Lockheed Martin teases next generation aircraft
Recently Lockheed Martin put out a post on social media [1] where they showed a silhouette of a yet-to-be-revealed aircraft. Most people seem to believe it will be the reveal of their entry to the NGAD program [2] (Next Generation Air Dominance).
While not much is publically known one interesting tidbit is how much it looks like the silhouette of the Testor Corp [3] F-19 [4] model that was released back in the mid 80s. Testor said at the time that the model was based on intelligence (aka leaks) of what would eventually become the F-117.
Aviation forums in the past have said F-19 model is what they WANTED the F-117 and it does look quite a bit like the Have Blue [5] test craft they built, however, the legend is that they couldn't get the math to work for radar deflection properly at that time due to lack of computational power and ended up with the geometrically simpler F117 design we got.
[1] Lockheed Martin Teaser: https://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/LM-NGAD-story.jpg
[2] NGAD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Air_Dominance
[3] Testor F19: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testor_Corporation#F-19
[4] Testor F19 Image: https://test803.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/img_6712-1.jpg
[5] Have Blue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Have_Blue
Kind of disappointed that it isn't a B-21 sized laser-cannon wielding mothership like that Congressional report talked about, but nonetheless this looks incredibly slick.
Congressional report in question: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11659
Holy shit I hadn't heard of that. That's ambitious to say the least.
Remember that the most powerful fighter jet in the world, according to pretty much everybody, is still the F-22 Raptor. The F-35 has some advantages in avionics and scale, and the J-20 is supposed to rival the F-35, but none of those is actually capable of going up against an F-22 and coming out on top. And I guess I could mention the SU-57 but for some reason I don't think that's considered a serious rival anymore.
The F-22 first flew in 1997. The USAF isn't interested in simply building the most powerful airplane in the world, if they wanted to do that they'd simply restart production on the F-22. The goal is to build something that will still be the most powerful plane in the world decades after it enters service.
The F-22 is America's best jet, their air dominance fighter. I think the F-35 advantage is largely on technology, rather than avionics per se. The F-22 can fly faster than F-35, at increased range, and is capable of supercruising (cruising at super sonic speed without the fuel-expensive and stealth-ruining afterburner). They both fire the same weapons, but generally the F-22 is an F-35 killer. Which makes sense strategically that America exports the F-35, but not the F-22.
How any of those compare to the J-20 is hotly debated, shrouded in secrecy, and honestly difficult to find credible comparisons. To put my biases on the table, I think the F-22 is still likely the best. I'll say that on paper the J-20 is basically better than the F-22, but in reality data is very limited, though China is deploying them in the south china sea. They do flybys and other aerial encounters to US aircraft as of the last few years, so they are operational. But of course they haven't seen combat, so the question of quality is somewhat of an open question.
The main strategic difference between the J-20 and the F-22 in my mind is quantity. Only 195 F-22s were built and the USA is unable to make more without cannabilizing down F-35 production. China have over 200 J-20 and are producing over 40 a year, whereas America's stock of F-22 dwindle as they slowly have to use some as salvage for repair and trainer aircraft. This is why the USA is moving so quickly towards NGAD, their F-22 replacement(s), as otherwise they will be significantly outnumbered in this area.
Feels to me like someone in Congress was playing too much Ace Combat 7