The US Navy’s Angry Birds

... concept of Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air (NIFC-CA). The efforts to create a “strong option” UCLASS ran into serious bureaucratic and cultural resistance from representatives of US naval aviation who were afraid of competition from UAVs. The UCLASS specifications were sacrificed to the programme to create a new carrier-based fighter to replace the F/A-18E/F under the F/A-XX programme. Everything hinges on the fact that the Navy cannot implement the F-35C, F/A-XX programmes and the “strong ...