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Boeing is unveiling an updated version of its F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter concept at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space Exposition in Washington DC this week.

The tail-less twin-engine stealth fighter design comes in "manned and unmanned options as possibilities per the US Navy," Boeing says. The design features diverterless supersonic inlets reminiscent of those found on the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

The Boeing concept also features canards, which is somewhat of a surprise because the motion of those forward mounted control surfaces is generally assumed to compromise a stealth aircraft's frontal radar cross-section. But the lack of vertical tail surfaces suggests the aircraft would be optimized for all-aspect broadband stealth, which would be needed for operations in the most challenging anti-access/area denial environments.

Also of note in the manned version of the company's F/A-XX concept is the placement of the cockpit--rearward visibility appears to be restricted without the aid of a sensor apparatus similar to the F-35's distributed aperture system of six infrared cameras.

The Boeing F/A-XX concept is a response to a USN request for information (RFI) from April 2012 soliciting data for a replacement for the service's Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet and EA-18G Growler fleets in the 2030s. The Super Hornet fleet is expected to start reaching the end of the jet's 9000h useful lifespan during that time period.

"The intent of this research is to solicit Industry inputs on candidate solutions for CVN [nuclear-powered aircraft carrier] based aircraft to provide air supremacy with a multi-role strike capability in an anti-access/area denied (A2AD) operational environment," the navy RFI had stated. "Primary missions include, but are not limited to, air warfare (AW), strike warfare (STW), surface warfare (SUW), and close air support (CAS)."

Navy leaders had said at the time that they expect any new F/A-XX design to have greatly increased range and offer far superior kinematic performance compared to existing tactical aircraft.

This week I had the opportunity to report from the Langkawi International Maritime & Aerospace Exhibition.  Owing to horrendously slow Internet - this resort island is just not set up for thousands of business visitors toting data hungry smart phones and PCs - I was unable to tweet, let alone post video and images to the DEW Line.

The show was a literal fighter fest. All the likely contenders in Malaysia's future multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) competition for 18 fighters were there. These included the Boeing F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet, Saab Gripen, Eurofighter Typhoon, and Dassault Rafale.  They were all on static and all performed flying displays. In addition, RMAF Su-30MKMs performed daily, as did the Russian Knights with their Su-27s.  It reminded me of Aero India in 2011, which was a superb show for fighter aficionados.

I took a bunch of videos, but the pair posted with this blog entry are my favourites. The one above includes Su-30MKMs and F/A-18s at the show's opening ceremony.  The best part comes at the end of the video - although I jumped out of my skin at the time. 

The video below shows an MAS A380 in formation with four Su-30MKMs. Wicked cool. The A380 had landed that morning on a revenue flight on LDN-KUL, flew up to Langkawi for the flypast, and then returned to KUL for its next flight. Airbus promotes the A380 as an efficient tool for airlines, but this is the way aircraft are really supposed to be used.

After yesterday's China Daily story quoting Xian Y-20 design chief Tang Jun (also spelled Tang Changhong) about the type's export potential, the Ministry of National Defence has published another China Daily story based on his comments. The exuberant headline says it all: "Confidence sky-high over jumbo cargo plane."

"The country's first jumbo airfreighter is set for take-off into official service, its chief designer said weeks after its successful maiden test flight," reports China Daily.

"When fitted with Chinese-designed and manufactured engines, the Yun-20, or Transport-20, will have a greater take-off weight, longer fuselage and carry more cargo."　

Tang is reported as saying that the type will enter service in 2017.  Tantalisingly, the report also notes this: "[The Y-20] is currently powered by four Russian-made engines, but these will ultimately be replaced by engines designed and made in China."

It will be interesting to see how long it takes Beijing to get an indigenous engine flying on the Y-20, and if the engine will be ready for the 2017 target.

The report also gave a few details about the Y-20's dimensions: 45m wingspan (vs. 51.74m for C-17) ,  MTOW of 200 tonnes (vs. 265 tonnes for C-17) , and "load-carrying capacity of 66 tons" (vs. 77.5 tonnes for C-17).

If these numbers are correct, there is a strong possibility the Y-20 (in its current state) is seriously under-powered compared with its US counterpart. Most pundits believe the Y-20 prototype is powered by the Soloviev D-30s used aboard Tupolev 154M airliner and the improved Il-76MD - an after burning version powers the MiG-31.  The D-30, however, produces maximum thrust of 23,150 lbf (103 kN), compared with the 40,440 lbf  (180kN) certified maximum performance of the Pratt & Whitney F117-PW-100 turbofan that powers the C-17.

For me, the most intriguing option for a future Y-20 power plant is a hypothetical military variant of the CJ-1000A, an indigenous power plant for the Comac C919 airliner that is being developed by AVIC Commercial Aircraft Engine.

In September 2011, Comac told Flightglobal that the high-bypass CJ-1000A will be capable of producing up to 44,000lb-thrust (196kN). This is considerably greater than the 28,000-30,000lb thrust of the C919's launch power plant, the CFM International Leap 1C. It also would exceed the F117's certificated maximum performance of 40,400lb.

Was there ever a YF-24? The US Air Force says no. "Our historians said there is no record of there ever having been a YF-24," says Lt Col Max Despain, an Air Force spokeswoman at the Pentagon. "Perhaps it's being mistaken for an X-24 which wasn't a fighter?"

That said, this old bio for a former test pilot, Colonel Joseph A. Lanni lists such an aircraft--which is curious. So there remains a small possibility a YF-24 might have been squirreled away somewhere out in the desert in Nevada. I say that because Lanni, according to his bio, commanded a classified flight test unit between July 1995 and June 1997.

While the entry in the bio might be a typo, it was certainly not the X-24 that Lanni flew. The Martin Marietta X-24A flew during 1963 to 1975, which was well before Lanni became an Air Force pilot. It's also not likely that Lanni flew the Northrop YF-23 either since he was assigned to Eglin AFB in Florida during the time those jets were flying.  

So, what exactly the YF-24 is or was is still kind of a mystery. Your guess is as good as mine.

But I did find this intriguing Boeing Multirole Fighter concept design called the Model-24F, which seems to have preceded the Joint Strike Fighter program. Certainly the design shares traits with earlier Boeing concepts from the Advanced Tactical Fighter program and with later efforts such as the ill-fated X-32 and more recent F/A-XX concepts the company has been showing-off.

From the specifications, it was clear that at the time the Model-24F was being examined, the USAF was looking for a much lighter and much faster aircraft than the current Lockheed Martin F-35. It's apparent from these diagrams that the Boeing Model-24F design was to be a much more slender aircraft than what eventually became the JSF.  It also looks like it was designed to be far more agile--it has provisions for two-dimensional thrust vectoring and some other interesting features. The design matches the Raptor's top speed of about Mach 2.2 though it doesn't cruise supersonically like the F-22.

Here is the full USAF report of the Model-24F.

GetTRDoc (1).pdf by

This year's Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando was understandably downbeat. Fewer US Air Force officials and their industry counterparts showed up due to the current fiscal climate. But some contractors did show off their hardware. Their efforts paid-off, because while fewer service officials attended, many top USAF officers did make the journey to Florida.

Beechcraft was one contractor that did make an effort to show-off their wares. Together with partner CAE, the company showed-off a sim for its AT-6 Texan II turbo-prop trainer/light attack plane. Beechcraft hopes to sell the Afghan air force 20 of the machines under the Light Air Support tender, which is being administered by the USAF. The service was originally going to announce the winner of the contract today, but that's now been pushed off until the February 27. Beechcraft's AT-6 is facing off against Sierra Nevada/Embraer's A-29 Super Tucano.

This sim, according to CAE's engineers, replicates the cockpit of the AT-6 almost perfectly. Most of the components are direct copies of the real aircraft's systems except that they are not flight rated. The computer flight model is close, but not quite correct, the engineers told me--there is a bit of Dutch roll and adverse yaw that's not present in the real thing. It's actually quite noticeable when "flying" the sim as I saw when I flew it. In the video below, one CAE's engineers was kind enough to fly a quick demo for the DEW Line.

Staying on the topic of sims, BAE Systems also showed-off some of the high fidelity graphics capabilities they expect will be part of their T-X jet trainer pitch. That's of course assuming the USAF can afford to pay for the T-X in this brutal fiscal environment. We'll see.

Moving onto engines, Pratt & Whitney had their top executives present. I sat down with Bennett Croswell to talk about his company's efforts to develop a new variable cycle engine for the Air Force Research Laboratory's Adaptive Engine Technology Development (AETD) program. More on that Monday probably.

General Electric brought this model of the F110, however, I never did manage to track down any of their execs. But they are also working on an AETD variable cycle engine.

Check out this awesome video from the cockpit of a VFA-103 Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet flying off the deck of USS Dwight D Eisenhower.  This video was produced by Carrier Strike Group 8 during the summer of 2012. But if the dire predictions of what might happen under sequestration come to fruition, we may not see many more videos like this in the near future.

Earlier today during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Adm. Mark E. Ferguson III, vice chief of naval operations, said that the Navy would have to stop refueling two carriers and defer construction of a third. Procurement of aircraft would have to be cut, and maintenance deferred. Training and readiness would basically go down the tubes.

"We anticipate reducing flight operations and steaming days for our deployed forces, canceling deployments, deferring more maintenance on ships and aircraft, suspending most non-deployed operations such as training and certifications, along with other cost-cutting measures," he said. "We will immediately erode the readiness of the force."

If the full sequestration goes into effect, that is 10% cuts to the Defense Department budget every year for the next 10 years, the Navy will lose 50 ships. The Navy will lose two carrier strike groups and a "proportional number" of expeditionary strike groups.

You can download the Admiral's prepared testimony here.

Sequestration... It takes effect on January 2^nd 2013, just after the New Year, and automatically chops about $500 billion from the US Defense Department's budget.  That is unless the Congress and executive branch can come to an agreement to stop it. What is sequestration? And what might happen if it actually goes into effect? It's all very complicated, but in this video Adolf Hitler explains everything in a nutshell. WARNING:Video contains explict subtitles. So if you're the easily-offended sensitive PC type, don't watch it Will it really be that bad? I don't know, and it's doubtful anyone else does either, but Adolf seems to think it's pretty catastrophic. We'll find out in just a little bit over a month.

UPDATE: Frank Kendall, the AT&L, spoke about this topic this afternoon. Read the story here.

The third day of our Boeing media tour of the Pacific Northwest afforded our pitiful hung-over band the opportunity to visit Boeing's 737 production line and to visit part of the P-8 Poseidon production line.

To build the P-8, which is basically a 737 Next Gen 800 fuselage with 900 wings, Boeing created a third ITAR-compliant line to assemble the jets. It also, of course, has all of its anti-sub and anti-surface, electronic support measures (ESM) avionics and what not... It also has better, more powerful generators. But it's basically a 737 at the end of the day.

The ITAR segregation goes down to the sub-contractor level. Even the tail-cone is built at an ITAR-licensed facility in Korea. Boeing has made the process as painless as possible, but it still sounds like it's a living nightmare. But other than that, it's basically identical to the 737 production line.

Once the airframe is completed, it is stuffed at another Boeing facility in the Seattle metro-area with all of its mission systems. Believe it or not, it actually flies there... even though it's basically down the street.

So far, Boeing has delivered five Low Rate Initial Production Lot 1 jets to the Navy at Jacksonville, Florida. A sixth aircraft will be delivered soon... but it's not finished yet, so we got to go onboard and take a look.

 It is night and day compared to a Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion. Instead of the cramped, battleship grey interior and what looked to be panels and displays from well before I was born, the interior of the P-8 is both spacious and extremely modern.

The flight deck is basically a modern 737 glass-cockpit with a few US Navy specific modifications--i.e. countermeasures and display pages to interact with the guys in the back. The crew stations are awesome--large touch-screens and large format LCD displays. There is plenty of excess space for growth...

The Navy will buy a total of 117 of these jets along with the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton version of the Global Hawk to replace the P-3C. The P-8 is undergoing operational testing right now, it should be declared operational late in 2013.

The Navy is already planning a series of upgrades to the jet, that's partly due to the service rigidly sticking to it original requirements--so features added to P-3 after those were set have to be added to the P-8 later. But other features are designed to enable the P-8 to kill subs from higher altitudes.

The second day of our Boeing media trip to the Pacific Northwest found our motley band of defense reporters at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, near Oak Harbor, Washington.

The base is in the midst of a transition from the venerable, but still capable, Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler electronic attack aircraft to the new Boeing EA-18G Growler--which is based on the proven Boeing F/A-18F Block II Super Hornet.

Basically, the US Navy and Boeing ported over the guts of the latest ICAP III version of the Prowler into the Super Hornet airframe--which, with the addition of an interference cancellation system (it allows Growler crews to communicate while jamming) and a vastly improved man-machine interface (and a few other improvements) resulted in the Growler.

The Growler, even with its two-man crew versus the four-man crew of the Prowler, offers vastly improved performance over the older machine, says Commander Chris Middleton, commander of the VAQ-129--the Prowler and Growler schoolhouse (Fleet Replenishment Squadron if you want get all formal about it). That's partly due to the Super Hornet's airframe qualities--such as speed, air-to-air capability (It retains the F/A-18E/F's AIM-120 AMRAAM--aka the Slammer--capability but not AIM-9X capability, though it does still retain dual JHMCS capability. It also it has no M61 20mm cannon), and Raytheon APG-79 active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. But the EA-18G is also networked and has far better automated cockpit systems. That affords the pilot and naval flight officer in the back the ability sort through more targets with far greater confidence in the information gathered--and they can share it, Middleton says.

Nonetheless, the Growler still uses the Prowler's ALQ-99 jammer pods, which are from a bygone era. Eventually, Next Generation Jammer (NGJ) pods will replace the ALQ-99 toward the end of the decade. It will feature active electronically scanned array antennas and, most likely, a lighter, more aerodynamically shaped pod. Potentially, the NGJ could allow the jet to fly supersonically with the pods attached. Currently, the ALQ-99 limits the EA-18G to Mach 0.95--however, the actual jamming mission is likely to still be flown at Mach 0.95 according to Navy sources. Also, the NGJ will only replace the mid-band ALQ-99 jammers; the ALQ-99's low-band jammer is actually in production and is relatively new.

 Right now, VAQ-129 has 41 EA-18Gs, with more arriving every month. The unit fluctuates between 41 and 43 Growlers. The squadron also has 9-10 Prowlers on the ramp at any given time. By April 2014, VAQ-129 will stop producing new Prowler aircrews and that mission will shift to the US Marine Corps at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. Until then, the unit will do both missions.

 Whidbey Island has a total of 79 Growlers at the moment. However, it will eventually have 114 of the new jets in 13 squadrons (each with five jets)--three of them land-based expeditionary squadrons supporting the US Air Force.  Incidentally, there are USAF crews flying alongside their USN and USMC brethren at Whidbey... Middleton says those crews are fully integrated into their operations and could even deploy with a USN squadron on a carrier. It's already happened, he says.

Unfortunately, the NAS Whidbey Island leadership was extremely leery of allowing photography or videos to be taken. The only aircraft we were allowed to photograph was inside the hangar and completely buttoned up... We did see the cockpit, and it is identical to the Block II Super Hornet I flew at Farnborough earlier in the year. But alas, we couldn't film flight operations on the ramp, which were fairly impressive.

Incidentally, while we were at Whidbey--primarily for the Growlers, the base also flies the Lockheed Martin P-3C Orion. Those aircraft will soon be replaced by the new Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft, based on the 737 airliner.  It's also slated to receive the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft--better known as the Broad Area Maritime Surveillance (BAMS) program, which is based on the Global Hawk.