A curious SuperHarrier

[NARSES2]

...... and had far better range.)

My pedal bike has a greater range than a Lightning! 

...... and had far better range.)

My pedal bike has a greater range than a Lightning! 

When calculating the range of a Lightning you have to consider the vertical as well as horizontal distance!

Yup    That was always one of the highlights of the Biggin Hill air shows : the Lightning take off and almost vertical climb 

[PR19_Kit]

Yup    That was always one of the highlights of the Biggin Hill air shows : the Lightning take off and almost vertical climb 

Somewhere in my archives I have a chunk of Super 8 film (that dates it of course....) of a Lightning Squadron take-off taken at Finningly.

The last aircraft tilts into the vertical just as its fuselage passes behind a very tall lighting pole and all you can see on the film is the Lightning's fin scooting up the side of the pole until the whole aircraft pops out of the top.   

[steelpillow]

Harriers can do it any way you choose, but prefer to take a running jump. 

[Weaver]

That's looking good and very Soviet, too. 
I am just not certain about the (so far) tailless design - for a delta aircraft the wings appear a bit (too) small. How about a T-tail?

Tailless is definitely not Soviet. The original Harrier had a small and highly-loaded wing because that helps the ride at low level and it didn't need more. This delta is actually quite a bit bigger. Weight of T-tail definitely not practicable for a VTOL of the day loaded down with fuselage stretch, extra burners and wing internal tankage.
(As an illustration, it is said that the Saab 35D Draken and English Electric lightning F.1 carried much the same payload and fuel, and had much the same performance - delivered by the same engine. However the tailless delta type needed only one of them, and so was smaller, cheaper, more reliable and had far better range.)

Although in all fairness, the Lightning had much better acceleration and climb rate.

[Weaver]

That's looking good and very Soviet, too. 
I am just not certain about the (so far) tailless design - for a delta aircraft the wings appear a bit (too) small. How about a T-tail?

Tailless is definitely not Soviet. The original Harrier had a small and highly-loaded wing because that helps the ride at low level and it didn't need more. This delta is actually quite a bit bigger. Weight of T-tail definitely not practicable for a VTOL of the day loaded down with fuselage stretch, extra burners and wing internal tankage.
(As an illustration, it is said that the Saab 35D Draken and English Electric lightning F.1 carried much the same payload and fuel, and had much the same performance - delivered by the same engine. However the tailless delta type needed only one of them, and so was smaller, cheaper, more reliable and had far better range.)

The build looks great - very well thought through.

The other reason for a small wing on a VTOL aircraft is weight reduction. It doesn't need low-speed performance for landing or take-off, so the wing might as well be optimised for the high-speed cruise condition and give you more vital pounds on the VTO MTOW. There were WAY more extreme proposals than this.

[steelpillow]

Although in all fairness, the Lightning had much better acceleration and climb rate.

I believe not. The Lightning was twice as heavy unladen, but carried less payload, so you have to compare it to a half-laden Draken. I have seen figures quoted of 20,000 ft/min for the Lightning and 30,000+ ft/min for the Draken. While you need to find like-for-like engine thrusts, those have to be dry; the Draken's afterburner was developed by Svenska Flygmotor, who license-built the dry Avon, so kinda counts as part of the Draken magic. I haven't been that thorough, so I am open to those who have.

[steelpillow]

The backstory begins.

This is the Nord 1550 Busard, also referred to as the Super-Busard. "Busard" is French for Harrier. The Nord 1500 is familiar to aero enthusiasts as the Griffon, a mythical creature, but before that there was the 1400 Gerfault (Gyrfalcon), so the name sits well in the Nord portfolio. It came about in 1966, the year after the 1500 and the VTOL Dassault Mirage IIIV were cancelled - and in the UK the Hawker P.1127 superharrier met the same fate. The VTOL Hawker Kestrel was now well on the way to becoming the Harrier. Meanwhile, still in the real world (How could I!), TSR-2 was cancelled and, at BAC's behest, Dassault proposed the Mirage IVS, a Spey-powered Mirage IV bomber, which BAC could build to keep the shop floor from disappearing.

In Whiffland the Dassault project went ahead, with the first prototype being a TSR-2 fuselage and avionics married to Mirage IV wings; It's around here somewhere.
My recent researches have revealed that Hawker and Nord put together a similar deal for the superharrier. In this case the engine would be developed as the Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Super-Pégase (a real joint-venture company which had just developed the Adour for the Jaguar). Conveniently, Nord had the ramjet experience for the side burners and needed the work too. The prototype would be built round a stretched Harrier fuselage and Griffon delta wing, modified for use without the foreplane (hence its continuation of the 1500 series).
It was my whiffy plane designer Ben Tanner, already masterminding the Mirage IVS, who modified the wing aerodynamics and convinced Nord to drop the canard foreplane, but all that is still to come...

Perfect timing, perfect match, perfect coincidences right down to the name and the ramjet tech. The perfect backstory!

[McColm]

Light bulb moment, V/STOL BAC Lightning ⚡. Another build added to the list.
Keep calm and carry on.

[NARSES2]

Looking forward to the build 

[steelpillow]

Light bulb moment, V/STOL BAC Lightning ⚡. Another build added to the list.
Keep calm and carry on.

I thought it already was
Near as, anyway.

Thinks: nozzles too far aft for vectoring, so tail-sitter. Just munge the empennage a bit so it sits steady. Swap out undercart for extra fuel tanks. H'mm, RATOG strapped to rear fuselage or under-wing - or both?

[McColm]

Light bulb moment, V/STOL BAC Lightning ⚡. Another build added to the list.
Keep calm and carry on.

I thought it already was
Near as, anyway.

Thinks: nozzles too far aft for vectoring, so tail-sitter. Just munge the empennage a bit so it sits steady. Swap out undercart for extra fuel tanks. H'mm, RATOG strapped to rear fuselage or under-wing - or both?

Something along the lines of the Ryan Vertifan, the wings will need changing but most of the BAC Lightning features would be kept otherwise its a completely new lower fuselage.

[Captain Canada]

Oooh, now that's got an interesting look to it ! Does look like a Yak, of sorts. Looking forward to seeing more, and hopefully we don't have to wait another 40 years !

[steelpillow]

Something along the lines of the Ryan Vertifan, the wings will need changing but most of the BAC Lightning features would be kept otherwise its a completely new lower fuselage.

Crying out for a kitbash! Anigrand did a 1:72 Vertifan, presumably resin. No idea what it's like. Go on, you know you want to!

[NARSES2]

Something along the lines of the Ryan Vertifan, the wings will need changing but most of the BAC Lightning features would be kept otherwise its a completely new lower fuselage.

Crying out for a kitbash! Anigrand did a 1:72 Vertifan, presumably resin. No idea what it's like. Go on, you know you want to!

Not seen that particular Anigrand kit, but having built a fair few then it's almost certainly a chunky bit of resin with some flash, but they build ok. Indeed their chunky/solid nature makes them a bit easier to build then some of the "finer" resin kits which can easily get damaged by clumsy fingers and blunt scalpels.

[Spino]

Yak-36 vibes here...