politico Pro is reporting. The draft plan is not final. Army to eliminate two Security Force Assistance Brigades. The Army plans to cut two of its Security Force Assistance Brigades, which were established to help train partner and ally conventional forces. Starting in 2017, the Army created SFAB units to advise Iraqi, Peshmerga, and Afghan forces. The following year, the service announced that SFAB soldiers would wear brown berets following a controversy about whether their headgear would look too much like the green berets worn by Special Forces. Chinese fighters prove their worth. Pakistan has claimed that its Chinese-made J-10C fighters recently shot down five Indian jets, including Rafales, which are made by France. India has not confirmed the kills, but China watchers have taken notice. Retired Navy Capt. Thomas Shugart, of the Center for a New American Security think tank, posted on X that although Pakistan's claims do not prove that Chinese weapons are superior to their Western counterparts, they should 'help dispel the idea 'all China builds is junk, so don't worry that they're building a shit-ton of pretty scary-looking stuff.'' Many thanks for reading this week! Hope you have a wonderful weekend, and remember: Hugs, not drugs — just in case there's a urinalysis test scheduled for next week. Jeff Schogol
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Wants To Increase Military Spending by $113 Billion
President Donald Trump has unveiled his budget request for the next fiscal year. The outline, which is unlikely to be enacted, recommends cuts to many agencies and programs. But it also wants a 13 percent increase for the Pentagon—among other things, to fund the F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance platform, which the White House calls the "most advanced, capable, and lethal aircraft ever built." Trump's budget request would cost taxpayers $1.613 trillion—the same amount as last year's budget. The money would not go to the same places, though. Under the new proposal, only four arms of the government would receive more money than they did in fiscal year 2025: an additional $42.3 billion for the Department of Homeland Security (a nearly 65 percent increase), $1.5 billion more for the Transportation Department, $5.4 billion more for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and $113 billion more for the Department of Defense. The proposal specifies that the Pentagon's money should be spent on developing a "Golden Dome for America," a missile defense system; on expanding shipbuilding; on U.S. "space dominance"; on modernizing the nuclear arsenal; on a 3.8 percent pay raise to servicemen; and on the F-47 fighter aircraft. While the request does not detail how much of the budget would be allocated to each program, we know that the government spent a lot on the F-47's predecessor. The cost of F-35 fighter jet procurement doubled from $200 billion in October 2001 to nearly $400 billion by 2022. The F-35 is now projected to cost more than $2 trillion over the length of its lifespan, according to the Government Accountability Office. There are more than 630 F-35s currently in service, and the Pentagon plans to acquire an additional 1,800. Those thousands of F-35s are supposed to be in service until 2088, raising questions about why we need to invest in its replacement more than six decades ahead of time. What's more, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, Gen. David W. Allvin, announced in March that the country will be "leaning into a new chapter of aerial warfare" with General Atomics' YFQ-42A and Anduril's YFQ-44A unmanned fighter aircraft. Why exactly are we committing untold billions to develop a manned sixth-generation fighter? The post Trump Wants To Increase Military Spending by $113 Billion appeared first on
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
F/A-XX could be the Navy's last piloted fighter, bring greater range
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The Navy's upcoming sixth-generation fighter may be its last manned fighter, the director of the service's air warfare division said Tuesday. F/A-XX will include new capabilities and technologies, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly said at the Navy League's Sea Air Space conference. The upgrades will provide more battlespace awareness and improve how naval aviators make decisions. Those technological advancements could help bring the Navy into a new era where piloted and unmanned aircraft operate more closely together, such as with the Navy's planned AI-operated drone wingmen, known as collaborative combat aircraft, or larger, unmanned platforms that might come in the future. 'It could be our last tactical manned fighter that we operate out of the Navy,' Donnelly said. 'It will actually be at a point where we are more man-on-the-loop than man-in-the-loop, and be the bridge to fully integrating towards the hybrid air wing [combining crewed and uncrewed platforms] in the future, in the 2040s.' Donnelly said the F/A-XX will allow the Navy to operate in contested environments and outmatch adversaries in ways that surpass the Navy's current fighters. 'We do that today, but we do it at parity because of the capabilities we have fielded today,' Donnelly said. 'So F/A-XX is going to be that next improvement.' Navy officials would not say when an announcement on F/A-XX would be made, but it could come soon. The Air Force's counterpart to the Navy's F/A-XX — the Boeing-made F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance fighter — was announced by President Donald Trump in an Oval Office event March 21. Breaking Defense reported last month that Lockheed Martin had been eliminated from the running for F/A-XX, leaving Boeing and Northrop Grumman as the remaining competitors. At the Sea Air Space event, Donnelly told reporters that F/A-XX is expected to be able to fly more than 25% farther than Navy's current fighters before having to top up with a refueling tanker. The F/A-18 Super Hornet has a combat range of about 1,275 nautical miles, and the carrier-based F-35C Joint Strike Fighter can fly more than 1,200 nautical miles. 'That's a core attribute of the F/A-XX,' Donnelly told reporters. 'It will definitely have longer inherent range, and then with refueling, you could say that's indefinite, as long as refueling is available.'
Yahoo
31-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Air Force secretary said he doubts US allies would be willing to buy an export version of the F-47
Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall discussed the coming F-47. President Donald Trump announced this month that Boeing won the contract to build the next-gen fighter. Kendall said he doubted US allies would want to buy it. President Donald Trump said he would offer US allies a less-capable export version of a coming sixth-gen fighter, but a former top Air Force official says he doubts they'll want it. Former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said in a podcast interview that he doubted US allies would be willing to buy the coming F-47 stealth fighter because of the high expected cost and concerns over the US's commitments to its longtime alliances. Speaking on Defense & Aerospace Report's Air Power podcast late last week, Kendall, who left office in January, said the jet's price, which the former Air Force secretary said could be up to $180 million each, roughly twice as much as the F-35, could put off US allies. "I would be very surprised if our, any of our partners, were prepared to pay that unit cost for a new aircraft," he said. President Donald Trump announced this month that Boeing had been selected to build the new F-47, winning the $20 billion contract over rival Lockheed Martin. Boeing's share price rose after the announcement, adding $4 billion in market value. The F-47 Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter is expected to be ready for combat by the end of the decade. The aim is to develop a new sixth-gen fighter aircraft with unmatched stealth and air-to-air combat capabilities, including the ability to fly with uncrewed loyal wingmen drones, to give the US Air Force a technological edge to defeat new threats. The US has been flying X-plane prototypes in pursuit of this effort. It's poised to replace the F-22 Raptor, a fifth-generation air dominance/air superiority fighter that has been in service since 2005. The US, despite pressure, has never exported the F-22, which was built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The other US fifth-generation fighter is the Lockheed F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter, which was developed as part of a multinational program. Numerous allies now fly the jet. Kendall said that the Trump administration's attitude toward longtime allies like Canada and dozens of countries in Europe may lead some to question the wisdom of investing further in really expensive US weapon systems like the coming F-47. "Another factor right now, of course, is that the attitude we've taken towards our allies is driving a lot of them to rethink their degree of cooperation and commitment and reliance on US sources for equipment," he said. Kendall also highlighted Trump's claim that the export version of the F-47 sold to US allies could have downgraded capabilities, the reasoning being that allies today might not be allies in the future. "We basically have very close allies traditionally, and we share some of the best of our capabilities with them because we have a lot of trust in them," Kendall said. "This administration doesn't seem to be taking that point of view." The F-47 is being designed to fly alongside autonomous drones, known as Collaborative Combat Aircraft. But Kendall said there were questions about how these drones will work with future crewed fighters. "There isn't a readiness at this point, a confidence in the uncrewed aircraft to bet entirely on them, right? And I tend to share that view," he said. Drone technology is being deployed across the US military, but autonomous drone technology is still in a heavily experimental phase. Even so, Kendall said there was an urgent need for the US to upgrade its Air Force, where the average aircraft is about 30 years old. The planned upgrades come as rivals like China appear to be investing in the development of new stealth fighters. Read the original article on Business Insider
