General Dynamics Fort Worth F-16 derived GAU-8 gunship concept (G.F.G) from 1976

acegeek9992 said:
DrRansom said:
It looks adorable and straight out of a Japanese anime.

The USAF should fund it immediately as an A-10 replacement.
Click to expand...
Nah, looks absolutely stupid and impractical compared to the good ol' Warthog.
Click to expand...
That moment when an old, good-for-its-time-but-overrated ground attack aircraft is objectively better than a proposed airframe.
 
So happy to see where my resident alien non voting taxpayer money ends up being spent - so much for the hollow "No taxation without representation" bogus slogan...
 
Last edited:
Notice also how close to the heat pipe and vulnerable is the pilot at the age of Manpad.

Rolling that thing at the rate a normal 16 is capable would also make anyone rapidly sick (see how far from the plane axis the pilot is).

Really an odd design.
 
"When the enemy has achieved a shooting position on your six, fire the gun. The effect of the recoil on your aircraft will cause him to overshoot, and a slight adjustment of aim will result in his destruction. We are working to automate this process in the next block of aircraft built."
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Looks like a kitbash rather than a manufacturer model.
Click to expand...
Honestly before I found this thread I thought the entire thing was a made up fun piece.

As is I still see it as a none serouis write up someone did as a joke, or cause general/Congresscritter said something stupid, or the engineer had free time.

Likely all three honestly.

And someone at the company kitbashe it to make fun of it or the situation that cause it. Or the deeigner was leaving and got given as a hoing away gift.


Definitely will need to see it to really know.
 
Yes, one more of those creepy posts. It belongs to an era when money was burned. Converting it to "debts" over time. Repaid as political influence through lobbying efforts of the companies. As it originated as Petrodollars no questions were asked at the source as well.

What you see on this page would be Phase 2. Building on the reported resentment when the 4 original European countries in the Sale of the Century summarily rejected further partners. Phase 1 was the joke on Page 1. This one is more geared to prove it wouldn't work. Phase 3 would see the front end subcontracted to Vought which would naturally begin to study gatling guns in relation to the A-7 shape in the 1960s. Pretty sure l read in this forum that the A-7D was to be given a GAU-8 for tests.

The stress is on the different engine as Phase 3 gains weight and bulk.
 
TomcatViP said:
Notice also how close to the heat pipe and vulnerable is the pilot at the age of Manpad.

Rolling that thing at the rate a normal 16 is capable would also make anyone rapidly sick (see how far from the plane axis the pilot is).

Really an odd design.
Click to expand...
I don't know. The likes seem to fly okay in the Star Wars movies.
Seriously though, it could have been an in-house teaching effort for newly added engineers. Give the younglings a specification and see what comes of their unfettered engineering.
 
djfawcett said:
The gun port is on the bottom of the nose, hence the pilot can not see the muzzle flash.
Click to expand...
In all the drawings the gun port is on top of the nose. Also, if it was under it, gun gas ingestion would case flame-out every time you fired the gun. Not a pleasant idea, considering the already serious recoil of the gun.
 
Clearly djfawcett talks about the A-10. This l stress to clear any possible confusion with any A-7 variants that l might have mentioned.

"What would be the purpose of such a variant? Some sort of ZELL interceptor on small-ish ship?"

The biggest gun you can put on a tactical jet. How large is a matter of lntelligence as USAF declared it No Foreigners at one point. But certainly larger than a 6x37. Because that was already there at the cut-off. Anyhow HVM soon becomes the thing. Larger volume, doesn't have to fit inside, faster and under every plane that flies...

As this was known to be some sort of charade and the source could buy Russian on his own, Sukhoi crew said over lunch that they had ample acrage on the Flanker to match it. Doing everything big they wouldn't touch smallish and you will meet some Intelligence wall for the rest. No, this is for the gun alone. The latter TV series is cool, but you will never have that kind of agility. If you are about to go on about some Fairey(?) Tail sitter from 1947.
 
martinbayer said:
I remain unconvinced, barring actual related documentation. I still believe it's a hoax/joke. US taxpayer dollars hard at work for USAF amusement...
Click to expand...
When I say it's a real design, it was drawn up at General Dynamics by the preliminary design people. It could be definitely be an in-house joke, but it's not just the invention of some person on the internet.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
When I say it's a real design, it was drawn up at General Dynamics by the preliminary design people. It could be definitely be an in-house joke, but it's not just the invention of some person on the internet.
Click to expand...
I wholly concur, Paul - I guess it falls in the same professional joker/jester category as the Rockwell C-1057 Shuttle Concept, see https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/north-american-rockwell-c-1057-shuttle-concept.1288/, as I tried to allude to by referring to "US taxpayer dollars hard at work for *USAF amusement* (my added emphasis)" before...
 
Last edited:
This is on the verge of becoming unsustainable with the means at hand. That would require a book with every page available to deny and reject. That a person on the internet was 6 years ahead in identification does not mean anything. To a lot of people. Easy to fix that with noting he must have heard that the Military attachees of the country were given a briefing in Washington DC circa 1982 with the model or a similar one. Not many people will ever be concerned about that either.

To touch it very briefly, now that it is out in open and nobody yet offering a counter, Kendall offers "Recognition" as a resurgent Russia, supply problems in the manner of Boeing and Chinese reserves, the proposed Containment of China is not particularly impressive. A certain level of silence as America expected to "barter" things which would have been equally pertinent in 2014 and reputation of a certain set of people as tough negotiators remain intact. Despite the mismatch in politics.

So, if some person says this study was there at the beginning of Carter's FX as a reason and at the end with GD declaring they had decided against the F-16/79 despite the bribes they had paid (which was to throw a spanner into the strategies of the Military Junta) and they were now offering full F-16s and they wouldn't ask for a refund, it perhaps no longer works to say that this is a joke. A solution might be to suggest that in 1976 the F-16 WAS NOT a one trick pony rushed to corner the European market and USAF would buy only a few more and GD was actively searching for more customers.
 
"jokingly made by Grumman..."

Actually l don't challenge that. Nor l will claim a real world relevance but your post here

Manuducati said:
Another picture of that model, from https://www.facebook.com/groups/175646840894109/permalink/316100006848791/
Click to expand...
might have encouraged people who couldn't see a difference between written Chinese and Japanese to further investigate

Sundog said:
I'm thinking it's a joke in the sense that, that is the one usual carrier mission that the F-14 wasn't performing. Oh, and I've seen them make the "same" plane in Macross. ;)
Click to expand...
to find out more about

VE-1 Elintstrike. As the basic Macross design is the F-14 and nerds in Grumman no doubt returned the favour after watching the relevant episode where one is shot down to create a POW situation for dramatic highpoint tricked the Grumman Management to pay for... a 21st Century Tomcat that could operate all the carrier missions on its own, including AEW. Without any explanations. That might be used against the A-6F and E-2C/D programmes at the time. As noted in the picture Iranians had used theirs as mini-Awacs planes to passable results...

Actually Macross warfare with barrage fire of dozens of AAMs at once strangely seems rather relevant to the Pacific scenarios of today. Japanese anime, 50 years ago...

Let's check this one here...
images (18).jpeg

Had to do some internet searches myself to understand what was what. And relevant people never saw that but apparently it is an anime that aired between 2002 and 2005. Check out the Stealthy drop tanks, "deep magazines" and the drone with equal firepower! Turns out there is still an AEW version with te rotodome that can control 3 drones at once...

A person on the internet is famous within reason. Asked about this, he said there were three more cases where he was ahead of the rest. One is a year and a half at most and basically unproveable. It is ten years in regards to F-35 but he DIDN'T say S-400, so that clearly doesn't count. Would be nice to say it was a round number but the last case might be just about fifteen years and a quarter and Dan Pedersen had obliquely hinted at it in his book.

This needs an explanation. A group of former naval aviators from the US were pushing for a "lighter type" some years back. That would have less range and more ability for close in fighting. Citing the situation is no different to the Soviet problem at the height of Cold War and Tomcats would lead A-6s upto a thousand miles from the carriers to intercept Russian bomber brigades. I understand the notion originally goes back to the 1960s where jets were to guide SAMs fired from ships. Meaning A-6s would be replaced by unmanned vehicles carrying AAMs. Sounds familiar? The range problem would be solved by a coup in Philippinnes, if that really was necessary...

This is important; Top Gun is a cinema "masterpiece" everybody knows, Top Gun Global War on Terror would have been cool for some starring the F-35 but it had some issues. In short the reputation of ALL Top Gun graduates must suffer. Meaning an Osprey author was leaked documents that clearly prove a certain engagement did not end in the way it has been depicted for a while. Apparently the Vietnamese have refused to accept a Chinese veteran of the Korean War and indeed a Colonel, was fighting on the day and that Osprey edition is still on hold. Mind, the person on the internet clearly remembers reading an account that might relate to recorded transmissions about "Here comes the Sixth" and the Osprey edition might still turn out to be wrong.

yep, proven wrong already.
 
Last edited:
allysonca said:
I asked that very same question and I can assure everyone with a 10000000% certainty that this is NOT a kit bash and is in fact a real design proposal....
Click to expand...
I do know some things for in addition in my 55 plus years of collecting factory models I have held in my hot little hand some designs that question the sanity of the designers.... one wonders just what drugs were involved. To those that question (and there are a few here) trust those of us that do know the real backgrounds and can only divulge so much. I can confirm that the F-14 with the dome was a foo bar joke, I know, I held it when i visited the Grumman model shop and talked with the model shop guys that made it.....
 
TomcatViP said:
The gases are routed directly toward the cockpit by the slope of the nose profile and the lift of the wing.

@djfawcett : I meant both, muzzle flash and exhaust gases.
Click to expand...
Yes, muzzle flash may be an issue. I haven't seen much muzzle flash from the A-10s in daytime, but obviously nighttime or bad weather needs to be a concern.

I still don't think the extra gun gasses blocking vision will be an issue, as the plane would still fly through them at the same speeds as the A-10 (or a lot faster). Gun BRRRTs out a volume of gun gasses which take up a half second to a second of the aircraft's flight time and then the plane is through them.
 
Just put a shroud over the muzzle to contain the flash and duct the gasses down the sides of the fuselage.
 
Richard N said:
Just put a shroud over the muzzle to contain the flash and duct the gasses down the sides of the fuselage.
Click to expand...

Or don't worry about it. Gun flash from the M61 on the F/A-18 doesn't seem to be a significant problem and it's in about the same position.
 
TomS said:
Or don't worry about it. Gun flash from the M61 on the F/A-18 doesn't seem to be a significant problem and it's in about the same position.
Click to expand...
As with the F-5, night firing with the Hornet can be "entertaining", especially if you're a Star Wars fan.

Disclaimer:
- this is a long exposure shot for dramatic effect.
- this not my picture.

aviation.stackexchange.com

Why is this F/A-18 flying through a hailstorm of sparkles?

The F/A-18 Super Hornet squadron VF-102 Diamondbacks, flying from the USS Ronald Reagan, has posted a montage video of its 2019 Indo-China cruise. At about 5:15, the video shows a night-time cockpi...
aviation.stackexchange.com aviation.stackexchange.com
 

Attachments

  • hvkDT.jpg
    hvkDT.jpg
    164 KB · Views: 58
If one returns to Page 1 for the drawings, one can no doubt see a lot of volume set aside for the "muzzle brake" area. And it clearly was a problem in the A-10. The whole thing about mechanical attempts until 1986. And windscreen washing:

https://www.twz.com/13329/early-on-the-a-10-warthogs-legendary-gun-was-both-a-blessing-and-a-curse

During the related web search one notices it was indeed a 30 years rule for London to declare in 2013 that the then Defence Minister Heseltine had written a letter about dazzlers they had deployed to the South Atlantic but did not use. A Turkish magazine in the pre-internet era around 1984 stated HMS Coventry was sunk with (the) one onboard after crashing at least one A-4(?)

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/war...deployed-during-falklands-war-t23619-s10.html

Yes, eyewitnesses to its existance on other ships. Plus I have been told it is on this site that the F-20 had a lower performing HUD that was more effective against dazzlers by design.

Now that a claim has been shown to be out of sync... When translated into English that means it has been proven wrong... A spoiler goes in the spoiler to further explain.
 
I asked:

A plane, proposal or study that follows the initial version in 1976 can not be inspired by concept art developed under the leadership of Doug Chiang in 1999.

We have only a scale model here, no timing, no names. In 1976 they might still be in the phase when TIE Fighter was a sausage with wings. So ugly, l am told, it was seen only in one publication and nowhere else.

A somewhat closer will this one by Ryan Church. TIE Fighter will be derived from Jedi Fighters. Episode ll version must be trimmed from a delta to become a bridge to Empire's deathtrap.


unnamed (7).jpg

The small one here in the box. That was probably the nearest before Lucas told Church to open a gap from the cockpit.
 
Because:

Phase 3 coincides with the period when V-1600s are A-7 replacements and Vought refuses to accept some of the more extravagant Hillaker claims. Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the father of..?

As such Phase 4 will be strictly an inhouse work. Nobody thinks it will result in hardware. Nobody (else) will now imply anything in this post is real. To change the looks. Taking advantage of real life work for inlets. You can't really put two F-18 engines there and the Big Mouth intake is still an useful investment. Inline with Carter's wishes for stopping destabilizing activities other options are investigated in a timely manner.

Which will indeed lead to Ching Kou, with GD being the actual winner of the FX programme in providing real hardware to Taiwan. The problem here being it might have had slightly more power and those ended up tied to a fantasy. This was supposed to be discovered by the US Lawmakers in justifying something else. With the evident polarization in Washington DC, any argument that it was a twin might no longer be an impact of "that order"

Nobody is trying to sell anything to anybody here.
 
Worked on that team and have met the maker. GFG liked to "kitbash" to explore a design. So yes, a "kitbash" and yes was serious. There are many other weird kitbashes he did or as he was fond of calling them:
"Whatchyamightcoulddo"

Most of us conceptual designers have explored many wild things that go no where in a real hurry through the course of understanding a design challenge.
At the time it was not deemed feasible to hang the GAU under the plane in a pod...which ended up being the "answer" and as I'm sure this group is fully aware, that failed.

There are more GFG balsa kit bashed F-16 models out there....
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom