This is a concept I've been working on for fun lately. It's basically a very upscaled F-18 to fill the same 'Rapid Theater Strike" role as the F/B-23 concept, except carrier-based. So to this end it's scaled up, has a larger wing with more sweepback and larger flaps, more powerful engines (F119?) and an internal bay to carry 3x GBU-24 or B61 nuclear weapons. Of course external pylons can be fitted when LO is not a huge concern.
Here's my initial sketchout. You can see it is substantially larger than F/A-18E. There is a single fin variant to the left that came out very A-5 like but I've been told twin tails is where it's at so I went for those. There are also some different ideas for stores carriage including ventral conformal bay pod not unlike the F-15SE conformal fueltank bays but I went for an internal bay equipped with a rotary launcher. Right now there are no additional bays for anti-air missiles but I figure the main bay can be configured to hold AIM-120C for long range fleet defense if that capability is needed.
Also a couple color profiles below - comment away!
