Make sense to have a fuel tank there, given they might shift to hard-refueling probe in future.
J-20 5th Generation Fighter VII
- Thread starter siegecrossbow
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Why would they do that? The entire refueling infrastructure is already committed.
Flying boom has the advantage of high refueling rate per hour
Sure but is that worth having to renovate thousands of airframes?
I was just saying the advantages of the flying boom
However, even if not all aircraft are renovated, it is possible that the flying boom and probe and drogue may be used together in the future. I don't know if the J-20B is flying boom capable to begin with.
by78
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This reminds me of a Chengdu that might have something to do with the resigned nose. The patent is on a new nose cone shape that reduces drag in both subsonic and supersonic regimes. From mach 1.2 to mach 2, a drag reduction of around 10% can be achieved. Although the tip of the new nose design has a greater cross-sectional area that increases initial resistance, a more refined transition/curvature from the tip to the aft results in a net reduction in drag.
The flying boom does have higher fuel offload rate than (Western) probe/drogue, but you'd still be crazy to emulate the USAF in adopting it for tactical aircraft.
For one, transfer rate depends not only on the tanker, but also the capability of the receiver aircraft's fuel system, and fighters typically can't accept fuel at the full rate of a boom. Also, with under wing HDU pods, you can serve 2 small probe/drogue receivers simultaneously compared to only a single boom receiver (even if it's only a puny little F-16). That offsets A LOT (or even all) of the offload rate difference, depending on the model of boom and HDU you are comparing (not all are created equal, Russian HDUs are pretty powerful). Especially when you consider time taken for approach and disengagement maneuvers (which don't scale with aircraft size - so actual fuel transfer accounts for a lower fraction of the refueling sequence in small receivers).
At best, the PLAAF should adopt boom refueling for large aircraft (Y-20 and derivatives, H20) that derive a meaningful benefit, but keep receptacles well away from tactical combat aircraft! Inter-service wrangling between what was at the time SAC and TAC (which SAC won) saddled the USAF with a huge efficiency penalty there.
For one, transfer rate depends not only on the tanker, but also the capability of the receiver aircraft's fuel system, and fighters typically can't accept fuel at the full rate of a boom. Also, with under wing HDU pods, you can serve 2 small probe/drogue receivers simultaneously compared to only a single boom receiver (even if it's only a puny little F-16). That offsets A LOT (or even all) of the offload rate difference, depending on the model of boom and HDU you are comparing (not all are created equal, Russian HDUs are pretty powerful). Especially when you consider time taken for approach and disengagement maneuvers (which don't scale with aircraft size - so actual fuel transfer accounts for a lower fraction of the refueling sequence in small receivers).
At best, the PLAAF should adopt boom refueling for large aircraft (Y-20 and derivatives, H20) that derive a meaningful benefit, but keep receptacles well away from tactical combat aircraft! Inter-service wrangling between what was at the time SAC and TAC (which SAC won) saddled the USAF with a huge efficiency penalty there.
shit this is exactly what I was referring to when I said I remember reading something about radome, nice find!This reminds me of a Chengdu that might have something to do with the resigned nose. The patent is on a new nose cone shape that reduces drag in both subsonic and supersonic regimes. From mach 1.2 to mach 2, a drag reduction of around 10% can be achieved. Although the tip of the new nose design has a greater cross-sectional area that increases initial resistance, a more refined transition/curvature from the tip to the aft results in a net reduction in drag.
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