A New Generation of Fighter Aircraft Engines?

Aviation Week reports GE Advances Future Fighter Engine

Development of revolutionary engines at GE Aviation is setting the stage for the next 50 years in military aircraft propulsion, engineers there believe.
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The engine can adapt in flight to give maximum thrust or long-range cruise, while a third stream of air will cool both the engine and the aircraft’s systems, explains Jean Lydon-Rodgers, vice president and general manager of GE Aviation’s military systems.
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“The sixth-generation fighter engine is a big piece of the future of the business. That’s why we’re investing heavily in it,” says Lydon-Rodgers.

That investment also involves materials including ceramic matrix composites and titanium aluminides, and techniques such as additive manufacturing, to make the engines lighter and more robust while running hotter and providing more power. The military engines are benefitting from GE’s huge investment in such materials and manufacturing readiness for its next generation of commercial engines, which helps keep the costs down for the warfighter, she says.

Innovation! More range for fighters? Will this allow aircraft carriers greater stand-off range and improve our maritime security? Sure sounds like it.

Let me recommend again Vaclav Smil's Prime Movers of Globalization: The History and Impact of Diesel Engines and Gas Turbines, now available for Kindle:

What makes it possible for us to move billions of tons of raw materials and manufactured goods from continent to continent? Why are we able to fly almost anywhere on the planet within twenty-four hours? In Prime Movers of Globalization, Vaclav Smil offers a history of two key technical developments that have driven globalization: the high-compression non-sparking internal combustion engines invented by Rudolf Diesel in the 1890s and the gas turbines designed by Frank Whittle and Hans-Joachim Pabst von Ohain in the 1930s. The massive diesel engines that power cargo ships and the gas turbines that propel jet engines, Smil argues, are more important to the global economy than any corporate structure or international trade agreement.

Future War Thoughts from Japan: Longer Range Fighters Rule?

Aviation Week reports Japan is looking at a big, long-range fighter to defeat superior numbers:

TRDI

Flying far is more important than flying fast, Japanese fighter technologists have found in studies aimed at defining their country’s next combat aircraft. Looking for ways for their air force to fight outnumbered, researchers are also emphasizing that Japan’s next fighter should share targeting data, carry a big internal load of large, high-performance missiles and be able to guide them while retreating.
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Whether Japan will build the aircraft at all is another question. On the one hand, the country feels its security is increasingly imperiled by rising and bellicose China. On the other hand, developing a heavy stealth fighter would have to cost tens of billions of dollars.
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They moved the engines inboard and left a broad space for side-by-side stowage of six medium-range missiles under the ducts, which twisted upward and inward. The additional missiles, even at the expense of greater size and cost, make good sense for a country that must contemplate fighting against far more numerous enemy forces, Barrie says.

While the aircraft design is interesting, the analysis of that concludes that "flying far is more important than flying fast" is worth thinking about.