Showing posts with label F-22 Raptor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label F-22 Raptor. Show all posts

Saturday, March 22, 2025

Boeing contracted to produce NGAD fighter jet F-47

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” — George Washington
The Pentagon has given Boeing the contract to build the Air Force’s new fighter jet, labeled the Next Generation Air Dominance, or NGAD, President Donald Trump announced on Friday. This long-awaited deal means Boeing will create a super advanced sixth-generation plane to replace the older F-22 Raptor. Trump said it will be called the F-47.

This new jet will have “state-of-the-art stealth technologies [making it] virtually unseeable,” and it’ll fly with robot drones, called collaborative combat aircraft, as its wingmen. “It’s something the likes of which nobody has ever seen before,” Trump said during an announcement in the Oval Office with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, and Lt. Gen. Dale White. 

“In terms of all the attributes of a fighter jet, there’s never been anything even close to it, from speed to maneuverability to what it can have [as] payload. And this has been in the works for a long period of time.”

“America’s enemies will never see it coming,” he added.

Gen. Allvin said the F-47 will be “the most advanced, lethal and adaptable fighter ever developed. We are not just building another fighter. We are shaping the future of warfare and putting our enemies on notice.”

Boeing beat out Lockheed Martin for the NGAD contract after Northrop Grumman said in 2023 it wouldn’t try to lead the project. “We recognize the importance of designing, building a sixth-generation fighter capability for the United States Air Force,” said Steve Parker, a top Boeing official. He added that Boeing made a huge investment to get ready for this job and will build the best NGAD plane possible.
Lockheed Martin was bummed about losing but said it gave a solid pitch. “We will await further discussions with the U.S. Air Force on any next steps,” the company said.

Fortunately, Boeing's F-47 will have a canopy and no doors that can fall off in flight.

The F-47 will be the main part of NGAD’s “family of systems,” which includes robot drones plus high-tech sensors, weapons, and gear to connect with satellites and other aircraft. The Air Force says NGAD is key to beating tough enemies like China.

Other companies, General Atomics and Anduril, are working on their own drone wingmen, called RFQ-42A and RFQ-44A, to fly with the F-35 or F-47. The Air Force wants these drones to be affordable, run by smart software, and able to do things like spy missions, attacks, or confuse the enemy. They’ll also have special engines that adjust for the best power and fuel use, made by either General Electric Aerospace or Pratt & Whitney.

Experts say Boeing winning this deal is good for America’s defense industry. It keeps all three big U.S. plane makers—Boeing, Lockheed (which makes the F-35), and Northrop (which builds the B-21 Raider)—busy with cutting-edge projects. “For the country, that’s a really important thing, to have that innovation, that competition and frankly, the volume production,” said Doug Birkey from the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

But Boeing’s had some tough years. 

Its 737 Max planes crashed, killing nearly 350 people, and last year it made a deal to avoid a big trial. Another 737 Max had a door blow out mid-flight in 2024, and workers went on strike over pay issues. Plus, some military projects like the T-7A trainer and KC-46 tanker have had delays and cost overruns. In 2024, Boeing fired its defense boss, Ted Colbert, after losing tons of money.

Birkey said this win is big for Boeing, but “It’s up to Boeing to make this opportunity a win. Only time will tell on that.”

The contract Boeing got on Friday pays them to build and test the F-47, with extra rewards if they do well. They’ll make a few test planes and could build more later if the Air Force likes the results. Gen. Allvin said test versions of NGAD have already flown hundreds of hours over the past five years, proving the tech works.

“The F-47 has unprecedented maturity,” Allvin said. “While the F-22 is currently the finest air superiority fighter in the world, and its modernization will make it even better, the F-47 is a generational leap forward.” He also said that it’s better than China’s supposed sixth-generation jet, the J-36, saying, “Despite what our adversaries claim, the F-47 is truly the world’s first crewed sixth-generation fighter.”

The F-47 will cost less than the F-22, which was $143 million a pop, and the Air Force plans to buy more of them. Trump wouldn’t say the exact price, but the Air Force expects to spend $20 billion on NGAD by 2029. 

Last year, the program nearly got canceled when costs soared too high, but after a review, they decided to keep it going.

Trump hinted that allies might get a simpler version of the F-47 someday, saying, “Because someday, maybe they’re not our allies, right?”

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Thursday, May 4, 2017

USAF jets intercept 2 Bears and 2 fighters

(Photo: Fox News)
The U.S. Air Force intercepted a pair of Russian Tu-95 "Bear" bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons about 50 miles southwest of Chariot, Alaska on Thursday. The bombers were escorted by two Russian Su-35 fighter jets and entered the Alaska Air Defense Zone early Thursday morning.

Although the airspace in question is over international territory, it should be considered a provocation by the Putin regime and designed to determine our response time.

Russian Tu-95s are no strangers to our defense zones but it's unusual for them to be accompanied by Su-35 "Flanker" fighter jets.

The U.S. intercept was carried out by a pair of Air Force F-22 stealth fighter jets that were in the process of flying patrol in the area. 

A NORAD spokesperson told Fox News the intercept started at 9:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday. 

According to officials, the Su-35 jets were unarmed and in international airspace. 

The incident comes just one day after President Trump and Vladimir Putin spoke over the phone. According to the White House, the two men discussed the crises in the Middle East and North Korea but Trump did not discuss recent Russian provocations such as the four consecutive days last month in which Russian bombers flew near Alaska for the first time since 2014.

The conversation between the two egos was described by the White House as "a very good one."

That says it all.

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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Solutions to Terror

Lone wolf terrorists/jhadists; ISIS recruiting young men and girls to join them in their beheading fest in Iraq and Syria; Mosques preaching jihad behind closed doors that even the FBI cannot open. What can we do to stop this global terror?

Well, for one, we can bomb the hell out of them and defeat them with ground troops and that will stop the ones who are already there. We cannot accept a peace settlement if history has taught us anything. Peace for Islam is simply a "time out" for war. Once their forces are back to full strength, it will begin all over again.

But what of the ones who will potentially be recruited to terrorize us? How do we stop this religious quest?

First, we must make their deaths less attractive to them. We should be showing the bodies of those who are killed in the line of jihad. The Ottawa shooter, for example, or the guy who ran over the soldier should have their deaths displayed in all the horror that a 9 mm round can cause. The message needs to show clearly: "This is what happens to you when you try killing us."

People without faces or who sport bullet holes in their body, and whose brain matter is scattered nearby is quite unattractive.

Then we make it clear that once we've killed you, we will bury you with pig's blood scattered around your body. Maybe we'll even wrap you in bacon--cheap bacon because the good stuff is too good to waste.

Second, we infiltrate every mosques and learn what they're preaching. Any imam who preaches jihad will be summarily arrested and sent to Saudi Arabia dressed as a rabbi. Let the chips, or heads, fall where they may.

Finally, if we uncover anyone looking to leave the USA to go and fight for Islam, we do not confiscate their passport--we let them go, then we confiscate their passport at the airport, insert a GPS chip into it, then return it to them. When these jihadists establish their ISIS location in Iraq or Syria, we bomb the hell out of them. I bet we can get lots of collateral ISIS damage out of this idea.

But that will never happen with a weak, laughable president who, rather than using the most powerful military in the world, has chosen to weaken it.

Jason Arday: the Cambridge D.E.I. professor and his sad demise

On August 5th Jason Arday, Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, resigned after being outed for plagiarism all...