Aug 22, 2020,08:00am EDT
Forget Stealth—The U.S. Navy’s New Fighter Could Look Like The Old F-14
David Axe Contributor
The U.S. Navy quietly has stood up a program office to begin figuring out what the sailing branch needs in a new manned fighter jet.
One leading think tank in Washington, D.C., has ideas. Whatever the Navy buys to replace today’s F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, it should “emphasize range and speed, with low-observability being a secondary concern.â€
In other words, it need not be a stealth fighter. Not as long as it can fly far and fast while carrying a useful payload.
The Navy’s current warplanes are likely to hang around through the 2030s. The fleet’s nine carrier air wings at present possess around 70 planes each—44 F/A-18E/Fs, five EA-18G jamming planes, five E-2 radar planes, a pair of C-2 transports and around 19 H-60 helicopters.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2020/08/22/forget-stealth-the-us-navys-new-fighter-could-look-like-the-old-f-14/amp/
