Ideal naval carrier fighter(aircraft) designs.

Unlike the other carrier fighter thread, this one is for your brain.

We've had speculation on navalised J-10s, Su-33s, L-15s, and even JH-7s! Well, those will take either a long or won't appear at all (apparently). If they won't, what will? Yours!

So go ahead and design the fighter(or any other aircraft for use on carriers) that you think would fit the bill on PLAN's future CV(N). (And by carrier, I mean the ones designed)

PS: If you have an engine intake near the end of a plane, but the canard at the front is in the way of its airflow, how will everything be affected? Would it be significant.

i dunno about this, but in the ideal AC thread when the 2 forum veteran talked about the different size of su 33 and rafael. It came to my mind that a smaller size plane but not too handicapped in operating radius is good. This is because more space in the hangar is always good for things to move around or higher capacity when you really need it

This depend on how urgent the PLANAF needs the aircraft, you know it took J-10 about 20 years to develop. If PLANAF urgently need a CBG, I'd not suggest them to start anything from scratch. But don't rely too much on Russia though it's not a reliable source for long run. You can see that the Russian never offer China anything better India, the MKI comparing to MKK is an example.

To buy a few Su-33 for study and modify the J-11 or J-10 is a good option. This will fast and effective. The only problem is if the Russian is willing to do that business or not.

Well, we haven't seen any STOL, CV-capable crafts in Chinese hands, unless China got the Su-33s. Discussions for deals and ideas like these are discussed in the other thread.

My idea for this thread: since we came up with a bunch of carrier designs, I thought, why not create your aircraft to go with it? That was the point of this thread, create your own CV fighter. (Although I got hit with giant piles of work after starting my design. )

So go ahead, make your design.

SteelBird said:

This depend on how urgent the PLANAF needs the aircraft, you know it took J-10 about 20 years to develop. If PLANAF urgently need a CBG, I'd not suggest them to start anything from scratch. But don't rely too much on Russia though it's not a reliable source for long run. You can see that the Russian never offer China anything better India, the MKI comparing to MKK is an example.

To buy a few Su-33 for study and modify the J-11 or J-10 is a good option. This will fast and effective. The only problem is if the Russian is willing to do that business or not.

Click to expand...

CHina took so long becos its aviation industry and technology is still in infant stage when J-10 is proposed. But now is a different thing. China is more developed ,wealthy and technology wise to quickly kick start another program.

J-10 in my humble opinion will be the best candidate,just like Rafale with Delta wing. Fold wing is unnecessary and TVC for J-10 might be available! If strengthing of the J-10 structural,J-10 might have a chance to take off from carrier with a decent load!

There's been a lot of speculation about a twin engined J-10 variant for China's future carriers and there have been some sketches shown here. The advantages of twin engines are well documented and as it will be a smaller plane than the giant Flanker it should give a larger airgroup. But just how feasible is such a reworking of the J-10? I'm guessing that it will involve a brand new rear fuselage, bigger jet intakes, wider wings etc. What other problems would have to be resolved?

Some of you may have seen this from a thread on ATS forum. It wasn't designed with PLAN in mind so differs from their exact needs and features Western elements, but conceptually it is relevant.

Lightweight carrierborne strike-UCAV in a similar role to the Super Etendard but much updated: It's designed to be as compact as possible so as not to require wing folding.

The obvious feature is forward swept wings intended to facilitate very high angle of attack (i.e. slow) landing speeds and without leading edge flaps (to save weight). It also has an internal lift engine and its main engine is a TVC Eurojet EJ200 (same as on the Typhoon). The theory was to design an aircraft that can take-off and land on a "Harrier Carrier" without the limitations of a truly VTOL design. It was also intended to be able to land with an almost full weapons load even without the use of arrestor wires (not fitted on many small carriers). One novel idea was forward-firing arrestor rockets.

The design evolved so you might notice slight variations between the pictures.




Exceptionally short landing run (aka controlled crash):


More detail than you need to know:


Size comp:


A 3-D model someone else made which I'd intended to put through a fluid dynamics program (never got the model in a compatible format), and below it, a modified design without the lift jet:






A version using Chinese engine and avionics would probably have much lower performance - the impressive EJ200 engine is what really makes this concept IMO.

The "Cobra Landing" maneuver looks really neat and at first I thought it was a great idea, but...

... would this be safe in gusty weather conditions? You'd be close to the deck with virtually no airspeed. Between the end of the cobra and the touchdown, a sudden change in wind could ram you against the ship at an unfortunate angle.

Of course I know very little about how these things handle, I've only flown tiny Cessnas with low wing-loading and and a fraction of the weight. Any comments from somebody who's flown fighters?

The aeronamic design is clearly taken from the Su-47.
The forward-swept wing offers some aerodynamical advantages at a certain cost.
Better maneuverability at sub-, transsonic speeds (airflow along the wing inwards to the fuselage), maintains maneuverabilty in high AOAs, lower lift/drag ratio at subsonic speeds resulting in an increased range. Stall appears at lower speeds.
The wing root is mounted further back on the fuselage, giving more space at the center for payload.
Negative points are torosin forces along the wing and the wingtips tend to move up and increase stall possibility. Therefore you need to harden the structure wich adds weight. Lately, with the development of carbons and so on, that issue can be adressed.
The landing phase is a strange thing. Very much depends on the aircrafts weight. The "size comp" shows it not to be bigger than the X-45C, therefore I believe it not to be much heavier. The X-45s engine is rated at 28kN, the EJ200 at 60kN dry. That seems somewhat an overkill. It shold at least be enough to let it land vertically, without aerodynamic lift.
If you choose to land as shown, the aircraft may, despite the good low speed characteristics of the wing, come close to stall speeds where it produces not enough lift to climb again should the need arise. Now with the strong engine you can perhaps just catapult it upwards again if it reacts fast enough.
But since the PLAN should have arrestors on it's CVs that shouldn't be that much a problem.
But still I think the engine may be to big/strong and therefore consume too much fuel.
The concept offers some nice capabilites, but may come at a rather high price, due to material costs.
It may be a good option several years in the future.

Scratch, the Su-47 is cool but to be honest the X-29 was a greater influence although really this was a completely original design. We also considered a more stealthy "diamond" wing and variations on "box" and "joined wings", which you'll see more of later.

The EJ200 was in some regards overkill except that we were literally thinking about using the thrust as a cushion, though without the placement limitations of a truly VTOL aircraft.