US Air Force Has Secretly Built and Flown a 6th gen Fighter Jet

[727Sky]

No speculation on my part other than I will believe it when I see it or possible hear more. Nevertheless very interesting news.....if true and not propaganda for perceived enemies ?
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/20...et/168479/

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Science & Tech
Revealed: US Air Force Has Secretly Built and Flown a New Fighter Jet
The new digital tools that designed the full-scale flight demonstrator could herald a sea change in weapons acquisition.


By Marcus Weisgerber
Global Business Editor
September 15, 2020 12:06 PM ET

• Air Force
  

The U.S. Air Force’s disclosure that it has secretly built and flown a prototype fighter jet could signal a shift in how the military buys weapons and who builds them.
Will Roper, the head of Air Force acquisition, revealed the existence of the new jet, which he said was part of the service’s Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, project.
“NGAD right now is designing, assembling, testing in the digital world, exploring things that would have cost time and money to wait for physical world results,” Roper said during a video presentation at the Air Force Association’s Virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Tuesday. “NGAD has come so far that the full-scale flight demonstrator has already flown in the physical world. It’s broken a lot of records in the doing.”
Roper provided no more details about the jet, which is presumed to be the Pentagon’s first attempt to build a “sixth-generation” tactical aircraft after the fifth-gen F-22 and F-35 jets. He even declined to name the company or companies that built the jet. 
But he said the digital design technology used to build the new plane could increase competition and increase the number of American military jet makers. 
“Digital engineering is lowering overhead for production and assembly [so] you do not have to have huge facilities, huge workforces [and] expensive tooling,” Roper said on a video conference call with reporters after his presentation. “It is letting us take aircraft assembly back to where we were in the [19]70s and prior to it — back when we had 10 or more companies who could build airplanes for the United States Air Force, because you could do it in hangar-like facilities with small, but very good teams, of engineers and mechanics. We're going back to that. It's super exciting.”
Lockheed Martin and Boeing are the only two U.S. companies that currently build fighter jets. 

Another reason for disclosing the NGAD project: Roper wants companies to invest more in digital design technology. In recent years, the Pentagon writ large has been trying to tap into innovation, particularly commercial technology, that could be adopted for the military.
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The Virtual Tools That Built the Air Force’s New Fighter Prototype
The Air Force in July revealed that it received 18 bids for a new drone that could fly in formation with manned fighter jets. While Boeing, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics won contracts, much smaller Kratos, which has been the subject of acquisition speculation, also received a contract.
“We're...surprised there were 18 bidders,” Cowen & Company analyst Roman Schweizer, wrote in a July 24 note to investors. “Having five competitors for a decent-sized program is pretty solid, in our opinion, particularly when you consider three or fewer is the norm for most platforms, weapons or systems.”
Roper declined to give many additional details about the NGAD project because it is classified. But he said part of the reasoning for disclosing the existence of a test aircraft was to prove to naysayers that combat aircraft could be fully designed and tested on computers before they’re physically built, much like the way Boeing and Saab built the T-7 pilot training jet in recent years.
“I've had many people in the Pentagon and elsewhere, say, ‘I see how you could apply that approach to a trainer like T-7, but you could not build a cutting-?oref=d1-in-articleedge warfighting system that way,’” Roper said. “I've had to listen to that and just nod my head and say, ‘Well, you may be right,’ knowing in the back of my head that you're actually wrong because of what NGAD has done.”
In addition to the NGAD and the T-7, Northrop Grumman is using digital design and testing in building new intercontinental ballistic missiles and it’s also being used on two new satellite projects, Roper said.
“My hope is to create greater credibility and the process, at least within my my own team for many who are not read in to NGAD, so that they will know to get smart on this technology because we're going to train on it, we're going to drill on it until this is the way we do business,” he said.

Digital design technology is already being used by the automotive industry and Formula One racing.

[727Sky]

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36...on-fighter

• The War Zone
  

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In his address on the second day of the Air Force Association’s virtual Air, Space & Cyber Conference, on September 15, 2020, Dr Will Roper, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, revealed that a previous undisclosed demonstrator for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program has begun flight testing.
“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world,” Roper confirmed to Defense News, “and we broke records in doing it. We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.” 
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Whether the demonstrator should be understood as a true prototype for the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) is uncertain — of course, it may also be an unmanned aircraft — but it’s clear that the U.S. effort to field a new-generation fighter is accelerating now that it has reached the inflight testing phase.

There’s another X-plane out there! Will Roper says the full scale flight demonstrator for the Next Generation Air Dominance program has already flown. #vASC2020
— Steve Trimble (@TheDEWLine) September 15, 2020

Based on the nature of the NGAD program, it seems most likely that the aircraft in question is a technology demonstrator that will be used for risk-reduction efforts and to help prove major concepts that could underpin the NGAD program. Perhaps coincidentally, there has been a notable uptick in flight-test activity in the Southwest of the United States of late, which could point at least in part to NGAD-related testing. 
While Roper’s reference to breaking “records” might conjure up images of manned X-planes pushing the limits, it could equally refer to advances made in the aircraft’s design and development path, which is known to make use of the digital engineering espoused in the Air Force’s new “eSeries.”
NORTHROP GRUMMAN
A Northrop Grumman NGAD concept.
Whatever the case, the Air Force has built and flown some kind of experimental aircraft in secret, but Roper provided no more details to suggest if more than one example has been completed, or how many sorties might have been recorded so far. The manufacturer(s) of the aircraft also remains a mystery, as does its designation.
The last known new U.S. fighter prototypes to take to the air were the Boeing X-32 and Lockheed Martin X-35 that competed in the Joint Strike Fighter program back in the early 2000s.
The announcement of any new combat aircraft is an unusual event and the secrecy surrounding the NGAD initiative makes this latest disclosure all the more fascinating. While we can only hope that more details emerge soon, the track record of the NGAD program suggests we probably shouldn’t hold our breath.

[F2d5thCav]

The prototypes of Gen 7 are probably already flying.

Cheers

[Wallfire]

The liming factor of any fighter is does it have a human in it, if it does then you limit the G forces, you have to protect from radiation ( flying high or weapons blast) and from heat of flying at high mark and the need for sleep and rest.

[PLOTUS]

The liming factor of any fighter is does it have a human in it, if it does then you limit the G forces, you have to protect from radiation ( flying high or weapons blast) and from heat of flying at high mark and the need for sleep and rest.

Just a thoought.... if a government was in posession of an extraterrestrial craft, it would likely be retro-engeneered and used in a defense craft, or fighter. Or one would think so.

[Wallfire]

The liming factor of any fighter is does it have a human in it, if it does then you limit the G forces, you have to protect from radiation ( flying high or weapons blast) and from heat of flying at high mark and the need for sleep and rest.

Just a thoought.... if a government was in posession of an extraterrestrial craft, it would likely be retro-engeneered and used in a defense craft, or fighter. Or one would think so.

Thats a very good point, i was thinking that if the extraterrestrials have the same tolerance to G forces as we have, that would mean that the craft would need to be able to travel at many many times the speed of light. Now lets say the max G during long term accalation is half a G, it will take years to get up to speed, and years to slow down. So if ET have found a way to cancel G force and we can copy it, then that changes the game.