Ideal PLAAF/PLANAF fighter?

Not large enough for any of the needs here, but a few interesting design ideas.

Couple of suggestions for you guys:

1. Write down your requirements and then stick with them. Is this aircraft intended for A2A or A2G or something else? Make up your mind as you can only optimize the design for one.
2. Start with something simplier, like a naval trainer or an UCAV. Coming up with something that can beat the F-22 is no easy task even for highly experienced engineers. So, going with the first option where air combat isn't the aircraft's primary role would dramatically reduce the design difficulties. Going with the second option would allow you to have a lot more freedom in the design, since you won't have to deal with any complexity associated with a human pilot.
3. Get yourself a MIL-STD document on aircraft requirements. Use the requirements from suggestion #1 and you can look up realistic values such mass, wing area, wing span, payload capacity, etc. This is why getting the requirements down is important.

Here is my extremely amateurish attempt :

Air intake below the wing level (YF-23)
Engine Above the wing level (YF-23)
1 Large weapons bay for both A-A & A-G weapons
2 Small wafer-thin weapons bays carrying maybe 1x PL-12/PL-21 or 2x PL-10 (PL-ASR)

Essentially a hybrid of the image posted by 70092 & YF-23/X-36/Anjian UCAV

I think you people got Flanker overdose. You all have big gaps between the two engines, I assume is to generate extra lift, but a wide aft-fuselage is very draggy, making super-cruise more costly. F-22's design is more sensible in that the 2D TVC nozzles flatten the entire aft-fuselage, so more lift can be generated without increasing the drag too much.

King_Comm said:

I think you people got Flanker overdose. You all have big gaps between the two engines, I assume is to generate extra lift, but a wide aft-fuselage is very draggy, making super-cruise more costly. F-22's design is more sensible in that the 2D TVC nozzles flatten the entire aft-fuselage, so more lift can be generated without increasing the drag too much.

Click to expand...

I was actually going along the YF-23. The YF-23 design provides a deeper/cavernous weapons bay, better suited for A-G munitions. (In the T-50 that gap is much more extreme allowing it to have 2 deep weapons bays). F-22 weapons bay is very very poor for A-G munitions (2x1000lbs, SDB etc). IIRC One reason for the F-22 cancellation was the poor A-G capabilities internally (excluding external stores).

Scratch, this is heavily influenced by your model. Overall it's a bit like a more stealthy F-18. Internal weapons stowage is limited to 2 x PL-12 and 2 x WVR in the wings. External hardpoints would be semi-stealthy as per some F-35 ones, with 6 hardpoints - outer edge of intakes, under outer wing (least stealthy) and wing-tip.





Here's a quick change-over to double-delta wing with leading-edge maneuvering flaps, and butterfly tail. External hardpoint receivers shown.

That's a nice one planeman, especially from the front it reminds me of the Silent Ealge actually, just smaller.

From my previous, I went towards a more compact design, looking for agility and putting more emphasize on A-A.

Dedicated weapons bay between the engines. The gear retracts to the outside edges of the intakes.

Drawing planes is, indeed, fun, but as someone else already pointed out - there really has to be a master plan put before everything else. What are the projected needs of plaaf/planaf for the next 5-25 years? What are the projected financial and technological limitations put before the service/manufacturer? Can plaaf/plaanaf afford and should it afford several specialized combat planes? Should it rather go down the route of a single multirole platform (not unlike the french Rafale or even f35)?

Though very nice, some of the designs seen here seem too concetrated on a2a combat, on point air defence, interception etc. That by default means there must be another design ready, which would do all the mud moving missions.

I see a role for two types. China is unique in being able to afford two types.


The medium type would augment the J-10 and replace remaining J-7s and J-8s (not 1:1). It'd be approximately F-18 equiv. Most importantly this would be exported to compete with F-35 and PAK-FA. I do not believe that China needs a swing-role aircraft. After the A-A initial model, an A-G multi-role version could be rolled out.

The heavy fighter would replace Su-27s and be the showcase fighter.

In order to make them more affordable some items such as AESA and super-cruise would be ditched. Maybe TVC etc also. TVC and AESA could be in later batches etc.