Where do you deduce fixed undercart from?
“If” the mock up has fixed undercart, that’s because it’s a mock up, made of plywood and kleenex.
Prototype 1 “may” have a fixed undercarriage, maybe because they had problems with it and there’s enough stuff to fix without worrying about retraction.
There is no way the actual platform will have a fixed undercart. If it has, then BAe are bladdy fools. Fixed U/c is Ok on that little 4 foot Watchkeeper, it only goes round the corner to have a peep. Mantis will have to go some distance and some height, that’s no good with it’s legs dangling in the breeze.
I’m deducing it from what the original mock-up on show at Farnborough last year looked like to the one at Aero India.
http://www.flightglobal.com/assets/getAsset.aspx?ItemID=24125
http://www.defensenews.com/pgf/stories70/071408dn_Mantisw.JPG
The Aero India one has a lot of design changes that, and judging by the first model undergoing construction as shown in the Flight Global article, looks nearer to the final configuration. The undercarriage for one is different as is the three-bladed prop, the bulge on the top of the tail fin (as pictured in illustrations), the appendages on the nose. Yes it might be a mock-up made out of plywood and so forth, but you’d want to show people what it will look like rather than being slightly representative again – if they wanted to do that they might as well have displayed the previous mock-up. But that is the whole point, the Mantis is a technology/concept demonstrator, initially testing things like the sensor packages. Weapon systems testing was not funded when Mantis was announced last year, so having to have every part of the design exactly right for operational use is not that important. I guess we will know in the next month or two.
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