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  • wilhelm

Shared component design

Hello all

Was thinking …. with the design of military combat aircraft so expensive, wouldn’t it make sense to standardise components to a greater degree?
Obviously you wouldn’t want to compromise the design too greatly with regards to size or weight, and at present it appears that ejection seats are fairly standardised, as are engines. What other equipment is there today that is generally similar across varios designs? Cockpit displays? Undercarriage?

I seem to recall that there are quite a few designs that have structural assemblies carried over from previous or existing designs. Off the top of my head, I think the A-10 had undercarriage unit/s from the F-15, the DARPA FSW design had a whole lot of F-5 in it, and on another thread in Navan Aviation the comment was made that… “The XFV-12 was unique in an effort to save time and money part of the fuselage of the F-4 and A-4 cockpit were used.”

Can anyone enlighten me of any other such examples, particularly of structural components? Are there real benefits to be had in this practice, particulary in development time/costs?

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