H-20 bomber (with H-X, JH-XX)

as.karo said:

Well... Length: 57m. Wingspan: 48m. It is bigger than Airbus A300 and it is supersonic

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this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

as.karo said:

Well... Length: 57m. Wingspan: 48m. It is bigger than Airbus A300 and it is supersonic

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Deino said:

Did you at least Check where this nonsense is from?

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Antares545 said:

this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

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It’s a shame really, because next to the “arrowhead” and GJ-X, IMO that’s the best planform out of the various design choices required, if it is indeed supposed to carry very long munitions internally.

It’s the ridiculous number, positioning, and carrying capacity of IWBs, plus the stated dimensions, that ruin the potential credibility of just the overall planform.

It would be nice to come to a consensus on what we think the top 3 best or likely planforms are, based on the 1 credible rumour about IWB length requirements? And then see if any kind users want to make a good CGI of each (as another December project)?

Antares545 said:

this design would require the fattest ass in any aircraft. to have a massive rotary launcher that far back is completely unfeasible.
just shows whoever makes these have never considered the side profile of their designs.

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I know some people are poo-pooing the idea of the bay configuration depicted, but take a look at the Su-57 bays and see how far back the rear one goes. Just a general observation, as we don't yet know the true H-20 configuration.

mack8 said:

I know some people are poo-pooing the idea of the bay configuration depicted, but take a look at the Su-57 bays and see how far back the rear one goes. Just a general observation, as we don't yet know the true H-20 configuration.

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Yes, we are "poo-pooing" at the idea of the depicted bay configuration because that particular bay configuration is an absolute "poo-poo" by itself.

Here's what you see on the Su-57:



But here's what you don't see on the Su-57:



As a matter of fact, the main IWBs on the Su-57 aren't actually that deep. Each of those main IWBs can fit 3x LRAAMs in parallel, or 2x smaller-diameter cruise missiles (Kh-69) in parallel. This design is pretty typical for stealth fighters.

In the meantime, here's what the Kh-69 (~410mm diameter) compared to hypersonic strike missiles that fit inside the UVLS cells of the PLAN DDGs (~800mm diameter) looks like:



Notice how one is almost double the diameter of the other?

This aside - We haven't even talked about the possibility of the H-20 carrying large-sized strategic missiles in the same category as the JingLei-1. Such missiles would mean diameters that will most likely hover around if not go right past the 1-meter mark.

Moreover, since we're talking about the H-20, which is a strategic bomber - Ever considered avenue of the rotary launchers inside IWBs? Here's one inside a B-1B, unloaded (top/left) and loaded (bottom/right, with humans for scale):



The average US male is ~1.75 meters tall. I believe this should provide a rough visual on how big the IWBs on the B-1 are. The IWBs on the B-2 and B-21 are more or less of similar configurations.

So unless you want the H-20's rear side profile to look like a continental shelf transition profile (which is a rather big no-no for VLO platforms), then what is being depicted in the CGI by that guy is a non-starter.

My eyes bleed when I see the stupid 6 engine supercruise "H-20." Low supersonic speed is literally the worst possible speed regime for a bomber. With subsonic, you get range/payload and IR and radar stealth. With high supersonic/hypersonic, you give up on stealth but become hard to intercept and gives kinetic energy to stand-off weapons. With low supersonic, you have worse stealth, worse range and payload, and is still easy to intercept with contemporary weapons -- all the cost with basically no benefit. This is the same reason why no one makes a Mach 1.5 supersonic anti-ship missile. You either go subsonic (cheap, stealthy) or >M2.5 to hypersonic (hard to intercept).

Jason_ said:

My eyes bleed when I see the stupid 6 engine supercruise "H-20." Low supersonic speed is literally the worst possible speed regime for a bomber. With subsonic, you get range/payload and IR and radar stealth. With high supersonic/hypersonic, you give up on stealth but become hard to intercept and gives kinetic energy to stand-off weapons. With low supersonic, you have worse stealth, worse range and payload, and is still easy to intercept with contemporary weapons -- all the cost with basically no benefit. This is the same reason why no one makes a Mach 1.5 supersonic anti-ship missile. You either go subsonic (cheap, stealthy) or >M2.5 to hypersonic (hard to intercept).

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There is a USAF study I’ve linked before that disagrees with you.

Also, that planform is essentially a J-36 (although not sure where the 6 engines thing comes from). Is the J-36 similarly vulnerable? There is no future where aircraft can rely on VLO (including all the stupid “super duper LO” acronyms people are making up).

I “gave up” on the flying wing the instant we saw the J-36 last December and the JL-1 style missiles we’ve seen over the years. Then it was actually things like your J-36 in DCA graphic that makes me so heavily doubt the viability of slow speed (but subsonic is still likely, it’s only the flying wing planform I’m adamant about), plus the parade HCM and HGV reveals (the H-20 would have some serious standoff range munitions), and lastly GJ-X (and WZ-X).

I don’t know why we have to relitigate this every time.