All Things Stealth

[Stuart Galbraith]

9 hours ago, bfng3569 said:

remains to be seen so far.

three engines for a drone.... 

Long range over water flights perhaps? Turn one off for the range, turn it back on for the performance. I can dig that.

What I fear is they might have come onto a development like British reaction engines. Probably an unnecessary fear, but considering they were mooting hanging them on Tempest at some point, perhaps not entirely unrealistic one.

[bfng3569]

11 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Long range over water flights perhaps? Turn one off for the range, turn it back on for the performance. I can dig that.

What I fear is they might have come onto a development like British reaction engines. Probably an unnecessary fear, but considering they were mooting hanging them on Tempest at some point, perhaps not entirely unrealistic one.

i'm not questioning the three engines or why, i'm questioning the comment about this being a drone.

three engines and dual main gear.  Large side apparatuses on each side of the nose.

seems inline with a long range strike platform, i'd be surprised if it turned out to be unmanned.

[lucklucky]

Maybe can be both.

[bfng3569]

6 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Maybe can be both.

Could be.  Could be 'optionally' manned.

Anything is possible.

[KV7]

I think it is likely a manned multipurpose aircraft, able to do interception, land and naval strikes, surveillance etc.

Once you have a fast long legged stealth aircraft there is not much inherent limitation on what it can do, and then for economic reasons it makes sense to apply it to these.

The limiting factor for this sort of platform is going to be the internal stowage, it will not be able to well fill roles that need a bigger one.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

12 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Maybe can be both.

Probably. That seems to be a design goal for Tempest as well.

[Olof Larsson]

On 12/27/2024 at 9:02 AM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Long range over water flights perhaps? Turn one off for the range, turn it back on for the performance. I can dig that.

What I fear is they might have come onto a development like British reaction engines. Probably an unnecessary fear, but considering they were mooting hanging them on Tempest at some point, perhaps not entirely unrealistic one.

My guess would be, that they don't have a suitable and sufficently powerful engine, to make it a twin jet. 225-250kN low bypass turbofans doesn't grow on trees.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Perhaps, although Id be surprised by that, seeing as how much data on the F35 they seemed to absorb.

[KV7]

3 hours ago, Olof Larsson said:

My guess would be, that they don't have a suitable and sufficently powerful engine, to make it a twin jet. 225-250kN low bypass turbofans doesn't grow on trees.

It could be that but I think it is an RCS reduction measure. Having three engines side by side allows for a smooth flat bottom as we see here, the inlets by the side of the fuselage also can be reduced in size as they are now only 2/3 as thirsty, and the overall height of the fuselage can perhaps be reduced in comparison to using two engines.

There might be issues with the area rule though.

 

Edited December 28, 2024 by KV7
I added more information

[seahawk]

With 3 engines that ting will have quite some range and payload, which could be enough to lock the US out of East Asia for good.

[Olof Larsson]

7 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Perhaps, although Id be surprised by that, seeing as how much data on the F35 they seemed to absorb.

But the F135 is not a 225-250kN engine. The only options globaly is the NK-32 and the NK-25. When the US has gone for such power levels, they went for 4 engines, rather than making a unique B-1-engine. If China had gone for two engines (with 50% more thrust then the WS-10 per engine), they would have to not only design the engine, but also build up the maintanence infrastructure for a unique engine, that would be unlikely to se much other use.

 

Such an engine might also run into issues with auxillary components like gear boxes, generators, hydraulic pumps and so on being to heavy to handle easily by hand, being to large for standard test rigs and so on.

[bfng3569]

12 hours ago, KV7 said:

I think it is likely a manned multipurpose aircraft, able to do interception, land and naval strikes, surveillance etc.

Once you have a fast long legged stealth aircraft there is not much inherent limitation on what it can do, and then for economic reasons it makes sense to apply it to these.

The limiting factor for this sort of platform is going to be the internal stowage, it will not be able to well fill roles that need a bigger one.

 

probably, could also be the manned 'regional' bomber that has been talked about for some time.

give it an air to ground/anti shipping and  air to air ability.  

another platform to go after tankers/transports/awacs etc.

potentially a link in the kill chain for targeting data for hypersonic and the df-21's?

China doesn't have to worry about global power projection.

[Olof Larsson]

12 minutes ago, bfng3569 said:

probably, could also be the manned 'regional' bomber that has been talked about for some time.

give it an air to ground/anti shipping and  air to air ability.  

another platform to go after tankers/transports/awacs etc.

potentially a link in the kill chain for targeting data for hypersonic and the df-21's?

China doesn't have to worry about global power projection.

It might also be capable of carrying the PL-17/21 very long range AAM's internally.

[KV7]

7 hours ago, Olof Larsson said:

It might also be capable of carrying the PL-17/21 very long range AAM's internally.

It seemingly can, the weapons bay is long enough, at around 6 metres.

[AETiglathPZ]

That plane looks big compared to the J-20. My guess it is the equivalent to the proposed FB-22.

[JWB]

FB-22 proposals:

FB-23 proposal:

https://futureadf.blogspot.com/p/the-fb-23-medium-bomber.html

[Stuart Galbraith]

An aircraft that looked a lot like the Fb23 crashed at Boscombe down in 1993.

[futon]

19 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

An aircraft that looked a lot like the Fb23 crashed at Boscombe down in 1993.

A nit pick but following that interesting bit leads to it having been 1994.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ah, so it time travelled as well?

 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Igor, it's alive!!!

 

[Ol Paint]

Perun presentation on the possibilities of the recent PLAAF aircraft.

Doug 

 

[DB]

On 1/25/2025 at 6:53 PM, Stuart Galbraith said:

Igor, it's alive!!!

Should be nicknamed "Zubian".

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yes, I had the same thought.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

Glad the pilot made it out.

https://x.com/BNONews/status/1884403526673006977?t=W3-HEmMYEMXZ5P45RARpmw&s=19

[futon]

Yeah, very good the pilot ejected safely.

A bit context about the crash:

https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/military/2025/01/28/f-35-crashes-at-eielson-air-force-base-military-officials-say/

 

Edited January 29 by futon