NOT a fighter. It was an Interceptor. Very nice artwork though.

And an amazing one for the time (and well after).

Brits engineering at its most (despite RFP and blablabla)

I posted a pretty good read on the topic.

Part 6.12 is a good start.
http://www.aviation.org.uk/docs/flighttest.navair.navy.milunrestricted-FTM108/c6.pdf

I have put it all together (the formula for calculating the turn performance along with a description of how they all work togehter).

I would say that its more than a hypothesis. Max thrust is usually 40-60G, I don’t know exactly what it is for the AMRAAM.

So after burnout you wont see much turn performance. Im sorry.

EDIT: What you might have seen is a smokeless sustainer. Little thrust but enough to let it have some agility left. Or they have had better control surfaces. To be able to turn you need lift (larger wings provide more lift). But then again, all is relative. A modern jet with a t/w ratio in excess of 1 with a wing loading of 350kg/m2 will always out turn a flying body with no thrust and a wing loading of 2’200 – 4’400 kg/m².

EDIT 2: I may of course be wrong, but if I am please point out where the error is. So far it feels like it follows logic pretty well.

At Mach4 Cl is huge (as is Cd).

Missiles hve very small fins (lifting surfaces) simply as they are fast: they don’t need that much surfaces to generate the necessary lift and then can keep drag low.

As I hve alrdy says on other forum, you can’t compare apples and oranges: W/S reasoning is completely irrelevant if you are not dealing with similar configurations.

In your formula you simply hve discarded the most weighted factor. Orherwise it’s a good read.

For example (and I know that you’ll understand that a component of lift is drag), the X-15 vertical tail drag at Mach 5 was higher that that of an entire fighter of the time.

So, small lifting surfaces on a high mach traveling vehicle makes senses. The art of the industry is to finely refine the shape to get a good Cl vs Cd ratio (hence the heavy research and testing industry).

Usually, looking at the missile shape only, you can hve a good idea of the effectiveness of the design. But you know… there are still ppl talking abt wing surfaces on fighters planes one hundred years after the Wright brothers…

I don’t think that runway denial using Jp233 was a tactic envisionned for the GW1.
It’s efficacity might ense not be judgef after those events.

In a warsaw pact conflict the available runways for an advencing invafing forces would hve been much scarce hense justifying the loss rate.

During GW1, my point of view is tht several air arm did plab their OP with much over confidences. The fact tht the coalitions partners dif stand strong after the first events is remarkable and a signof the level of commmiment at the time.

My 2 cents

Took the words out of my mouth. That EXACTLY what i also thought a minute ago.

Let’s add a bit of logic in this conversation.

1. Obviously this design is reminiscent of the Taranis/Neuron (we can even joke abt the Taranis making its first much publicized flight in… China!) 😉
2. From the specs made public on both of these design, we can assume that such a configuration is heavy with poor payload/weight ratio
3. The fact that the Dassault’s Neuron made it’s first flight with a basically similar configuration than that of the Taranis and that Dassault master the writing of flight ctrl laws makes the assumption that ctrling such a config is a challenge.

Now let’s assume that the above is somewhat true. What we can say is that the take off run will be long and speed crucial for the stability of the flying configuration. What you need is to put yourself out of the low speed/high drag config quickly (hve a look at the video of the X-47 overflying the deck of G-B aircraft carrier). Hence, IMHO the plugged over-sized engine. Ideally it would hve some (restricted) OVT feature too (pitch and yaw).

Just another remark:

If this engine is really fitted with AB, I doubt that the short S ducted air-scoop is sufficient. Something is wrong here.

Anyway the design of the rear end suggest a variable pitch propulsion system. Maybe some active flows ctrl tech are in the pipe.

I don’t like the fences.. they make it look….. 60’s

When was that added ?

Novel Air Concept?

[ATTACH=CONFIG]215867[/ATTACH]

Link for phase 2 development work from Cranfield in 2011 (2 years after the project was announced):

http://www.cranfieldaerospace.com/news/2011/cranfield-aerospace-complete-phase-2-of-novel-air-concept/

Interesting concept but as cruise speed is here tightly linked to the vertical lifting capabilities, do you hve to redesign the entire wings each time you add weight on the airframe ?

Otherwise brillant summary of the new trend so much needed in Eu (low cost, expertise centered etc…)

I think it is an acceptable way of achieving air defence against a ‘technologically advanced opponent’. Shoot and scoot may work, but a counter attack against the F-35 base would change that… be it coordinated air, or special forces, or both. so would an ambush against the attack package in its first 1/4 of its sortie.

initiative is not as important in a defensive scenario, except for the counter attack.

And as for an EU country being able to afford it, a lot of this scenario is ‘defensive’, so affording it is not as big a concern. offensively is different, but if it is necessary and in a coalition it is also possible. a scenario like this could play out in less than 6 weeks.

It’s an interesting debate 111Buff but I fear we are hijacking this thread. Please accept the fact that I won’t respond here, sure as I am that we will hve plenty of other occasions to argue on the very same subject elsewhere on this forum 😉