Or the first sign to delete the internal gun for weight reasons for some variants?

Yeah… I suppose that is true enough.

The USAF are back to repeating the Vietnam mistake on a number of levels! Crazy.

Yeah… something along those lines eagle.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hRPxTn_CSzM/TZbjhcVsZjI/AAAAAAAAAB0/pchG-4OqhoY/s1600/Super+Hornet+equipped+with+belly-mounted+IRST+sensor+and+enclosed+weapons-carriage+pod%252C+plus+overwing+conformal+fuel+tanks.jpg

I’d like to think it would be a bit more elegant though.

[I should say, my responses are all dealing with Kirtap’s option (3)]

It’s gonna be an expensive missile. 😮

Ah, well, if anyone can do it, its the Japanese.

The world’s experts in low cost but high precision manufacturing.

Mr. AI me thinks in this moment in times ‘active cancelation’

Thankfully the mods have finally seen fit to actively cancelate that troll. 😀

[Not Al obviously… the other one!]

IIRC you said that because of the wing area? :confused:

There are a rake of reasons why I think it. 🙂

T-50-6 model photo shows intake ramp in cruise, moved down to the max

Therein may lie the answer to the line-of-sight (LOS) issue to the compressor face.

Do you need to block LOS during low speed maneuvering? Not really.

Do you need to block LOS during cruise and high speed dash? It would be very useful.

Amateur hour in here or something? 🙂

Anyhoo – those slating the PAK-FA underside could do with checking out how the F-14’s tunnel affected its radar cross section when carrying heavy externals (i.e. AIM-54Cs). An easily extrapolation from AIM-54C to KS-172 can be made.

All the foundations are there for a fairly VLO platform. It just needs inclusion of the minor details really. Of course, at this stage Sukhoi are correctly focusing on aerodynamic performance, envelope expansion and systems testing.

RAM and serrated surfaces do not need to be on a flying aircraft to test. That can be done indoors on a full sized model.

Are we talking about that though or are we talking about a new A2A system?

I would like to think many of the fundamental technologies developed would eventually be used to fulfil both.

Whether that is on a common airframe, or disparate airframes with common sub-systems….

To take a couple of examples:
– For the A2A requirement, an IRST capable of automatically identifying aircraft through characteristic emissions is required.
– For the A2G requirement, a FLIR capable of automatically identifying ground vehicles is required.

Therefore, common hardware, using a common software language and many identical sub-modules within the software should be developed. Tailored sub-modules to the A2A and A2G roles can be integrated.

– For the A2A and A2G requirements, a RWR capable of detecting and localising airborne and land-based radar (including “L”PI sets) is needed.

Common hardware and software in a common program language.

Why pay twice to develop the same thing? Define a common systems architecture in terms of compute hardware, compute language and interfaces – then develop the various sub-systems which can be used on a multitude of airframes optimised for different roles.