F-15 FAST Conformal Fuel Tanks

[dan_inbox]

Didn't fairchild come up with the idea of the CFT's and pass the idea to MDD after they didn't win the contract? Or is that just an urban myth?

That's certainly not what IAI said. They used to claim it was theirs. With much hoopla about how their CAD/CAM was so advanced that in some cases the drag with their CFTs was less than without.
(And I personally have no idea one way or the other).

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

McDonnell-Douglas came up the their FAST packs in the 70s. B-58s used a conformal fuel and nuke pod. Does that count as prior art?

 

[dan_inbox]

The FAST packs are precisely what IAI claimed as theirs.

EDIT: And counting the B-58 pods as "conformal" vs hung is maybe stretching it...

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Well, McDonnell-Douglas designed their FAST packs in 1974. Pretty sure it wasn't IAI that did it for them.

http://archive.aviationweek.com/image/spread/19740909/20/2

http://archive.aviationweek.com/image/spread/19740909/21/2

 

[dan_inbox]

I get errors 404 on both links.

And to clarify: IAI claimed to have developed the FAST packs _for MDD_, not as a separate venture.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Fixed links.

Where exactly did they claim that? They built F-15 CFTs for Boeing in the 90s, I know.

 

[dan_inbox]

Where exactly did they claim that? They built F-15 CFTs for Boeing in the 90s, I know.

Well, I can't find a quote. It may not be surprising as it was in the 70s. And maybe I'm wrong. Either way, I wouldn't want this to turn into an argument.

Here are things as I remember them, right or wrong:
- in the 1970s, the top minds of the USAF had come up with the smart slogan "not a pound for air-to-ground". So the initial F-15s delivered by MDD to the USAF were weak in that respect. Not that the machine couldn't, but because the DoD's Politikorrect Bigotry (tm) of the time vetoed it.
- Israel bought F-15s, and a) couldn't afford a fighter to be single-role, b) negotiated for IAI an "offset package" of industrial compensation contracts.
- IDF/AF's priority was to add air-to-ground capability to those planes.
--> a way for everybody (MDD, USAF, IDF/AF, IAI) to get around the DoD's bigotry was to include that air-to-ground capabilty into the jobs farmed out by MDD to IAI.

This is how I remember it from then, but indeed I do not find positive evidence one way or the other to prove it, so yes, maybe I'm wrong. And again, I don't want this to become an argument.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Israel visited the US end of August 1974 to evaluate the F-14, F-15 and F-16.

McDonnell-Douglas announced the FAST pack in October, development started in 11 March 1974 with a target of 150 days and first flight was 27 July.

In October, Israel was expected to request either F-14 or F-15 soon. November 1974 saw the US agree to sell the F-15.

Several books suggest McDonnell-Douglas privately funded development of the prototype CFT/FAST tanks in anticipation of export sales (including, in one book, explicit mention of Israeli interest). I have a hard time thinking that an Israeli company did the design months before they even settled on the F-15 however.

Happy to be proved wrong though!

 

[dan_inbox]

Happy to be proved wrong though!

Nope, you do present good evidence.