Chinese Carrier Fighter Project !

[kitflubber]

I thnk it has large chines already -- a line representing a sharp leading edge runs from the horizontal stabilizer just below the cockpit

[cthulhu77]

Yep, they just need to be bigger...lots of draft for that awkward landing.

[Planeman]

I'm thinking twin side-by-side cockpit and some sort of retractable or swing wings for take-off and landing - but retaining stealth is the challenge. I like challenges  


Operational environment would be something like a Tornado but larger because the weapons load would primariy be internal.

[kitflubber]

Planeman, very cool -- wings would go into slots in the body? The second picture shows the wings as three part airfoils with space between them -- looks intresting.

[Planeman]

A refined configuration though I've given it tandem cockpit more for cool factor than logic (side by side is better IMO).


The three-part 'swing' wings are much like an airliner's in that they expand with slotted leading edge flaps and trailing edge flaps. This has more to do with making them more compact when folded back and anything else. They would be virtually all-composite with electronic articulators.

Going back to the joined wing fighter, here is the starting points of internal placement I visualised when laying it out:


The weapons bay is 6 or 8m long, 1.25m wide and deep and would normally have a rotary PL-12 (SD-10) MRAAM launcher in it with folding-fin missiles. Or you could load it with two PL-12s and two PL-8x (again modified version of missile).


Other main weapons would include LS-6 PGMs (similar to JDAM), AS-17 Krypton missiles and maybe LACMs. Maybe the new unnamed ramject missile frequently associated with the JH-7. And of course the LT-2 LGB, FT-1 and FT-3 PGMs.

The main landing gear would be under the S-profile intake ducts and the nosewheel directly in front of the weapons bay (possibly sharing the same doors in order to reduce RCS).

removable external hardpoints would be on the wingtips and two each side of the fuselage just in front of the main undercarriage doors. A special weapons bay module-replacement would allow semi-recessed carriage of large missiles under the fuselage.

[kitflubber]

Planeman, I really appreciate how you work out the massing of necessary equipment -- very nice. The transition at the rear from weapons bay to the aft spike is really blunt: that's what I was intuitively avoiding when I modelled it. is that an acceptable tradeoff for weapon capacity?

By the way, what is the blister on the belly just in front of the intakes?

[Planeman]

By the way, what is the blister on the belly just in front of the intakes?

A DSI intake: Divergent Supersonic Intake. Basically the same technology as used on the F-35 and chinese FC-1 fighters, a kind of bump just in front of the intake that allows it to dispense with the splitter plate used in most other designs to seperate the boundery layer air from the 'clean' airflow.  

[Supertom]

Wow you guys are really taking this all the way.  What next, building a 1:1 in Planeman's back yard?



Hmm, I shouldn't have said that, should I?    

[cthulhu77]

Hehe...the feds are on their way over, right now !

[Planeman]

Planeman, I really appreciate how you work out the massing of necessary equipment -- very nice. The transition at the rear from weapons bay to the aft spike is really blunt: that's what I was intuitively avoiding when I modelled it. is that an acceptable tradeoff for weapon capacity?

I've been thinking about that. What we are really trading is the drag of external weapons so in that respect yes, it is a pretty good trade-off.

But the problem is whether 8m long is too short for two ASMs (AS-17 (Kh-31) Krypton missiles are an obvious choice). On the other hand 6m is too short for two LS-6 PGMs...

I think that the relatively untapered belly is a good trade-off for external stores, and gives us a far larger weapons bay volume than the F-22 which is a must since Chinese ASMs are not particulary compact. The 8m weapons bay could even carry a LACM, which if nuclear tipped... not that I approve of nuclear arms but still.