Recently, the head of American US headquarters General Charles Brown declared the desire of the Air Force to obtain a conditional alternative to the F-16 fighter, made on a qualitatively new level and takes into account modern trends. It is assumed that such an aircraft may be something like supplements to the F-35 fifth generation.
How could such a car look like? Obviously, the answer to this question we will not know soon. Nevertheless, you can make some assumptions. This was what Hush-Kit edition, whose staff talked to aircraft industry experts - Stephen Macparin and James Smith, who helped develop such aircraft as F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Eurofighter Typhoon. Then the illustrator Andy Godfrey from Teasel Studio took their ideas and created a concept called F-36. In detail about this tells Popular Mechanics.
Based on the requirements expressed by Charles Brown, specialists presented the concept of a light cheap aircraft, which in a broad sense would have become the development of ideas laid in F-16. The basic principles of F-36 are the speed of development, availability and the possibility of introducing new technologies in the future. "F-35 is Ferrari, F-22 is Bugatti Chiron, US Air Force needs Nissan 300ZX," said Joe Coles from Hush-Kit in the comments for Popular Mechanics.
Bombs and rocket plane can carry on internal and external suspensions. In this case, the car will not be a stealth in the usual sense. Among other things, the plane is offered to arm a cannon, which would allow to work more effectively for land targets.
Will something similar in the future? Answer this question is difficult. Now the Americans exploit the large fleet of F-16 fighters. According to open sources, the US Air Force today is more than 400 F-16C fighters and over 100 F-16D. These cars will have to replace something in the future. Meanwhile, the United States continues to implement the F-35 program, increasing the production of these machines and endowed them with new features.
In addition, recently the US Air Force received the first F-15EX, which in the future will be able to replace part of fighters of the fourth generation sent to peace.
Something similar we can see in the naval forces of the country who want to exploit the fourth-generation fighters along with the F-35C decks. Recall, last year first rose into the sky F / A-18 Block III Super Hornet - the final version f / a-18e / f.
Source: Naked Science