NationStates Jolt Archive

http://img10.exs.cx/img10/1846/numenvi7rw.jpg

Mission air superiority fighter
Length 63 feet, 8 inches
Wing span 44 feet, 3 inches
Height 15 feet, 6 inches
Maximum takeoff weight 68,450 pounds
Propulsion 2x RJ-334-TyH-A22DC
Speed Mach 5.2
Altitude (Maximum) 68,500 feet
Range 920-1040 miles unrefuelled
Armament internal bays in engine intake duct sides and internal bays underneath air intakes, as well as bays inside the wings.
Crew One

Unit Cost Not for Sale
Ally Cost $74,000,000.00

BACKROUND INFORMATION
The Numen VI ZFighter Jet is the newest addition to the Witzgallian Air Force. Ever since the Numen I came out and was able to go Mach 1.5 as its top speed, the International Community has awaited every single advancement in these high-speed fighters. The Numen II, deamed a miserable failure, may have suffered numerous engine "glitches", but on a good day was able to reach Mach 2. The Numen III, a great advancement in aeronautic developments, was a high speed fighter capable of reaching Mach 2.5 and had a supercruise of Mach 1.8.

The Numen IV was the first ZFighter Jet to be released to the public for exportation and sales, and was a major smash with many national organizations and airforces. The Numen V, capable of reaching Mach 4.2, was a wonderful aircraft and handled those high speeds with majestic beauty. Although some have claimed it to be a bad invention, when put into combat the Numen series always claims the head of the opposition.

Now, SolarStar Corporation, is proud to bring you the Numen VI. The sixth addition to the Numen series, this jet can go Mach 5.2 and has a supercruise of Mach 3.56. Yes, indeed...a supercruise of Mach 3.56 which is almost unparalled.

Once again, SolarStar Corporation has made a "joint project" with a Truitti company called "Truitt and Hughes", or TyH for short. They developed the engine and a AAM that fits inside the wing (called the Weasle AAM, IR Guided).

ENGINE:
The engine after passing testing marks with a A-A+3 Rating (Which is equal to a 97/A+ on a test) has now been dubbed the RJ-334-TyH-A22DC "Clashing Pod" becouse of its remarkable size and compactability. It however, does sacrifise some thrust for size taken up.

The RJ-334-TyH-A22DC itself produces 25,000lb of thrust each. When two are slapped together in a single engine compartment, a 47,000lb of thrust figure is achived. The RJ-334-TyH-A22DC was not designned with any Thrust Modification Systems due to tis small size.

With the given Numen VI weight and statistics, the test fighter, unarmed, should be able to reach Mach 5 and have a supercruise (maximum use of thrust without additional fuel injectors b.t.w.) of Mach 3.56. The stresses given onto the RJ-334-TyH-A22DC also show it can withstand 16g+ pressures and stresses without sacrifising performance one bit.

Two RJ-334-TyH-A22DC's will eb equipped side-by-side on the Numen VI with engine intakes located nose fuselage [low] and engine exhust rear [middle]. The ramjet itself is equipped with an alternate cooling system which is already designned and can be installed with the engine inside the engine compartment fairly easily. The cooling system cools the engine's compartment by about 120 degrees F and can run through the whole craft to lower 50-80 degrees F, depending on weather and other conditions. Exhust cooling as not included.

WING MISSILES
Now, to the two AAMs made to me launched form the wings. The wings run a clip-like line simular to a pistol in the wings but sideways. The missles will slide into place (two bays per Numen VI wing) and be prepaired for launch. When launching, the missles will be lowed just so the nose is outside to make a reading. This still is fairly stealthy dispite the smaller AAMs are develoepd to be stealthy to begin with.

As to this, they then are launched once given the order, and the Block ("Fox" is for wing-mounted ordanance, "Pickle" is for fuselage-mounted ordanance, and technically "Block" is for internally storred ordanance) will then release. The bays will close, and if the other missle is not searching or being used, the clip will activate to replace the missle. A total of four missles (two sets of volleies) can be loaded per wing.

WLAIMs (Wing-Launched Air Intercept Missles):
WLAIM-1A "Fire Fox"
Guidance: IR (Infrared or the heat produced by exhust or systems)
Powerplant: One-Way Solid-Propellant Gig-5 Rocket Capable of 600lb of thrust
Warhead: 50lb IE Explosia Warhead
Maximum Speeds: Mach 2.06
Compairason of RL Missle: Smaller AIM-7

WLAIM-1D "Wind Fox"
Guidance: SAGM (Semi-Active Gun Missle); From Host Aircraft's Own Radar
Powerplant: One-Way Solid-Propellant Gig-5 Rocket Capable of 620lb of thrust
Warhead: Single 9mm Four-barrel 120 round automatic gun that fires at target when entering range and sight
Maximum Speeds: Mach 1.29
Compairason of RL Missle: Smaller AIM-2 Firefly (Never Reached Military Service)

WLAIM-2A "Mountain Fox"
Guidance: SA-IR (Semi-Active and Infrared) Uses Infrared Sensors and Host-Linekd Radar For Guidance.
Powerplant: One-Way Liquid-Propellant Gig-2 Rocket Capable of 400lb of thrust
Warhead: Flak Charge or (-B "Storm Fox") 30lb IE Explosia and Smaller Flak Charge
Maximum Speeds: Mach .89
Compairason of RL Missle: Smaller K-71 Kirchov (Never Pasted Experimental Stage)

Each missle is designned to be used, operated, and pretty much controlled by the Numen VI or any other Clip-Block System Aircraft such as the NUmen VI or TyH-58 Cockatiel.

OOC: Questions and Comments are welcome. This was a joint project between Witzgall and Truitt. It is post modern/modern tech.

bump

I'm rather confused as to how you would actually be able to achieve Mach 5.2 and a supercruise speed of more than Mach 3 with this fighter, even without any payload. Just judging the image and the design itself, the airframe with the F-22/YF-23 - like wings just wouldn't provide you with such a high speed, even with two powerful engines - there's actually a reason why some
designs are able to reach more Mach >2.6 or even Mach 3 and above aside from engine power. Neither are you going to achieve Mach 5 speed with such "small/compact engines". To do so you'd need much larger engines, which would transfer to less room for fuel/weaponery and a larger fuel consumption, in which the end result would be a much heavier aircraft unless you want a horrible range (that's why putting some of the >60,000lb engines on a tactical fighter is not a good idea - not mentioning that you'll need huge intakes which basically would require a larger aircraft and would basically end your hopes of having the aircraft being stealthy). If you seen any supersonic fighters in real life and actually seen them up-close, you would also see that the wings themselves also have to be pretty "thin" and light - simply, even with the "wing bays" empty, you wouldn't be able to achieve that type of speed. Not mentioning keeping the speed constant during a reasonable length of time in flight.

Another problem with such high speeds is temperature: they used to have a lot of problems when they are still dealing with titanium alloys when certain aircraft enters Mach >2.5 speeds, and even with newer composites I'd doubt that you'd have a manned aircraft that will be able to reach Mach 5 without any overheating of the airframe. You could put extra insulation to prevent overheating, but that will also translate to a heavier and larger aircraft, and you would not be able to reach a speed near that anymore.

The third major problem is the supercruise speed. Unless you are going with a Supersonic Cruise speed of Mach >3 where you would still use something like an afterburner to get it supersonic, a supercruise speed of Mach >3 simply isn't possible. Not only you'd need powerful engines (as said - which would translate to a larger pair of engine which would increase the weight of your aircraft), but you'd also need some pretty good aerodynamics and a reasonable thrust-to-weight ratio (often the thrust is compared with the weight of the aircraft with a typical warload and fuel). The F/A-22 for example, does not go supercruise because of its engines only, but it also needed some precision engineering and airframe design so that they would get good aerodynamics to do so. Similarily, you'd also need to consider that in order to have that type of speed rating you'd still need to keep the aircraft on that supercruise speed constantly, and if you can only keep that speed for only one second before you'd have to use your afterburner, then it would be pretty useless. All said, I personally do not know a single design that is capable of supercruise at that type of speed, and considering that with that type of airframe and wing design you would barely even reach a Mach 3+ speed.

You'd better explain how your fighter actually reaches Mach 5 speed. Similarily, even if you put a pair of engines with 130,000lb of thrust on something like a F/A-22, it is very unlikely that the F/A-22 would be able to reach Mach 4 speed and have a supercruise speed of something like Mach 2. Similarily, you aren't going to have a Mach 3 speed with a MiG-19 if you decide to put something like a pair of 60,000lb thrust engine (not mentioning impossible) and have a Mach 4 speed.

Speed does not only depend on the engines, but also aerodynamics and the actual ratio of your thrust rating and the weights of your aircraft. If you want a really high speed, it is possible if you want to go Mach >3, but that would also involve scrapping the majority of stealthy features and designs present on the aircraft. There's a reason why the MiG-25 and -31 are designed to reach Mach 2.5-2.8 speeds (keep in mind that the maximum speed typically allowed on a MiG-25 is Mach 2.8, although it certainly reached Mach 3 with no payload before the engines got trashed), and there's also a reason why the F/A-22 is able to reach a Mach 1+ supercruise speed. A SR-71 is another example, but it had special engine designs and also had some pretty special airframe design. With that, unless you expect bad low speed performance, you shouldn't expect good high speed maneuveribility and performance either (one apparant factor in the EP-3/Chinese J-8 incident was that often in order to escort the EP-3 the J-8 has to go to near stall speed to do so, considering that the J-8 was originally designed to counter the threat of Soviet supersonic fighters and bombers in the 70s and 80s).

OOC: Would you mind explaining how you can push a fighter up to near-hypersonic speeds with a conventional jet engine that only has a total output of 47k lbs thrust? Hell, I use PDET-hybrids in my air superiority fighter and it gets up to Mach 3.55 max, maybe Mach 3.6 in perfect conditions, and they have over double the power of your plane...

I am the designer of the jet, not the engine.

The two ramjets are supposed to bring up the plane to such high speeds, but after reading your arguments it sounds not feasable.

I am the designer of the jet, not the engine.

The two ramjets are supposed to bring up the plane to such high speeds, but after reading your arguments it sounds not feasable.
I understand that, but when considering engines on an aircraft you'll still need to take into account that the size of the engines would often affect how you would design the airframe, not mentioning that with different engine designs you'll also have to worry about things like speed + aerodynamics, fuel load and consumption, and the likes.

I personally don't know about the ramjets (although the proposed XF-103 does include a ramjet - but that's a high speed interceptor, not a tactical fighter), but I'd expect that it would offer horrible low altitude and low speed performance, not mentioning that in order to activate ramjets you'd actually need some kind of airflow in it. Unless you are designing this to be a high speed interceptor to specifically intercept Mach 2+ bombers and reconaissance aircraft, my suggestion is to scrap the ramjet and either go with a turbofan or a hybrid PDE-turbofan if you are 2010 tech like me.

For the record, IIRC one of the main reasons why the XF-103 was designed to reach Mach 3.0 only was because of the excess temperature - this could be solved with newer materials and engine designs, but then in NS a max speed of Mach 3 is considered only as normal.

Honarary Spam Forum Own3r

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I cant stop laughing! Heelp Heeeeeeeeelp. :D

Honarary Spam Forum Own3r

*Bows D0wn*

I cant stop laughing! Heelp Heeeeeeeeelp. :D
OOC: Hmm, "laughing"? Sadly however there are other people with much more post than me :P
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As for some more comments about the aircraft however, my best estimate is a max speed of M2-3 with a design similar to the F-23, and that is btw a "liberally" guessed figure, and the ceiling could be reduced by just a bit if you are using conventional turbofans or PDE-turbofans. If you go by one of the "supersonic interceptor" designs, I'd say that the speed could be M3-4 absolutely max, though you'll definately be sacrificing stealth. All in all however, I personally do not consider M4+ for this current design a realistic speed at all, unless you are going beyond 2020 tech and unless the designer of the engine still stick to ramjets (which, IMHO, is a very bad idea).

Even without taking into accounts the aerodynamics this planes is heavier than the eruofighter and with engines that are not significantly more powerful so how it can achgeive soemthing like 2.5times the speed...

Alright, here is what went wrong with the engine :
I was very tierd on New Year's Day (with a bad thing that everyone knows most have that day) and I remembered I promised Witzgall his engine's stuff by January 1st, 2005. So in a rush, I typed it up. Our idea of two compact ramjets into the F-23's body was beyond me as I got into my design stage and having one of those hangovers.

So I designned it after my Cockatiel's engine, but missed out one thing: These are two small ramjets, not a single powerful one.

Alright, here is the new design (Ramjet, same number and name)
I am placing a single ramjet since two are beyond frame's size.
Thrust: 129,000lb of thrust
Maximum Speed with current frame: 2,860 knots (around mach 4.5)
Super Cruise: Mach 1.07 (Warm - Calm Day)
Takes up all of the space of two large turbofans. Extremely bulky but made mainly for giving speeds for fast interception. Not exactly great for dogfights or major air interceptions.

For alternative's sake, two turbofans. Figures for a single.
Thrust (single): 45,000lb
Maximum Speed (both) with current frame: 2,030 knots (mach 3.15)
Super Cruise: Mach 1.03 (Warm - Calm Day)
Takes up about 80% of the room of the ramjet except it gives better low-speed manuvering and allows for great dogfighting abilities.


Hopefully this passes tests. I don't have my engine book with me to check myself or my calculator so comments please. *slaps own hand* Won't happen agian (at least with that much of a problem).