F-35 changes heart to become 6th generation fighter?

Pratt & Whitney has announced an upgrade to the F135 engine for the F-35 fifth-generation fighter aircraft.

The company's representative stated that equipping this new engine allows to increase the maneuverability and stealth capabilities of the F-35.

This project is called GO2 - a follow-up project to GO1 project to improve the combat capability of the US armed forces, Aviation Week newspaper said.

If the GO1 project aimed to reduce engine fuel consumption by 5% and increase the main engine thrust by 10%, then GO2 their capabilities will be further enhanced and will come closer to the 6th generation fighter, the designers claim.

The prototype of this engine is the F135 XTE68/LF introduced by Pratt&Whitney in 2013, then over the next 5 years they received an additional 1 billion USD to complete them.

According to the GO2 project plan, it will start in 2021. The representative of this military and civil aircraft engine manufacturing company affirmed that, with the current technology of Pratt & Whitney, the newly created engine will meet the requirements of 6th generation fighter aircraft.

According to Bromberg, the F-35 manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, will not change the basic structure of the aircraft. But if the GO1/GO2 projects are successful, the Americans will continue to upgrade the “golden plane” into a 6th generation fighter.

This information is actually a positive signal for the F-35 project. In fact, this US project has been criticized continuously. Representatives of the US military, including Deputy Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, have repeatedly criticized that, although the F-35 injection has encountered many problems, in reality, since 2014, this fighter has not changed anything.

The US Air Force is even considering cancelling an order for 590 F-35s, as the aircraft is too expensive to operate and maintain, and is considered unsafe. In total, the US Air Force has identified 966 technical defects and shortcomings in the F-35. A number that is particularly worrying to aviation experts.

For Lockheed Martin supporters, they find every way to justify this project. For example, they argue that developing a new generation fighter requires going through many tests to perfect them.

They even said that the development of the F-35 is repeating the development process of the 2nd generation F-5 Freedom Fighter, which later became the basis for the development of 3rd and 4th generation aircraft. Therefore, the development of the F-35 will have a promising future.

However, some experts believe that if an aircraft that is not ready for combat in this generation is upgraded into a fighter in the next generation, its combat capabilities will be difficult to achieve.

Instead of wanting to create a 6th generation fighter, the Americans should focus on perfecting the combat capabilities of a 5th generation fighter.

Chi Huy