The United States has not planned to give way to the air. For several years, the American defense industry has been working on the prototype of a 6th grade fighter plane, whose code name is F/A-XX, supposed to succeed the F-22 and F-35. While the Navy must soon publicly announce the winner of the call for tenders between Boeing and Northrop Grumman, amazing news was given this Monday, April 7.
The War Zone was present at the SEA Air Space 2025 fair when the counter-admiral Michael Donelly, chief of the air forces division at the Navy, explained that the F/A-XX would have “Probably 125 % of the capacities we know today, to give us greater operational flexibility”. Bed to give details on these 125 %, he confirmed that the F/A-XX would only earn 25 % additional range of action compared to hunting aircraft currently in service.
Additional research to allow refueling in full flight
Today, the F-35 is the American fighter plane with the largest radius of action, that is to say the distance possibly traveled before being forced to return to the base to fill up with fuel. The army estimates him at 670 nautical miles, which is about 1,241 kilometers. This would mean that the radius of action of the F/A-XX would reach 1,551 kilometers.
-Michael Donlly still added that this first estimate could evolve. “It will of course benefit from all the capacities that we are currently developing as the capacity for refueling.” The Drone MQ-25 Stingray, designed to supply fighter in flight, currently under development, should largely help.
A fighter plane boosted at AI
Drones are now completely part of the Navy strategy. It established a target of 60 % of unanswered devices for the 2040s. The MQ-25 is supposed to advance research on the subject for other projects to come. Michael Donelly also explains that the F/A-XX will have an integrated artificial intelligence for “Better management of conflict fields”.
The Navy says nothing, on the other hand, on the stealth of the F/A-XX. An element that would have deserved precision when the Chinese recently revealed to be able to detect stealth aircraft, under certain conditions, thanks to very efficient radars.
