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Enthusiast Joined: Oct 03, 2005 Posts: 55 Status: Offline

I read somewhere that before the JSF, the Navy considered a navalized version of the F/A-22 as an alternative to the A-12, but was later cancelled. Here's an artist's rendition.

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NATF was meant to fill the gap after ATA (A-12) was cancelled. NAFT was a 'replacement' not an 'alternative' to the A-12.

Actually GD/Lockheed was the one pushing the NATF concept, I'm not sure the Navy every really (seriously) considered it.

I'm not sure if the -22 with VG wings can be as furtive as the original -22...

Newbie Joined: Sep 18, 2005 Posts: 19 Status: Offline

habu2 wrote:

NATF was meant to fill the gap after ATA (A-12) was cancelled. NAFT was a 'replacement' not an 'alternative' to the A-12.

Actually GD/Lockheed was the one pushing the NATF concept, I'm not sure the Navy every really (seriously) considered it.

I thought that the NATF was the F-14 replacement and the A-12 was to be the A-6 replacement.

Enthusiast Joined: Dec 20, 2004 Posts: 29 Status: Offline

Bruant,
You are correct. I think Lockheed was proposing a navalized F-117 as the gap filler after the A-12 cancellation.

A Swing wing F-22? That's just sad.

Yeah, look at what happened with other VG planes. We have the F-111 wonderlemon, the F-14 Tomcat, and the B-1B. All of them are hangar queens. Why propose VG when it seems to be very very bad for maintenance?

Newbie Joined: Dec 18, 2005 Posts: 13 Status: Offline

The USN considered a number of programs in the early 90s... to include F-117N, NATF, A-12, and Tomcat 21.

F-22 as it was had aerodynamic limitations as it was to preclude carrier recoveries, and the conceptual idea to make it work for carrier ops involved swing wings. The decision was that the radical redesigns required would result in so little saved due to commonality that it wouldn't work.

The Tomcat was bad for maintenance, but this had zilch to do with its swing wings. Very bad gouge, LordOfBunnies.

Quote:

We have the F-111 wonderlemon, the F-14 Tomcat, and the B-1B. All of them are hangar queens. Why propose VG when it seems to be very very bad for maintenance?

because the USAF and navy care about performance and if it can do the required mission: price and mainance are second

well i guess in the case of the comanche , price might be a slight issue

Yes, performance and ability to do mission are of prime importance, but if maintenance interferes with the ability to do a mission in a timely fashion then the thing will get axed. The comanche was a bad idea from the start. The army just wanted a stealth toy and I'll be d@mned if it wasn't cool but when most copters lost are from trashfire, stealth won't help much. With any situation, situational awareness is key and a stealth helicopter would eliminate some of that for the enemy, but they'd still be lost to trashfire. Kadghar, I'd like to say yes I was wrong about the swing wing being the problem. I would still like to note that all those aircraft and are hangar queens. They are the only swing wings I can think of off the top of my head and they all have maintenance problems. This isn't meant to be a flame, I'm just noticing a pattern here.

Anyway, a navalized 22 would give the navy warm fuzzies but its extremely unlikely unless we start a really big war and the defense budget gets a huge boost.

LordOfBunnies wrote:

Yes, performance and ability to do mission are of prime importance, but if maintenance interferes with the ability to do a mission in a timely fashion then the thing will get axed.

True on this point.

One of the reasons why the Northrop/MD's YF-23 ATF lost to the Lockheed/Boeing/(then) GD's YF-22 in the ATF competition in late 1990 to early 1991 is because of maintenance/sortie generation reasons. The YF-22 demonstrated higher sortie generation rates and lower maintenance issues than the YF-23 which showed more issues regarding maintenance per sortie.

Capabilities, performance, etc are all important, of course. But the old adage "KISS" aka "Keep It Simple Stupid".....or what I prefer "KIASAPS" aka "Keep It As Simple As Possible Stupid" is always preferred.

I think that the Raptor looks good with that VG wings Smile

What a heavy piece of sh*t...I hate it.

Historically, conversion of planes for carrier ops has not worked out well. The best example of a common frame was the F-4 (until F-35C reaches IOC), but it started life as a Navy frame.

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Navalized version of the F-22?