J Balvin "Rayo". (2024).

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Description A few months ago, the United States Air Force (USAF) decided to pause the development of the new manned stealth fighter jet that is part of the ‘Next Generation Air Dominance’ (NGAD) program for a deeper review, taking a more calculated approach to planning, developing and buying next-generation platforms. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall confirmed to reporters that the service has halted the selection process for NGAD in order to reexamine the Air Force’s current design concept and ensure the platform is right for future threat, budget and technology environments. NGAD is centred around a manned aircraft that was initially designed to replace the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, and is envisioned as a long-range crewed platform equipped with advanced capabilities that can operate in highly contested environments. But concerns over especially the ever more rising expected per-unit price made the USAF pause the program, as the Air Force is trying to wrangle in the unit cost of the NGAD platform so that the service can field the aircraft in high-enough numbers to deter adversaries. For Kendall, an ideal price point for NGAD would be around that for the F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, costing around $100M instead of $300M, but is that even possible? Future Weapons tries to answer that question and investigates what a far cheaper NGAD manned fighter could actually look like. One of the solutions: an export-variant of the next generation manned fighter, which could not only secure additional funding from foreign customers and lower the per-unit price, but also brings in their expertise and experience, and guarantee a longer running production line that would enable the USAF or foreign customers to purchase new fighter jets later on if that would be needed to either replace the older aircraft, or expand their current fleets). To further explore what an export-version of the NGAD manned fighter — I dubbed F-45E/F-45I — could look like, I use a fictional design of my own. This F-45I “Ze'ev Afor” (meaning ‘Grey Wolf’ in Hebrew) would be a highly modified Israeli-variant of the F-45E in a similar way Israel was allowed to do with the F-15I Ra’am, F16I Sufa and F-35I Adir. DESIGN For this concept, I use a fictional design based on artist renderings and technical data mentioned in various reports that gave clues of what the NGAD manned-fighter could look like before the USAF paused the program for an extensive review. I dubbed the design: F-45E with the (E) standing for ‘export’, with this fictional concept being an F-45I variant for Israel, dubbed F-45I Ze'ev Afor (which means ‘Grey Wolf’ in Hebrew). As in most NGAD concept images, the F-45E/F-45I is a large, stealth fighter, with diamond-shaped wings and two next-generation engines (so-called adaptive cycle engine that allow for both highly fuel-efficient long-range cruising and extended loiter time, and the high levels of thrust and acceleration needed for air combat, while at the same time offer a thermal management capability twice as good as that of the most advanced jet engines of today) and a bubble canopy cockpit. The diamond-shaped aircraft uses a complex control surface arrangement with two fixed tail surfaces that act as both horizontal and vertical stabilisers, while each has a moveable flight control surface referred to a 'ruddervator' for optimized stealth and lower drag. This design gives the F-45I superior stealth capability in all directions compared to today’s stealth fighters, and its blended wing body design provides higher lift, longer range and lower fuel consumption. Besides a high degree of stealth, the F-45I incorporates supercruise (the ability to fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners), manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capability with up to two advanced, stealthy CACs (instead of five CACs for the USAF variant) and unprecedented sensor fusing- and networking systems – all the hallmarks of next-generation fighter jets. AVIONICS As is the case with the F-35’s made for export, the F-45E/F-45I will not have the full package of capabilities in terms of electronics (in particular its Electronic Warfare Suite), avionics and sensors that the NGAD Light-variant for the USAF will have. But the few electronics removed from export models can be replaced by the recipients preferred systems, tailored to their needs, similar to advanced US-made fighter aircraft in service today with the Air Force's of Israel and Japan. To keep R&D costs limited, initial production models of the NGAD F-45(E) / F-45I could be fitted with as many off-the-shelf technology as possible, capitalizing on further developments of cutting edge main- and subsystems that have already found their way into advanced fighters such as the F-35 Lightning II. The F-45E/F-45I's main sensor for example could be a further development of the AN/APG-85 Active Electronically Scanned Array (AESA) fire control radar that Northrop Grumman is currently developing for the F-35. The new AESA-radar for the F-45E/F-45I would have an antenna composed of >1,850 Gallium Nitride-based transmit/receive modules. The F-45E/F-45I could also be fitted with an advanced version of the Electro-Optical Distributed Aperture System (EODAS) sensor suite developed for the F-35. This system collects real-time, high-resolution imagery from eight infrared (IR) cameras mounted around the aircraft and sends the imagery to the pilot’s helmet-mounted display to provide a 360-degree spherical view of the environment. ARMAMENT Since nearly all artist renderings depict the crewed NGAD-fighter to be around the same size of the F-111 Aardvark (which is much larger than the F-22A Raptor is), it is fair to assume the NGAD’s manned fighter will have a similar payload capacity of 31,500 lb (14,300 kg) carried in internal weapons bays for stealth. This would allow for both a large number of beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles, including the new AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile AAM with a max. range > 200 km (or a mixture of BVR-missiles with short-range AAMs) to be carried in internal weapons bays for stealth, as well as a wide range of air-to-surface weapons such as AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) series cruise missiles, and indigenous weapons of foreign customers, such as Israel's Golden Horizon ALBMs, which have been used in the Israeli Air Force-lead retaliatory strike mission against several well defended, key military targets deep inside Iran on October 26th of this year.