Spain joins France, Germany on new combat fighter

wil59 · by **wil59** » 20 Jun 2019, 14:45

wil59 wrote:
vilters wrote:If it is as good as the NH-90 and the AM-400?

What's there to worry about?
They aren't even worth the cost of the aluminium that went into them.

The NH-90 being an overweight maintenance/reliability disaster and the AM-400 does not know if it has to play a grown-up C-130 or a reduced C-17. => No idea what they where thinking, but it is neither.

France and Turky's effort at a stealth airframe look like something like:
"We want to play with the big boys but have no clue what its all about".

Do not sell the bear skin without killing it.

You put Turkey in the same rank as France! Does Turkey have experience in fighter aircraft construction? And even in civil aircraft?

F-16ADF · by **F-16ADF** » 20 Jun 2019, 14:55

France by far has the most experience in developing effective combat aircraft in Europe (Mirage III/IV/F1/Rafale). No other country or consortium comes close. Maybe it's best if they go it alone, and not have to deal with Germany/UK or others.

wil59 · by **wil59** » 20 Jun 2019, 16:08

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:I have a bigger issue with the short (in height) canopy. My areas of concern are pilot visibility on landing, Yaw control (those ruddervators are nearly horizontal), and engine airflow (those are tiny inlets).

https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/. From this angle the air inlets are quite large.

wil59 · by **wil59** » 20 Jun 2019, 16:15

f-16adf wrote:France by far has the most experience in developing effective combat aircraft in Europe (Mirage III/IV/F1/Rafale). No other country or consortium comes close. Maybe it's best if they go it alone, and not have to deal with Germany/UK or others.

I agree ! In addition Dassault has some experience on stealth with the Neuron or dassault was the main contractor! Apparently the level of stealth of the Neuron and qualified as éxelant. https://translate.google.fr/translate?i ... ct%3Den_US

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 20 Jun 2019, 17:58

wil59 wrote:
sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:I have a bigger issue with the short (in height) canopy. My areas of concern are pilot visibility on landing, Yaw control (those ruddervators are nearly horizontal), and engine airflow (those are tiny inlets).

https://www.dassault-aviation.com/en/. From this angle the air inlets are quite large.

I'm not seeing anything when I click that link, just a F8X.

marsavian · by **marsavian** » 20 Jun 2019, 19:10

Slide the photo pane to the left.

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 20 Jun 2019, 21:36

It won't.

XanderCrews · by **XanderCrews** » 20 Jun 2019, 21:55

Europeans suddenly believe stealth isn't obsolete??

Well Well

marsavian · by **marsavian** » 20 Jun 2019, 22:00

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:It won't.

Use an Android phone with Chrome. I added a screenshot.

sprstdlyscottsmn · by **sprstdlyscottsmn** » 20 Jun 2019, 22:51

Thanks marsavian. So they went with low and wide inlets. Still skeptical given the size of the plane. When you look at the F-22 or F-35 from the front the inlets dominate. Oh well, curious to see how it will turn out.

hythelday · by **hythelday** » 20 Jun 2019, 22:55

XanderCrews wrote:Europeans suddenly believe stealth isn't obsolete??

Well Well

Complete VLO wasn't "balanced approach" until suddenly it was. I once asked a certain frenchman why did euro next-gen feature so many radar stealth features if Rafale already represented the optimal ECM/shaping balance . He stopped posting shortly after, I wonder why.

marsavian · by **marsavian** » 20 Jun 2019, 23:05

sprstdlyscottsmn wrote:Thanks marsavian. So they went with low and wide inlets. Still skeptical given the size of the plane. When you look at the F-22 or F-35 from the front the inlets dominate. Oh well, curious to see how it will turn out.

Frankly this aircraft has gone from a tail-less cranked delta to a YF-22/YF-23 clone in a couple of months which tells me they haven't remotely started designing it yet. They are just at the concept prototype stage. Decades away.

p.s. Maybe a Mouse action on a PC will unlock the series of photos on their front page for you.

charlielima223 · by **charlielima223** » 21 Jun 2019, 10:30

Also mentions Turkey's own stealth fighter concept...

https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey- ... ept-2019-6

mixelflick · by **mixelflick** » 21 Jun 2019, 17:32

charlielima223 wrote:Also mentions Turkey's own stealth fighter concept...

https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey- ... ept-2019-6

This is so flattering to Lockheed Martin IMO.

From China to France to Turkey, all of these "next gen" fighters look a LOT like the F-22/35. They will likely pale in a real comparison though, albeit what France ultimately comes up with will be of interest. They really haven't produced a loser yet, and some aircraft that weren't built (Mirage 4000) looked to be real gems.

I deliberately omitted the SU-57 as I feel it owes much of its airframe to the YF-23A vs. F-22. It looks as if they squashed a Flanker, added a dash of YF-23A and arrived at.... something unusual. The J-20 appears to have "borrowed" much from the canceled Mikoyan 1.44.

But everyone else appears to be playing monkey see, monkey do. The 2030's will for sure be interesting times..

mixelflick · by **mixelflick** » 21 Jun 2019, 17:34

charlielima223 wrote:Also mentions Turkey's own stealth fighter concept...

https://www.businessinsider.com/turkey- ... ept-2019-6

This is so flattering to Lockheed Martin IMO.

From China to France to Turkey, all of these "next gen" fighters look a LOT like the F-22/35. They will likely pale in a real comparison though, albeit what France ultimately comes up with will be of interest. They really haven't produced a loser yet, and some aircraft that weren't built (Mirage 4000) looked to be real gems.

I deliberately omitted the SU-57 as I feel it owes much of its airframe to the YF-23A vs. F-22. It looks as if they squashed a Flanker, added a dash of YF-23A and arrived at.... something unusual. The J-20 appears to have "borrowed" much from the canceled Mikoyan 1.44.