RadicalDisconnect
Anthony Foulke
- Joined
- 28 April 2014
- Messages
- 169
- Reaction score
- 15
Sundog said:saintkatanalegacy said:Well, based on the information so far, it's built to fight legacy, similar, and unmanned* aircraft.
*see previous post quoting Himalayas
As far as weight and size goes, there really isn't any official figures and the best ones you'll arrive at are wild guesses so it's impossible to know whether it would be lighter or heavier than the F-22. The airframe will only get a bit heavier as the rear end becomes reinforced, and more module and sensor combinations are added.
When it comes to "hypothetical" weight reduction compared to other 5th generation designs, aside from use of composites, it would probably because they didn't overdo the faceting of the nacelle portion, they went for a framed canopy, and they went for a "partial" serpentine instead of a full serpentine duct which would eat up some space and add some bulk/complexity.
I agree with this, especially the fact that we don't really know the official weight of the aircraft. Having said that, the T-50 has better span loading than the F-22 does as well. If you look at the vehicle from the front, you can see the weight of the fuselage, weapons, and the nacelles/engines are spread across the span. That generally helps structurally. However, there can be draw backs because you can end up with more structural stress due to there being more longitudinal corners. Once again, it's all about the tradeoffs. However, I doubt a fully mission capable T-50 will weigh less than an F-22.
I'm going by Piotr Butowski's figures from Air International October 2013, which gives 18,000 kg empty and 35,000 kg MTOW. Of course, this could possibly be the T-50 prototypes without avionics or mission systems. This is compared to the F-22's 19,700 kg empty weight and 38,000 kg MTOW.