Navy is fast tracking its next gen fighter to the 2030s...

 via USNI News.

The Navy has to move quicker in its development and fielding of a sixth-generation fighter, the service’s top uniformed officer said Tuesday.

Speaking at a virtual forum hosted by Defense One, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday emphasized that the service cannot afford to move at the same pace it did when developing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lighting II.

“We can’t wait until 2045 or 2050 to field the next manned aircraft, if that’s what we think is required. We also have to come to grips with what is required: what do we think the future’s going to hold if we continue to develop and invest in weapons that are more precise and that have range and that, one would argue, will be doing fewer air-to-air combat type of scenarios?” Gilday said.

“We’re going to want to be able to reach up and touch … at quite a distance,” he continued. “So what am I going to get from that investment, from a warfighting perspective, that I can’t get from unmanned? So we have to take a look at that.”

Bad news for the F-35 fanboys.

You can spin this anyway you want but its become obvious (at least to me) that the F-35 just ain't what is needed in the future.  Wait fuck that.  NEAR FUTURE!

It's stunning to think that this plane is just now entering service, has barely reached its go to war "model" and the powers that be in both the USAF and USN are already turning the page.

It does clear up a few things though.

Now we know why this plane is being offered to some (at least in my mind) questionable allies in the Middle East.

It's already old news.

The next gen fighter is just over the horizon.  It will probably be rolled out in an unmanned version first (to augment the lackluster F-35) and then we'll see the full on manned airplane.

The crazy thing?

Its just another piece of data to show how wrong this generation of generals got things.  The taxpayers gave them everything they wanted and they still screwed it up.  Amazing.