Modern Emergency Fighter

[perttime]

How much of a jet engine has Sweden produced? If I understood correctly, Gripen's Volvo RM12 is 50% from General Electric.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Honestly these days, a nation could just build a drone, and base it's control architecture on iPhone and modular electronics; encryption could be provided with a governments resources without much difficulty (maybe a faraday cage to deal with EMP and electronics eavesdropping), some modifications to the codes to prevent technology the Feds use to engage in automated tapping (it's possible to turn the GPS, the audio system, the camera on without the user's consent), the A.I. from realistic combat-sims, with mods to deal with realistic variables (environmental conditions, winds), the ability to handle radar, and facial ID technology and IR/EOTS to visually ID planes, and hook that up to jamming systems to produce automated modes.

The basic shape could be made stealthy without major difficulty these days, and considering the size of the electronics: The drone would only have to be as big as the weapons it carries which could include any of the following

• AIM-92 Stinger: Smaller and yet still very dangerous
  
• M61 Vulcan Cannon: 248 pounds, a few hundred rounds of ammo and using IR/EOTS combined with ballistic computations and it'd make every round count
  
• DREAD: A type of centrifugal force system using magnetic fields to hurl rounds at 8,000 fpm (pretty nasty when F=M/A)
  
• Metal Storm: When you can never have too much dakka
  
• Lasers: Sure there's probably international laws against this even for military use except taking out other drones or missiles, but desparation seems to cause governments to ignore such things unfortunately
  

A datalink could be hooked up to allow the final decision to fire and attack to be made by a person on the ground.  Sadly, this is something I'm very surprised somebody in the DOD hasn't whipped up.

With all that said: Remember,

• No matter how I die, it was murder: Even if there was a video of me peacefully dying in my sleep, and a suicide note was present
  
• If a video is shown of me killing myself: It's fake, you'd be surprised what 3D graphics and video editing can do.
  
• If I am framed for a criminal offense: I didn't do it, no matter what evidence is shown to the contrary (remember, evidence can be fabricated -- even DNA can be fabricated)
  
• If I disappear: It was not voluntary to say the least
  

[hogge]

It seems we're starting to get a bit closer.
Basically, we're talking about a JT8 powered attack plane with straight or slightly swept wings. How was the Lansen when it comes to maneuverability?

[RAFF-35]

How about something resembling the Sepecat Jaguar? Very rugged, no fancy equipment, can fly nap of the earth, wingspan is narrow enough to land on a motorway, good strike capability, agile in a dogfight.... The only slight issue that I can see is the possibly complicated power plant.

[perttime]

How about something resembling the Sepecat Jaguar?

Or AMX.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX_International_AMX

[Gondor]

Just had a thought, it's all well and good building these wonderful Emergency Fighter aircraft, but who will be flying them? Most air forces will have some attrition replacement aircraft or others that are going through major servicing which can be used to boost numbers so that more front line air crew have something to fly, but if your going to produce a large number of these Emergency Fighters they need a crew as well. It's all very reminiscent of late WWII Germany.

Gondor

[hogge]

Just had a thought, it's all well and good building these wonderful Emergency Fighter aircraft, but who will be flying them? Most air forces will have some attrition replacement aircraft or others that are going through major servicing which can be used to boost numbers so that more front line air crew have something to fly, but if your going to produce a large number of these Emergency Fighters they need a crew as well. It's all very reminiscent of late WWII Germany.

Gondor

My thought was retired Viggen pilots.

[kerick]

Retirees and new kids. Experience plus piss and vinegar.

[Rheged]

Just had a thought, it's all well and good building these wonderful Emergency Fighter aircraft, but who will be flying them? Most air forces will have some attrition replacement aircraft or others that are going through major servicing which can be used to boost numbers so that more front line air crew have something to fly, but if your going to produce a large number of these Emergency Fighters they need a crew as well. It's all very reminiscent of late WWII Germany.

Gondor

Depending on period and severity of the emergency, would Jet Provost 5's,  Gnats, or Hawks be any use?

[RAFF-35]

It says in the intro that this scenario takes place in the near future, so the provost and gnat would need serious overhauls so as not to get torn to shreads, the hawk might be a good start, but I can't recall how many hard points it has so I have a few doubts about its ground attack capabilities.

[Weaver]

It says in the intro that this scenario takes place in the near future, so the provost and gnat would need serious overhauls so as not to get torn to shreads, the hawk might be a good start, but I can't recall how many hard points it has so I have a few doubts about its ground attack capabilities.

The Hawk has between 3 and 7 hardpoints depending on the version, and up to 6,500 lb of weaponry, including a 30mm cannon pod and Sidewinders (some versions). It's pretty potent.

[Weaver]

Modern Draken
While I'm a MASSIVE fan of the Draken, I wonder how well it would do in the attack role. It has a really high stall speed, so I don't think many pilots would dare use it at treetop level. Making a fighter out of it would on the other hand require some quite advanced electronics.

The Danish air force used it mostly for ground attack. Their J-35Xs didn't have radar.

[Weaver]

Garret TFE-731s are very common trainer and business jet engines, and you can build a decent light attack aircraft around them as the Taiwanese AT-3 demonstrates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDC_AT-3

[RAFF-35]

It says in the intro that this scenario takes place in the near future, so the provost and gnat would need serious overhauls so as not to get torn to shreads, the hawk might be a good start, but I can't recall how many hard points it has so I have a few doubts about its ground attack capabilities.

The Hawk has between 3 and 7 hardpoints depending on the version, and up to 6,500 lb of weaponry, including a 30mm cannon pod and Sidewinders (some versions). It's pretty potent.

Wow, thanks for the info never realised it had 7 hard points, I thought 5 max, love it wearing the cannon pod though

[Burncycle]

I was playing around with a similar concept where a country had to improvise to come up with some emergency wartime combat aircraft.  They had a small private aircraft designer (think Burt Rutan / Jim Bede) who was producing experimental private jets, some of which were designed to appear like modern combat aircraft to cater to the super wealthy who wanted more excitement than a Mclaren or Veyron could provide, and these were transformed into simple compact combat aircraft, dropping dumb bombs and rockets.  Some more weapons that could be self targeted (Maverick, Sidewinder, Stinger, IIR Version of Hellfire) were also incorporated.  Simple FLIR "pods" were made by using commercial off the shelf FLIRs (pan tilt zoom FLIR for maritime use)

(In reality, I had a bunch of extra BD-5 canopies laying around, and decided to rather crudely graft them onto 1/144th scale fighters because why not? Came out pretty neat!)

There are other unconventional options.  The AGM-86 Air Launched Cruise Missile weighed about 4,300 pounds and carried a 3,000 pound warhead (payload) to a range of 750 miles (twice that with a lighter warload) at a speed of 500 mph -- all powered by a small Williams International turbine in the 600 lbs thrust class!   So when you look at the Swedish KEPD350 cruise missile, which also carries a Williams International turbine in the ~1,000-1,500 lbs thrust class, you can easily power a small aircraft like a super-BD-5 or mini-F-4 Phantom.  Definitely something to play with that's a little more out of the box.

Of course if there are any civilian business jets that you can commandeer, you can always scavenge the engine and build your own emergency wartime airplane...








Engine mounted high so you can operate off roads more easily, and easily big enough for a couple of Maverick (Swedish RB75) missiles and wouldn't need anything fancy to target them.