In an exclusive interview with Defense News, Will Roper, head of the US Air Force's purchasing department, announced this week that the development and testing of a completely new fighter, the NGAD, has been completed in the United States in an atmosphere of deep secrecy.
According to the Air Force command, it will complement the group of 5th generation fighters, and possibly replace the outdated F-22 Raptor. To date, the US Air Force has 186 F-22s, of which about 123 are fully operational, and only 64 are ready to immediately engage in battle.
According to Defense News, the new fighter was developed in record time - in just a year. First, Air Force specialists created a virtual version of the machine, after which they began to create a full-size prototype. By comparison, it took Lockheed Martin 10 years to develop the F-35. It is still unknown which of the leading defense contractors - Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman or Boeing - are involved in the development of the new fighter. Nobody knows its name, location and technical characteristics.
According to experts, NGAD is designed to gain air supremacy. It is known to carry avionics, engines and weapons previously developed for the F-35 and F / A-18E / F. Apparently, it may look like one of them.
And yet the most curious is how the Air Force specialists managed to create a new modern fighter in just a year. For example, the development of the 5th generation Chinese fighter Chengdu J-20 took 10 years, and its Russian counterpart, the Su-57, which made its first flight in 2010, is still being finalized and is only getting ready for serial production.
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