Latest news with #F-47
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
5 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
Did US really name fighter jet F-47 after Trump?
In March this year, US President Donald Trump announced 'the world's first sixth-generation fighter jet, F-47. Many thought the number honoured Trump, but there is more to the story. read more On March 21, 2025, US President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office that he had directed the American Air Force to move forward with the development of 'the world's first sixth-generation fighter jet .' He was flanked by US Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who went on to boast about the fighter jet's 'speed, manoeuvrability and payload.' Hegseth said that the fighter jet promises to be something 'the likes of which nobody has seen before.' Trump went on to interject his defence secretary, pointing to the name 'F-47' for the fighter jet. 'Nothing in the world comes even close to it,' Trump said. 'It'll be known as the F-47. The generals picked the title. It's a beautiful number.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The announcement of the fighter jet's name came as a surprise since it was supposed to succeed the F-22 aircraft. Many soon started to wonder if the fighter jet was named F-47 to honour the 47th President of the United States, Donald J Trump. Well, the assessment might be partially true, but there is more to the story. To understand the reason why number 47 was chosen for the new line of fighter jets, let's first see how the United States names its weapon systems and aircraft. How do they get the names? It is pertinent to note that the US military has a longstanding naming protocol for its aircraft. The rules of the game are governed by something called the 'Mission Design Series', established by the Defence Department in the 1960s. 'This system uses letters and numbers to symbolise identifying characteristics of military aerospace vehicles of direct interest to the DoD,' an Air Force memo obtained by Bloomberg read. The first letter depicts the basic mission of the aircraft. For example, the letter 'B' denotes that it is a bomber and the letter 'P' denotes that it will be used for patrolling. Then there is a dash, which is followed by a number, called the 'design number'. According to an article by the US Naval Institute, this number conveys that the 'aircraft is a specific design of that particular type or basic mission.' The number tends to follow a sequential pattern. However, the article made it clear that 'there are many gaps and numerous exceptions to these sequences.' there are many gaps and numerous exceptions to these sequences.' Since the F-47 is succeeding the F-22, the fighter jet would fall in the exception category. Honouring history or Trump When a journalist from Bloomberg filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the US Air Force, he received the real reason behind the naming of the aircraft. The records from the Air Force showed that the name F-47 had its roots in an iconic World War II fighter plane, and the generals also found it an interesting way to honour the current US President. The records showed that General David Allvin, the Air Force's chief of staff, had an 'urgent' request for information about a World War 2 aircraft. A few hours later, Air Force researchers sent a two-page description of the P-47 aircraft, popularly known as 'Thunderbolt'. Airmen adopted their moniker for the P-47, calling it 'Juggernaut.' Over time, since the jet looked like a glass milk bottle, it was soon referred to as 'Jug'. In the memo obtained by Bloomberg, the US Air Force described the P-47 as 'probably the best ground-attack aircraft fielded by the United States. From D-Day, the invasion of Europe launched on June 8, 1944, until VE Day on May 7, 1945, pilots flying the Thunderbolt destroyed the following enemy equipment: 86,000 railway cars, 9,000 locomotives, 6,000 armoured fighting vehicles, 68,000 trucks.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD How the Air Force was left by surprise by Trump's announcement When Trump announced the F-47 jet, neither he nor Hegseth mentioned the legacy of the P-47. Bloomberg's assessment showed that there is a possibility that the Air Force may have been caught off guard or were just unprepared when the president said the new fighter jet would be called F-47. It is pertinent to note that Trump's press conference took place at around 11:30 am (local time). The email obtained by the news outlet showed that they were sent soon after the presser. 'Sir, Request coordination with SECDEF office,' an Air Force public affairs official wrote in an email sent to Lieutenant General Dale White, the military deputy in the Air Force's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. However, General Allvin's team dismissed the claim that the decision to honour P-47 was taken after Trump's announcement. At least one reporter pressed an Air Force spokesperson for more details about the 'designation for the F-47.' 'The nomenclature system exists to maintain an orderly, non-chaotic process of naming systems,' the reporter asked. 'Why was it abandoned in this case? And who decided to do that?' the reporter asked. Ann Stefanek, the Air Force spokesperson, did not share additional details on the matter and just remarked: 'General Allvin made the decision.' It will now remain unclear exactly when the decision to honour the aircraft was taken. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD With inputs from agencies.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - A trillion dollars annually for the Pentagon: Military spending is out of control
The era of trillion-dollar annual Pentagon budgets is upon us. Members of Congress are likely to increase defense spending by $150 billion through the budget reconciliation process. When added to the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 Department of Defense base budget proposal, Pentagon spending will total over $1 trillion a year. There are two factors that virtually guarantee that defense spending will never dip below that mark again. The first is political. If a future budget proposal dips below the $1 trillion mark, there will be howls about national security cuts, and few politicians are willing to weather those attacks. The second reason is more practical. The reconciliation boost includes development funding for a slew of new weapons programs — the F-47, Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the B-21 strategic bomber, Sentinel ballistic missiles, underwater drones, hypersonic missiles and more. The services aren't buying these weapons yet, just paying to develop them. As expensive as they are now, they will become vastly more expensive in coming years when they go into production. This is the beginning of a Pentagon spending 'time bomb.' New programs currently entering into development will be vastly more expensive than they initially appear as they transition into the production and sustainment phases in coming years. The American people are now dealing with the explosion of the last Pentagon spending time bomb, the one that started on Sept. 11, 2001. We now pay more on the military than at any time since the end of World War II. Even at the height of the war on terror, with American troops fighting in two separate theaters, the military wasn't spending as much in real terms as it does now. After the Sept. 11 attacks, no one seriously questioned military spending in Washington. Politicians almost universally wanted to appear strong on defense, and so few were willing to do anything to impede military spending proposals. The services took advantage of the moment and launched a series of new acquisition programs, few of which had any relevance to the war on terror. The Future Combat System, the Littoral Combat Ship, the F-35, the Zumwalt-class Destroyer and others were begun in earnest after 9/11. These were all programs that began the last time the national security establishment decided the historical moment justified their profligacy with taxpayer dollars. In 2001, it was the fear of global terrorism. Today, a menacing China serves the same purpose. The national security establishment has seriously lost its way. It continues to spend more and more while delivering a lot of disappointments. All components of the U.S. military are far smaller than they were 50 years ago. The Army is approximately 40 percent the size it was in 1975. The Navy went from 559 ships to 293 today. The Air Force had more than 10,000 aircraft then and a little more than 5,000 today. What the military does receive is delivered years late and typically twice the quoted price. Many weapons systems also don't work too well. The F-35 works less than one-third of the time. The Navy is retiring Littoral Combat Ships decades ahead of schedule because they can't perform the missions the Navy needs. Army leaders cancelled the Future Combat System without producing a single operational vehicle. Today, policymakers are doubling down on the same structure used to create the current mess. While the American people continue to pay for the sins of the previous generation of policymakers, today's military leaders are setting up at least the next two generations for even more disastrous Pentagon spending. Defense spending has increased nearly 50 percent since 2000. The post-9/11 spending time bomb accounts for a significant portion of that increase. In 20 years, the American people could easily be spending $2 to $3 trillion a year to cover the obligations made today. The Trump administration still has a good opportunity to establish a better path forward. The first step is to reevaluate the strategy that underpins military policies. The world has changed over the last decade. China is facing mounting political, economic and demographic challenges. The U.S. no longer has massive forces fighting overseas. Before proposing gigantic new military spending, the administration should first formulate an updated strategy that can guide policy decisions. By doing things backwards, the entire national security establishment gives the appearance of making the defense budget itself the strategy. Dan Grazier is a senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center. He is a former Marine Corps captain who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
11-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
A trillion dollars annually for the Pentagon: Military spending is out of control
The era of trillion-dollar annual Pentagon budgets is upon us. Members of Congress are likely to increase defense spending by $150 billion through the budget reconciliation process. When added to the Trump administration's fiscal year 2026 Department of Defense base budget proposal, Pentagon spending will total over $1 trillion a year. There are two factors that virtually guarantee that defense spending will never dip below that mark again. The first is political. If a future budget proposal dips below the $1 trillion mark, there will be howls about national security cuts, and few politicians are willing to weather those attacks. The second reason is more practical. The reconciliation boost includes development funding for a slew of new weapons programs — the F-47, Collaborative Combat Aircraft, the B-21 strategic bomber, Sentinel ballistic missiles, underwater drones, hypersonic missiles and more. The services aren't buying these weapons yet, just paying to develop them. As expensive as they are now, they will become vastly more expensive in coming years when they go into production. This is the beginning of a Pentagon spending 'time bomb.' New programs currently entering into development will be vastly more expensive than they initially appear as they transition into the production and sustainment phases in coming years. The American people are now dealing with the explosion of the last Pentagon spending time bomb, the one that started on Sept. 11, 2001. We now pay more on the military than at any time since the end of World War II. Even at the height of the war on terror, with American troops fighting in two separate theaters, the military wasn't spending as much in real terms as it does now. After the Sept. 11 attacks, no one seriously questioned military spending in Washington. Politicians almost universally wanted to appear strong on defense, and so few were willing to do anything to impede military spending proposals. The services took advantage of the moment and launched a series of new acquisition programs, few of which had any relevance to the war on terror. The Future Combat System, the Littoral Combat Ship, the F-35, the Zumwalt-class Destroyer and others were begun in earnest after 9/11. These were all programs that began the last time the national security establishment decided the historical moment justified their profligacy with taxpayer dollars. In 2001, it was the fear of global terrorism. Today, a menacing China serves the same purpose. The national security establishment has seriously lost its way. It continues to spend more and more while delivering a lot of disappointments. All components of the U.S. military are far smaller than they were 50 years ago. The Army is approximately 40 percent the size it was in 1975. The Navy went from 559 ships to 293 today. The Air Force had more than 10,000 aircraft then and a little more than 5,000 today. What the military does receive is delivered years late and typically twice the quoted price. Many weapons systems also don't work too well. The F-35 works less than one-third of the time. The Navy is retiring Littoral Combat Ships decades ahead of schedule because they can't perform the missions the Navy needs. Army leaders cancelled the Future Combat System without producing a single operational vehicle. Today, policymakers are doubling down on the same structure used to create the current mess. While the American people continue to pay for the sins of the previous generation of policymakers, today's military leaders are setting up at least the next two generations for even more disastrous Pentagon spending. Defense spending has increased nearly 50 percent since 2000. The post-9/11 spending time bomb accounts for a significant portion of that increase. In 20 years, the American people could easily be spending $2 to $3 trillion a year to cover the obligations made today. The Trump administration still has a good opportunity to establish a better path forward. The first step is to reevaluate the strategy that underpins military policies. The world has changed over the last decade. China is facing mounting political, economic and demographic challenges. The U.S. no longer has massive forces fighting overseas. Before proposing gigantic new military spending, the administration should first formulate an updated strategy that can guide policy decisions. By doing things backwards, the entire national security establishment gives the appearance of making the defense budget itself the strategy. Dan Grazier is a senior fellow and program director at the Stimson Center. He is a former Marine Corps captain who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Next-gen GCAP warplane faces time pressure amid American F-47 plans
ROME — The under-development GCAP fighter and the newly launched American F-47 can be cogs in an integrated allied system of fighters and not competitors, a European official has said. 'The F-47 will be principally a U.S. fighter and not a competitor to the GCAP,' said Italian Air Force Gen. Giandomenico Taricco, who is working on the Anglo-Japanese-Italian GCAP program. 'What we want is for the GCAP to be interoperable with the F-47, to make them two elements in an integrated system,' said Taricco, who is commercial and corporate director at GIGO, the intergovernmental agency running the sixth-generation GCAP program. The U.S. signaled its arrival in the sixth-generation market in March when President Donald Trump said Boeing would develop the F-47 which could be fielded by the end of the decade. That would give it a head start on the GCAP plane, which is not expected to be delivered until 2035. Trump reportedly discussed the F-47 with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba last month. '(Trump) said the United States has such great fighter jets and asked Ishiba if he would like to take a look at them,' wrote Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, quoting unnamed sources. Japan joined GCAP to be able to co-own the technology on board the plane, something it would be less able to do with an equivalent U.S. jet. But there are growing reports Japan is unhappy with the time needed to develop the GCAP as neighbor China threatens its airspace with advanced fighters such as the planned sixth generation J-50. Last month Reuters reported Japan was dubious GCAP would achieve its planned 2035 in-service date and was considering ordering more F-35s as a gap filler. Taricco told Defense News that Italy and the U.K. shared Japan's sense of urgency about keeping GCAP on schedule and even shortening the schedule. 'The Japanese are extremely motivated to accelerate the program and rightly so, as are we,' he said. 'We all share the urgency and everyone is putting pressure on,' he added. Taricco, who has formerly worked on Italian Air Force acquisitions including U.S. Gulfstream sensor jets, is one of two directors at the U.K.-based GCAP International Government Organisation (GIGO) which teams the three government customers on the program. He is joined by program and technical director Phil Brooker, a British former air vice-marshal. They both report to Japanese chief executive Oka Masami, who was appointed for three years when the agency was stood up last year. At the same time, an industrial joint venture was announced, teaming BAE Systems, Italy's Leonardo and Japan's JAIEC which is jointly funded by Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and the Society of Japanese Aerospace Companies. Taricco said the joint venture would open for business 'within weeks' and be based in the same building as GIGO at Green Park in Reading, close to London. 'The combined staff of the joint venture and GIGO there will be around 1,000 within 12-15 months,' he said. Taricco said a first international contract will be signed by GIGO with the joint venture by the end of 2025 while GIGO will then likely sign a design and development contract with the joint venture 'by the end of 2026 or the start of 2027.' Planners envisage the fighter operating alongside drones, although work on unmanned platforms remains a national prerogative and no schedule has been set for including unmanned platforms in the work undertaken by the joint venture, Taricco said. He said that export was a 'fundamental part of the cooperation program,' adding that talks to bring in new partners such as Saudi Arabia are being handled at national government level. 'At the moment, GIGO does not have direct contacts with possible partners,' said Taricco.
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Panel advances defense budget despite missing details from White House
House appropriators on Tuesday advanced plans for a $831.5 billion defense budget for next fiscal year over concerns from Democratic lawmakers that the spending package is rushed and incomplete, since the White House still has not unveiled its own detailed funding plans for the military. The appropriations bill topline essentially matches spending levels from the current fiscal year, leaving defense programs without any increase for inflation or cost-of-living hikes in the base budget plan. However, the funding plan is designed to run alongside congressional reconciliation plans, which would add another $150 billion in funds for the Defense Department. Republicans assert the combination could bring total military spending for next year to nearly $1 trillion, even though those funds would be spread out over four years. '[This bill] provides the resources necessary for maintaining American military superiority, leveraging our technological innovation into tactical advantages on the battlefield, and supporting the Defense Department's most valuable assets: our warfighters,'said Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense panel. Trump requests $892.6 billion base defense budget, a real-terms cut 'Together, with the significant defense funding advancing through Congress as part of the reconciliation process, the FY26 bill … [represents] a historic commitment to strengthening and modernizing America's national defense.' The measure calls for a 3.8% pay raise, eliminates 45,000 civilian defense jobs and allocates $13 billion to start the White House's proposed Golden Dome missile defense program. But Democratic lawmakers said the legislation — which could advance to the full chamber for approval later this month — still has too many gaps to support because the White House is months behind in its promise to provide a detailed budget to Congress. 'We have zip, nada, no idea where we are going,' Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a hearing before Tuesday's subcommittee vote. 'Give us the details … My hope was that we could get to it before a markup.' Hegseth said those details will be sent to lawmakers soon, but he also supported the committee moving ahead with the broad outlines of the defense spending plan. '[The president's plan] realigns the military to the historic strength that began in President Donald Trump's first term and makes generational investments in the president's priorities including developing the Golden Dome, sealing the Southwest Border, investing in the F-47, revitalizing our shipbuilding industry,' he told lawmakers. The 3.8% pay raise matches the federal formula for the recommended annual military pay raise, a calculation that Congress has followed most years for the last two decades. The formula is based on changes in wages for the civilian workforce and is designed to ensure that military paychecks don't lag behind compensation for other industries. Military pay has increased by at least 2% every year since 2017, and troops have seen a pay increase annually since the 1970s. Last January, that military pay raise was 4.5%. In addition, Congress approved a targeted pay raise for junior enlisted service members that went into effect on April 1, raising their paychecks by up to 10%. For junior enlisted troops, a 3.8% raise in 2026 would mean about $1,200 more in take-home pay. For senior enlisted and junior officers, the raise would add about $2,500 more to their annual paychecks. An O-4 with 12 years of service would see almost $4,300 more over 2025 pay levels. The pay increase will cost more than $6 billion next year, taking up nearly all of the planned increase in the appropriations bill's personnel account hike. As a result, other procurement accounts are being held flat or losing funding, potentially cutting other equipment and modernization priorities. The appropriations bill also projects $662 million in savings from 'slowing permanent change of station moves,' although specifics of that plan were not released by the committee. Democrats also objected to policy provisions in the bill blocking service personnel from traveling across state lines to seek reproductive health care, including abortion services. During former President Joe Biden's term in office, the department helped cover the cost of such trips, calling it a force readiness issue. Senate appropriators — both Republicans and Democrats — on Tuesday raised concerns about missing details from the White House's defense budget plan. That chamber is expected to unveil its appropriations draft of the military budget for next year in the next few weeks.
