ASTOVL without the JSF program - What would it have meant?

[SteveO]

Inspired by AceAttorney's "JSF Program without VSTOL - what would it have meant?" thread.
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11709.0.html

How do you think a ASTOVL only design would have differed from the F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter?

My personal preference would be for something with a lot less doors and hinges ;D

 

[SteveO]

I would have liked to see something based on the BAe P.125 stealthy ASTOVL project (without the buried cockpit though!).

The P.125 was actually quite like the JSF concept as a minimal change CTOL variant was proposed too. The ASTOVL P.125 used a system called the Remote Unaugmented Lift System (RULS) which was similar to the X-32 arrangement (main nozzle blocker and deployable Harrier style hot nozzles) but placed further back from the centre of gravity (IMO) and balanced by diverted relatively cool fan air through a duct exhausting just aft of the cockpit/intakes. This would also provide a useful cooler air curtain to prevent hot gas ingestion.

Here's a pic of a model (first posted by Zebeedee IIRC)

 

[cthippo]

Well, it might of meant something that would actually work. :

Trying to make a single airframe both a SVTOL and convention aircraft is pretty much daft. They involve a very different set of design trade-offs.

I understand the desire to have one design that does it all, but this is taking things a bit too far.

I think the VTOL version of the F-35 is going to get canceled and that's going to leave a lot of forces, especially the Fleet Air Arm up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Or, more directly, with two brand new aircraft carriers and no aircraft to fly from them.

 

[GTX]

I think the VTOL version of the F-35 is going to get canceled and that's going to leave a lot of forces, especially the Fleet Air Arm up the proverbial creek without a paddle. Or, more directly, with two brand new aircraft carriers and no aircraft to fly from them.

Try to be up to date with facts before posting!

 

[SteveO]

flateric's thread about the low support vehicle http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,12006.0.html has, I think, a lot of qualities that could be transferred to a Pegasus type engined ASTOVL combat aircraft.

I guess it would end up looking like a Boeing X-32 with dorsal inlets and be designed for subsonic performance.

 

[donnage99]

Robert Gates, I've found the answer!

 

[sferrin]

Robert Gates, I've found the answer!

Is that the legendary hovering-while-supercruising version of the F-22? ;D

 

[Archibald]

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/astovl.htm

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) began a program in 1983 to begin looking at the technologies available to design and manufacture a follow-on supersonic replace for the AV-8 Harrier. The program, known as ASTOVL, would eventually lead become a joint U.S.-U.K. collaboration.

The Advanced Short Takeoff Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) Program started as a joint research and technology effort in 1983 between the US DoD and the UK Ministry of Defense (MoD). Its aim was to support the eventual development of a supersonic STOVL strike fighter. Four powered lift concepts were selected for initial study, and preliminary assessments were performed in 1985. Further studies indicated that none of the original four concepts were completely suitable. However with the projected thrust available from the F-119 engine then in advanced development, two revised evolutions of these four concepts showed significant promise. These were the Shaft Driven Lift Fan (SDLF) and the Gas Coupled Lift Fan (GCLF).

In 1987 the results of the ASTOVL program made clear that the technologies available were not yet advanced enough to generate a replacement that the US and UK would have been satisfied with. At this time, DARPA secretly approached the Lockheed Skunk Works in the hopes that they would be able to develop an aircraft like they had hoped would have appeared from the first phase of ASTOVL.

Can someone please explain me why wasn't the Bae P.1216 considered ? The timing looks right, it was a supersonic plane, PCB were better mastered than in the 60's.

I just don't understand.

 

[sferrin]

No stealth for starters. Also, PCB was never going to be runway friendly.

 

[red admiral]

No stealth for starters. Also, PCB was never going to be runway friendly.

Not as much stealth, not none.

Creeping or rolling landings solve many issues

 

[sferrin]

No stealth for starters. Also, PCB was never going to be runway friendly.

Not as much stealth, not none.

Creeping or rolling landings solve many issues

What was stealthy about the 1216? Just eye-balling it (yes, I know that's not the most reliable method) it seems to be replete with many examples of what NOT to do when it comes to RCS reduction.

 

[red admiral]

Later variants had more rcs reduction features applied

 

[mrmalaya]

I have to agree in that it isn't stealthy. There is only so much you could do to that planform surely? So if the UK had adopted the P1216 we would have no experience of LO aircraft design because Replica and the work leading toward the JCA would have been unnecessary?

P.125 all the way for me.

 

[Mike Pryce]

P1216 was intended to have similar RCS treatment to Eurofighter, i.e. reduced not minimised. Visual and IR signatures were seen as important too, and the booms helped with the latter.

P.125 was so full of pipes for the lift system that the stores were all external. Not sure how that would work for minimal RCS.

 

[Archibald]

Thank you all. Very interesting.

 

[uk 75]

The main customer for VSTOL aircraft with the necessary
political clout and resources is the US Marine Corps.
The RAF turned their Harriers into as close to a Jaguar or
Phantom as they could get. Operating away from nice comfy airbases with all their facilities especially post 1991
has been a zero priority so no need for ASTOVL.
The Royal Navy could not afford a nuclear carrier
so a US Marine style aircraft was inevitable. An improved LHA as a platform follows on

 

[SteveO]

I think I must have posted this thread before Michael's P.1216 book came out. It's the P.1216 all the way for me now! ASTOVL (CV and CTOL too) would have been more interesting without the JSF anyway

(F-35B will do though!)