Top Document: rec.aviation.military Frequently Asked Questions (part 1 of 5) Previous Document: B.5. Eurofighter 2000 Next Document: B.7. LCA See reader questions & answers on this topic! - Help others by sharing your knowledge The US Joint Advanced Strike Technology programme, established in early 1994, is intended to be a technology development programme rather than an actual service aircraft. It involves all the improvements that would be expected for a next generation aircraft (advanced materials, stealth, reduced costs, better systems integration, and so forth), plus two particularly innovative concepts. The first is the idea of a modular aircraft design, so that individual aircraft could be built with different combinations of components for different services and missions (take-off capability, for example -- the same basic airframe could be built in conventional runway versions for the USAF, carrier-borne versions for the USN, and V/STOL versions for the USMC). The second is the possibility of providing a "virtual reality" environment for the pilot, which would integrate tactical information with the outside view. JAST has inherited much of the defunct A/F-X project, and has been partially combined with ARPA's X-32 project (see section B.14). This was resisted by the DOD, which wanted JAST to be a relatively low-risk project. Twelve technology development contracts were awarded in May 1994, the largest going to Boeing. The JAST project is expected to lead to the construction of two technology demonstrator aircraft (one will probably be the X-32), and eventually to a service aircraft (which may or may not be derived from one of the demonstrators) which will begin to replace the F-16 in USAF service, the F/A-18 (and possibly F-14) in USN service, and the Harrier in USMC service by 2010. User Contributions:Top Document: rec.aviation.military Frequently Asked Questions (part 1 of 5) Previous Document: B.5. Eurofighter 2000 Next Document: B.7. LCA Part1 - Part2 - Part3 - Part4 - Part5 - Single Page [ Usenet FAQs | Web FAQs | Documents | RFC Index ] Send corrections/additions to the FAQ Maintainer: avfaq@meanmach.actrix.gen.nz
Last Update March 27 2014 @ 02:11 PM
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