USN will put together a fighter based on whatever technology their sister service de-risks through its own activity. They don't have the leadership buy-in to support large NAVAIR projects. The USAF has committed to more than $5 Billion in Research and Development for a next-generation fighter even at this early stage. The USN so far has committed practically NOTHING to it. Moreover, one would have to go back decades to actually find a Navy designed fighter that successfully transitioned from development to operational use. They've been piggy backing on USAF research for a long time and that won't change in the near future either.Philip wrote:Ck out the USN's pos. config for a new naval stealth bird.AMCA should take a look at this config.
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/spe ... ighter-jet
Both the CAW and the CAF capability has been dialed down post the cold war (justifiably so) given that the threat largely went away. This has been more apparent on the Carrier Air Wing side since they replaced their fleet protection fighter with a strike fighter. Do they want to go back and recover the mission sets they performed during the cold war? I'm skeptical since it will come at a cost and air-wing diversity that I do not see the Navy leadership supporting in the long term. The attitude prevalent at the moment seems to be - "That's the Air-Force's job". But anything could happen, the next lot of leadership could begin to realize that they may have to kick NAVAIR investment up a notch just as their predecessors saw decades of Counter Insurgency ahead of them and dialed it down to support that mission. But at the moment they don't appear to have the culture, attitude or the appetite to embark on a cutting edge air-superiority platform for offensive or defensive counter air among other things that a SH/Growler replacement needs to perform.