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several pics of Northrop 1978 strike aircraft (refered also as VATOL and Air-To-Surface Advanced Tactical Fighter Aircraft) with dorsal inlets (may be that one El was talking about)
flateric said:Northrop 1978 'Advanced Tactical Fighter Candidate Aircraft'
Again, remember that term ATF in 1978 meant a little bit different that it was in '81 or '85.
overscan said:Saab did a lot of work on a dorsal inlet configuration in the Saab JAS-39 Gripen program, but it was felt to be too risky.
overscan said:Saab did a lot of work on a dorsal inlet configuration in the Saab JAS-39 Gripen program, but it was felt to be too risky.
Considering the dorsal inlets offer advantages in lowering the overall RCS of an aircraft, it's likely that that work had enough of an impact on stealth aircraft design they got sucked into the "black world".......elmayerle said:overscan said:Saab did a lot of work on a dorsal inlet configuration in the Saab JAS-39 Gripen program, but it was felt to be too risky.
Northrop did a lot of studying on dorsal inlets, including tunnel time, and did find a way to make aft-plaeced dorsal inlets quite efficient even at high angles of attack. I remember seeing the papers in the AIAA Journal of Aeronautics back in the late 70s/early 80s; then all references disappeared. It does make you wonder.
overscan said:Found on hard drive - source unknown. Was terribly scanned, have done some filtering in GIMP to save the image.
Sundog said:The picture of the model is the ATS, which isn't the same as the VATOL. It's similar because it was developed in the about the same time frame and I think the ATS design may have actually pre-dated the VATOL design.
Stargazer2006 said:Sundog said:The picture of the model is the ATS, which isn't the same as the VATOL. It's similar because it was developed in the about the same time frame and I think the ATS design may have actually pre-dated the VATOL design.
What exactly makes you say that "ATS" and "VATOL" refer to different projects? I have seen nothing in this topic to that effect.
To me, "ATS" may be the name of that particular Navy program, while VATOL just describes a general configuration (like VTOL, VSTOL, CTOL, etc.).
overscan said:Found on hard drive - source unknown. Was terribly scanned, have done some filtering in GIMP to save the image.
7. Kantos, E. G., "Data Report of a 2.7 percent Scale Advanced Fighter Configuration Transonic Wind Tunnel Test", NAL-171 (NOR 77-037), February 1977.
8. Dawson, R. A. , "Data Report of a 2.7 percent Scale Advanced Fighter Configuration Transonic Wind Tunnel Test, Second Entry", NAL-180 (NOR 77-52), April 1977.
9. Franco, B. G. and Kontos, E. G., "Data Report of a 2.7 percent Scale Advanced Fighter Configuration Subsonic Wind Tunnel Test, First Entry", NAL-192 (NOR 77-108), July 1977.
10. Franco, B. G., "Data Report of a 10 percent N340 Fighter Configuration, Subsonic Wind Tunnel Test, First Entry", NAL-204 (NOR 77-141), December 1977.
Stargazer2006 said:Thanks for the help, Paul.
As for Harlan Krug, a quick web search produced a Northrop F-5 painting from 1971, which could indicate that he was an inhouse illustrator for that company in the 1970s.