I challenge you!
- Thread starter planeman
- Start date
SteelBird
Colonel
Hi, stealth planes designers, how are you? please to you here :rofl: You have devoted a lot in future stealth plane projects. But all i've seen here are "conventional" stealth plane projects, can you imagine of something unconventional? for example: unconventional airframe and propeller, let's say some UFO like airframe and "anti-gravity" propeller .... 
just an idea, no design have been made.
just an idea, no design have been made.
SteelBird said:
Ok, here's a sketch of a next generation close support aircraft with generally stealthy features, a super-Pucara, lol.
My first thoughts are that the propeller blades could be made of a radar transparent composite although this might limit their rotational speed. They would also be fixed pitch to reduce the extent of metal in the hub, which would be shielded from radar, at least from the frontal aspect, by faceted flat-bottomed cone housed within a radar-transparent outer cone.
The turbo-prop engines would be mounted in the apex of shallow gull-winged rear airfoils. Weapons would be carried internally and might include laser guided anti-tank missiles (Hellfire or equiv).
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SteelBird
Colonel
planeman said:
Since we've already have unconventional airframe and propeller, I'd suggest that we should also have some unconventional weapon, for example: laser gun, software weapon (to hack into hostile a/c's FBW/Fire Control system and make them hanged, so the a/c will crash itself :rofl: ),.... so on.
Ok, lets get back down to planet earth on this. There are advantages and disadvantages to stealth when it comes to weapons, but lasers and “software bombs” are not feasible. Lasers have some potential in future but require massive aircraft at present.SteelBird said:
The restrictions of stealth are that the weapons must be carried internally to maintain radar stealth. This means that the airframe must be much bigger, relative to payload, than conventional combat aircraft. It also means that the weapons need to be as compact as possible.
The advantage of stealth is also lost at short ranges so whatever weapon you carry should be stand-off to maximize the stealth aspect.
Currently the most compact air-ground weapons that could sensibly be carried are laser guided anti-tank missiles such as Hellfire, Brimstone or Mokopa. But designing a manned stealth combat aircraft around these leads to a dubious cost-benefit situation: if you have a stealth aircraft the last place you want to put it is buzzing around at low altitude where they are susceptible to ground fire and IR ManPADS (Stinger etc) all just to kill a few tanks. No, stealth bombers, however modest their weapons load, are inherently best suited to interdiction-strike role operating at medium altitude. In this role small comparatively short-ranged missiles like the hellfire can be useful, but larger bombs are generally needed.
The US, world leader in deployed stealth technology, is developing a new generation of compact precision guided munitions (PGMs) suited to internal carriage in the small weapons bays of the F-35 and F-22; Small Diameter Bombs (SDB):
The design is optimum for stealth application; a slender bomb with folding wings for internal carriage, no rocket motor yet long (glide) range. Comparable cruise missiles, such as Popeye or Storm Shadow, are far bigger.
Outside of USA there are similar weapons which are well suited to the stealth bomber role. My personal favorite is the South African Umbani bomb kit which fits to standard dumb bombs to make them long ranged PGMs and it is compact in comparison to similar systems because of its folding wings:
Another role suited to manned stealth aircraft is Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD). For this role an anti-radiation missile is required. The ubiquitous US made HARM missile is quite big so the more compact British ALARM is probably a better choice:
Other ARMs also suffer from sheer bulk, the Russian KH-31 being massive. A smaller ARM is the Sidearm which is based on the Sidewinder, but that has limited range and thus mission flexibility.
