Fleet Air defence fighter of 1980 challenge

[Rhade]

Interesting, there was Yak-45 plane in 70's that end only as scale model and was not developed any further. It was somehow similar to Yak-28 in design. Two engines under/in wings.

[Novice]

Not a FD scale artist usually, I had decided to try and submit a drawing.
The Vrijstaat nave was relying on the local Vrijstaat Aviation Industries to supply its needs for aircraft. The company (known as VAI), was trying to push the idea of variable geometry aircraft and so in 1977 had submitted the following design for shipborne fleet defence fighter.
The aircraft had two after-burning jet engines, and had a crew of two.
Armament was four Venom AAM-2 long range missiles at the underside of the plane and four Serum AAM-4 short range missiles at the sides of the aircraft body. No gun was carried. The Venom Missiles were radar guided while the Serum missiles used infra red guidance, helped by the FLIR under the fore-body of the aircraft.
Although the plane was impressive, good to fly the Navy in 1980 decided that carriers were too much for its dwindling budget, and so this aircraft was never used from carriers, and was used only from land bases.

[Blackbuck]

Some whiffery and my first FD drawing for some time.

de Havilland DH.127 Vandal

Out of a requirement to replace the Blackburn Buccaneer OR.346 was prepared resulting in designs being submitted from Blackburn, de Havilland and Hawker. Of the designs submitted the Blackburn and de Havilland ones were selected for further development, the Hawker designs being rejected as too risky. Eventually the de Havilland design was selected for production, having a simpler design than that of its Blackburn rival, a political factor was also present in as much as it was seen to be unacceptable for the aircraft replacing the Buccaneer to be from the same manufacturer. The first flight of the DH.127 (now DH.128) took place in May of 1967 with entry to squadron service in 1972.

Not only a replacement for the Buccaneer the Vandal as it was officially named was also to act as a long-range fighter/interceptor, capable of intercepting a target travelling at Mach 3 at 80,000ft 100 nautical miles away from its carrier. At its maximum take-off weight it could also patrol out to 200 nautical miles for four hours.
Throughout the 1970s the Vandal whilst deployed aboard the carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales showed itself to be a thoroughly capable interceptor both by intercepting Soviet bombers probing NATO naval exercises and by shoot-downs of supersonic target drones whilst off the coast of the United States.

The 1980s would be different. Newer, more capable threats such as the Kh-15 were starting to appear, as such the Vandal would have to evolve to meet these threats to safeguard both itself and its carrier. The first stage of upgrades focused on improvements to the aircraft's manoeuvrability improving its power-plant. Newer more powerful Spey Mk.202/203s and improved RB.162 lift engines were retrofitted along with slats on the leading edge of the wing. The addition of slats slightly lessened the fuel capacity of the wing but drastically improved the aircraft's turn-rate.

The second stage of upgrades focused improvements to the aircraft's fighting capability with upgrades to its fire-control system and radar. The AWG-11 control system transitioned to the all-digital AWG-11B with its associated radar also receiving sundry improvements.

The final standard to which the Vandal was brought to included the replacement of the APG-59 radar with the Ferranti Blue Vixen which necessitated modifications to the control system which in turn was modified to a standard approaching that of the AWG-14. These modifications brought about AMRAAM integration as well as ALARM and the TIALD targeting pod.

The Vandal would go on to see action in both Gulf Wars as well early operations in Afghanistan, bowing out in late 2007 alongside the carriers from which they had operated for over thirty years.




General characteristics

Crew: 2
Length: 18.29m
Wingspan:10.06m
Height: 6.1m (nose-leg fully extended)
Wing area: 52.1m²
Max. takeoff weight: 22,272kg normal - 25,402kg overload
Powerplant: 2x Rolls Royce RB.168 Spey after-burning turbofans, 2x Rolls Royce RB.162 lift-engines
Dry thrust: 49.2kN each (RB.168) 19.6kN each (RB.162)
Thrust with afterburner: 82.9kN each

Performance

Maximum speed: At altitude Mach 2.5, at sea level >Mach 1
Combat range: 2,576 km on internal fuel, 2,780km with drop-tanks, 1,668km with eight 1,000lb bombs
Ferry range: >3,500km
Service ceiling: 16,500m
Rate of climb: 305m/s
Wing loading: 427kg/m² at normal MTOW

Armament

Guns: None
Hardpoints: two mid-wing hardpoints, four centreline hardpoints for ~5,443kg of ordnance and stores
AAMs (1989): AIM-9L, Sky Flash
AGMs (1989): Martel, Sea Eagle
Bombs (1989): UK Paveway, BL755 cluster bombs, Mk.13/18 1,000lb iron bombs, WE.177 special store.
Rockets: (1989) 68mm SNEB

[rundrewrun99]

Love it!

[Hood]

All the entries look really good, its going to be a hard fought challenge I think.

Blackbuck,
Will you be adding the baseline real DH.127 to the never-were drawings?
Only just last week I was reading up on OR.346, a selection of very ambitious designs. Probably too ambitious for the available resources to develop them and all the aircraft were quite technically demanding.

[Blackbuck]

I may well do at some point.

Of all the designs for OR.346 the DH.127 and B.123 seem the least ambitious to my mind. That said, the main reason I went for it was simply down to how much admiration I have for the design in general, it's a great big beastie of an aircraft.

[llamaman2]

Okay, some of those are just beautiful. And that DH127 is far better than my own stab at a service version...

So anyhoo, my own attempt:

North American Rockwell F-19A Hussar



By 1977 the F-14 programme was in trouble. Grumman had failed to sell the aircraft to Iran and the propulsion issues weren't being addressed. Rather than try and fix the aircraft, the US Navy put the fleet defence fighter out to tender in January 1978. Of the proposed aircraft (Grumman's improved F-14C, McDonnell Douglas's F-15N and Rockwell's Hussar), it was announced that the Rockwell competitor was the winner. ITP was issued in late-1978 and the aircraft first flew in December 1980.

A close-coupled canard delta, the prototype F-19's were powered by F100 turbofans. The F110 engine replaced it in service. The main sensor was the APG-71 fire-control radar, an upgraded fully digital and solid-state radar derived from the AWG-9. Armament in the fleet defence role originally consisted of 4 x AIM-54C, 4 x AIM-7P and 2 x AIM-9L, plus an M61 Vulcan in the port side of the fuselage.

[thegrumpykestrel]

Wow wee have there been some ripper submissions so far. Well, here's my go at it, first FD scale drawing I've done from scratch as well. I've based it off some ideas I got from an academic paper on the use of thrust-vectoring for STOL operations.

WAC/Hawker Siddley Thresher

Whilst the Westralian defence industry was always known for its shipbuilding over aircraft manufacturing, a number of aircraft designs emerged from the government-owned Westralian Aircraft Consortium over the course of its five-decade history, though to little success. The most notable of these was the export-oriented Thresher light naval fighter/interceptor. Designed in partnership with Hawker Siddley, the Thresher was an attempt to provide a fighter/interceptor for the light carrier concepts emerging in the 1970s. Whilst at first appearance the Thresher looks like another STOVL design, it was actually strictly oriented towards STOL operations, incapable of vertical takeoffs and landings. Using a combination of vectored thrust and high-lift devices to reduce approach speeds to roughly 70-80kts, the Thresher was required to be able to take off with the assistance of a ski-jump and land within 500ft, just enough to operate from smaller carriers such as the British Invincible class. With the use of heavy-duty main-gear braking and limited thrust reversal, it was intended to avoid the requirement for arresting gear whilst avoiding some of the compromises of vertical landings such as that used by the Sea Harrier.



Design work began in 1976, and by 1981 the first airframe had been completed. However, this prototype served more as a technology demonstrator, owing to the intended engine, a bespoke variant of the Rolls Royce RB422, having yet to be completed. In its place, a modified Pegasus 11 with the rear vectoring nozzles replaced with a conventional fixed single nozzle was utilised to demonstrate the concept of vectored fan thrust to reduce takeoff and landing speeds and hence distances. In 1983, a second prototype fitted with a Pratt and Whitney F100 and dummy vectored nozzles first flew, being used to test the projected supersonic and aerodynamic performance of the aircraft. It was not until 1985 that the first RB422 fitted aircraft flew and the complete testing of the design could commence. Despite there having been some interest in the design, especially from the RAN and RAAF before the purchase of an Invincible class carrier cancelled, no orders had yet been received. However, following positive progress during testing, the Westralian government ordered the construction of an initial 12 production aircraft in 1987, a move of confidence in the design, on top of the now 4 pre-production aircraft and 4 prototypes, anticipating that an order would come soon and these aircraft could be used to help fulfill that. However, by 1989, no orders had come through, and the Westralian government was forced to integrate the already built aircraft (7 at this point) into the RWAF. The 12 aircraft completed served within 7 Sqd. for a severely truncated service life, being retired in 1996 along with 16 of the 48 F-14s as a part of wider budget cuts. The Thresher would ultimately never get to operate from a carrier, despite being designed specifically for naval usage, and contributed to the rationalisation and subsequent divestiture of the Westralian Aircraft Consortium.

In terms of performance, the Thresher largely met its goals, much in thanks to the substantial amount of power available from the RB422, roughly 35,000lb thrust wet. Due to some of the aerodynamic compromises required of slower flight, maximum speed was considerably lower than contemporary interceptors, with a maximum Mach of around 1.6 at 35,000ft, or roughly 1,700km/h. This was, however, considerably better than the performance of the subsonic Harrier. Turn performance was acceptable for the time, thanks to its large, low-loaded wing and strong thrust to weight ratio.

General Characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 14.92m
Wingspan: 10.22m
Height: 4.13m
Empty Weight: 9,232kg
MTOW: 17,704kg
Powerplant: Rolls-Royce RB422 rated at 35,105lbf thrust wet, 26,340lbf dry

Performance
Max Speed: Mach 1.63 at 35 000ft, 1732km/h
Combat Radius: 670km with typical air-air loadout
Ferry Range: 3600km with two external fuel tanks
Service Ceiling: 50,000ft+
Rate of Climb: 47,000ft/min
Thrust/Weight: 0.89 at MTOW
Maximum G-Load: +8.5/-4g

Armament and Systems
Guns: Single Licence-Built ADEN 30mm in custom designed low-profile ventral gun pack (Zuytdorp ZM-30A), 65 rounds ammunition
Hardpoints: 2 wingtip, 4 under-wing (2 wet), 2 under-fuselage capable of 4800kg ordnance
Stores: AIM-9M, AIM-7M, ability to carry Mk. 82 and Mk. 84 iron bombs but never demonstrated in service
Radar: APG-65
FCS: Bespoke fly-by-wire system created by Zuytdorp Industrial Technology: ZT-502 E-FCS

[Yqueleden]

Ugh. I'm drawing a VSTOL fighter.

[Toxic Loki]

Ugh. I'm drawing a VSTOL fighter.

You might upload it too!!