NVLAD by Joint Soviet Fighter

[Joint Soviet Fighter]

Yeah. as therre are multiple reflection phenomenon here, where EM Wave bounce from say a missile to other missile. It creates constructive interference where the reflection strengthen eachother thus you ended up with strong and large reflection. External load is just better be avoided whenever possible.

For example this is my estimates on F-16 with Have Glass-like treatment and how external load affect the RCS

https://twitter.com/x/status/1751611023214473318

View: https://x.com/Flankerchan/status/1751611023214473318




One interesting thing however is about "stealthy external weapon bay" Unfortunately currently i only make single concept for my Su-35 model. This is the external bay, the Su-35 with extenal bay have clean wing also with wingtip ECM's.



View attachment 731212

Then we compare that one with full counter air suite here. This Su-35 model has 4x R-37, 2 R-77-1 and 2 R-73 also a jammer pod. also with an armed F-16, with 4x Amraam and 2x Sidewinders

Su-35 Counter Air	F-16 Counter Air
View attachment 731211	View attachment 731216

The result is as follows. SImulated using Ansys HFSS and data processed in MS Excel.

View attachment 731217

One may notice the apparent benefit of external weapon bay. Still however it would need some optimizations. I havent test the case for wing mounted bay.

Really interesting stuff . I actually had a similar thought regarding the weapons bay between the engines (maybe), albeit as part of a much larger "effort" in an attempt to turn a MiG-29 into a 5th/6th generation platform purely from the standpoint of rcs, or at least a much more realistic & affordable stealth option for Russia than The Su-57, but only if I'm absurdly lucky. Perhaps think of it as a kind of laser guided/gps bomb upgrade kit for an aircraft, among other things, & since we are calling ours The "NGAD", I give you this.

Enter The NVLAD (yes, the name is a joke) -



With the unfortunate caveat that I am not an engineer of any kind & don't have the necessary skills/software to make a 3D model of this "thing", I did my very best via Libre Office & various blueprints, even if the end "result" puts the "rough" in "rough sketch", with the blue lines representing a 5th generation configuration & the black ones representing further changes in order to create a 6th generation variant (haha, yeah right).

Essentially, I just "performed" a head transplant by exchanging the standard Fulcrum cockpit for a scaled-down version of that from The Felon minus the spherical irst bulb & exchanged it for some kind of EOTS-like capability/device, instead, added levcons & the R-74 missile bays from The Su-57 (I included the overlap with the landing gear doors in the "design" just to show that incorporating said feature might actually be possible with a slight modification, but it's going to be close & I'm really just guessing on that one), the tail from The YF-23 except in the style of the top of the tail of The MiG-29 so that the slant does not provide for a direct radar return, & slightly modified wings for the same reason. The tricky part is explaining the layout for the intakes, so I apologize, in advance, for any confusion.

In order to keep costs down as much as possible, I elected to go with the tried-&-true Soviet/Russian airframe, for the most part, with straight engine intakes, but in order to shield the fan blades from inquiring radars as much as possible, I found a drawing from an early version of The Su-27 that incorporated axisymmetric inlets & modified the front of said design with the classic slant from the intakes from The MiG-29 solely for the purposes of illustration & "installed" a pyramidal shaped, idk, shock thingy #TechnicalTerm instead of the usual cone, with a slanted rectangular radar blocker/fiberglass screen (whatever they used, as I can't remember, atm) like that on The F-117 behind it & in front of the face of the engine in order to hopefully "clean up the rest" of the radio waves.

As for the section between the engines, again, it's complicated, lol, smh. Try to think of a bizarrely shaped/stretched trapezoid like that section directly behind the cockpit, or even a modified version of the very front of the nose from which the pitot tubes emanate, from The Nighthawk -



with the bay that holds the front landing gear opening up down the middle, behind which, of course, is the single main weapons bay. I wouldn't expect to be able to hold more than two missiles in there, but yeah.

For The 6th Generation model, the black lines at the back of the plane are for an enlarged wing sans tail in favor of those 3D thrust-vectoring engines from The MiG-29 OVT. Are they expensive? Yes. Can Russia make them? Also yes. Not sure if anyone else has 3D thrust-vectoring engines, though, but I want to say no, hence the reason for this absurd idea, lol, smh.

Anyway, feel free to rip this "concept" to shreds, guys, & if someone is crazy enough to actually want to make a 3D model of this thing & run some rcs tests on it, feel free, as the numbers for both "designs" would be very interesting to know, but barring completely unforeseen events, I'm not exactly expecting much. It might be decent, I guess, but sadly, this is probably the "best" that I can do. Sigh.

Sorry for the book.

Edit - crap, I almost forgot to mention that the black triangles on the upper & lower parts of the entrances to the air intakes have inward canted angles for stealth (duh). A sawtooth arrangement would be better, but I just couldn't find a way to make that work in the "illustration", not to mention that this "experience" has reminded me as to why I haven't drawn/traced anything in the last 20 years, lol, smh.

 

[stealthflanker]

Really interesting stuff . I actually had a similar thought regarding the weapons bay between the engines (maybe), albeit as part of a much larger "effort" in an attempt to turn a MiG-29 into a 5th/6th generation platform purely from the standpoint of rcs, or at least a much more realistic & affordable stealth option for Russia than The Su-57

Cool drawings.

unfortunately tho, the amount to make MiG-29 really "stealth" is basically make a new aircraft. The best you can do is to have some radar absorber treatment. This is my example for MiG-29 treatment options.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1700214784988426643

View: https://x.com/Flankerchan/status/1700214784988426643

 

[Joint Soviet Fighter]

Cool drawings.

unfortunately tho, the amount to make MiG-29 really "stealth" is basically make a new aircraft. The best you can do is to have some radar absorber treatment. This is my example for MiG-29 treatment options.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1700214784988426643

View: https://x.com/Flankerchan/status/1700214784988426643

Thanks, as that really means a lot , & I did see that on Twitter. As you've demonstrated, even armed & without altering the intakes, smoothing the underside, not to mention any potential modifications with regards to the tail, the reduced rcs is quite impressive, imo, hence my "attempt", with the idea being that all MiG-29s could be upgraded to such a standard, & Sukhoi would certainly be welcome to do the same, lol. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but one of the features of The MiG-29 & Su-27, etc., that I really like is the potential to upgrade them via such changes as opposed to having to build an entirely new air frame, & there are certainly plenty of both planes in service, & I'm not picky about the materials, either. Like, use treated wood for the pyramidal shaped thingies as was the case on The MiG-21 for all that I care, LOL, as long as it works. The radar wouldn't be great, of course, but my thought, there, was to do with The Bars Family/Series that which was done to The Irbis-E by greatly increasing range & sensitivity via installing a second twt & stuff. It would still be a PESA, of course, but since money is always an issue, I'd much rather put most of the funds into the shaping & go all-in with other sensors to try to make up the difference as opposed to putting an AESA into The Su-57 that doesn't have a DAS, etc., & there are ways to make a different & potentially better version of that technology for less.

Bottom line - while I don't necessarily support Russia, for some reason, the idea of turning a MiG-29/Flanker into a stealth platform is one of those things that seems to be almost impossible, but if it can be done, idk, I guess that I would find that to be really rewarding, if that makes any sense.

 

[paralay]

The MiG-29 is not a very large aircraft. Initially, it didn't even have an external tank between the engine nacelles. The maximum that can be placed there is 2 R-77 or one FAB-500 bomb
The development of the MiG-29 line is being completed by the I-2000 project, where the distance between the engines is more than two meters, which makes it possible to comfortably suspend two R-77 missiles. And between the air intakes there is a bay of weapons from the Su-57

 

[Joint Soviet Fighter]

The MiG-29 is not a very large aircraft. Initially, it didn't even have an external tank between the engine nacelles. The maximum that can be placed there is 2 R-77 or one FAB-500 bomb
The development of the MiG-29 line is being completed by the I-2000 project, where the distance between the engines is more than two meters, which makes it possible to comfortably suspend two R-77 missiles. And between the air intakes there is a bay of weapons from the Su-57

Honestly, that's fine .