Hush-Kit fundraising update: We are in with a chance of meeting our target to ensure service keeps going through December (big thanks) but we’re not there yet…and there’s only 3 days!Â
Sadly, this site will pause operations in December if it does not hit its funding targets. There is now less than a week. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here.
We have big plans for 2020 but in order to do them we need funding now. We intend to continue with the site but offer even more regular articles (2019 was our busiest year so fat), increase the output of our YouTube video (which requires a lot of time per video) and launch a podcast (hopefully with an appropriate sponsor). To make this possible we need to carry on through December.
A huge thank you to those who donate to our site already.
The following table shows what is in operational service as of late 2019 based on best available open source material.
Notes: Gripen has completed integration work with a cruise missile but this has not been seen on frontline aircraft. HMS/D may be at early stage of use with Qatari Rafale but no photos have emerged to support this. EW DRFM status is a guess based on available open source information but is most questionable. Rafale can access IR imagery from Mica IR missiles, dual waveband DDM-NG (missile warning system) and IR channel of Talios pod (Nav FLIR/IRST) and close to IR bandwidths from optical system. Much test and integration work has been done on Typhoon AESA.
Sadly, this site will pause operations in December if it does not hit its funding targets. If you’ve enjoyed an article you can donate here.
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The end of the Cold War in the 1990s, and the former Soviet Union’s free and easy export of armaments, led to some utterly bizarre events. One of these is the surprising fact that the US Navy operated an advanced Soviet missile until 2007.Â
The Kh-31 anti-shipping missile terrified the US navy, skimming across the sea at close to Mach 3 and packing a 200-Ib high explosive warhead it had the potential to make mincemeat of the US Navy. The far slower (Mach 0.92) Exocet missile had wrought havoc on the Royal Navy in the 1982 Falklands War, so the Soviet Kh-31 was an extremely credible threat.
To develop counter tactics and test defensive weapons the Navy needed a target drone that could accurately simulate the weapon’s attack profile and performance. The Martin Marietta AQM-127 Supersonic Low-Altitude Target (SLAT) began test flights in 1987, but the project proved a joke – with only one of the initial test flights going to plan. Martin Marietta went back to the drawing board for twenty two months, before test flying a new improved SLAT in November 1990, however this test also failed – as did another attempt in 1991. While this was happening, the US’ traditional ‘cold’ enemy, the Soviet Union had disintegrated.
In the chaos that followed, the cash-strapped republics and individuals sold everything that could be sold, and made unlikely alliances (the fruits of one of these collaborations — the F-35B’s propulsion system — can be observed today). So it was that the US Navy bought the best possible system to portray the Kh-31, the Kh-31 itself!
In 1995, a contract was awarded to McDonnell Douglas for evaluation of the Kh-31 in the Supersonic Sea-Skimming Target role, this was an FCT (Foreign Comparative Testing) programme, which would evaluate a version of the Zveda-Strela Kh-31A missile as a target drone.
The Kh-31 was fitted with a US tracking beacon, telemetry and self-termination systems — and suitable suitable interfaces for fitment on the QF-4 Phantom II (the F-16N was also considered). Designated MA-31 for US service, the first launch of the missile took place in August 1996. It was evaluated against an improved MQM-8, and unsurprisingly proved superior. A contract for 34 missiles was placed in 1999.
The MA-31 targets were expended by the end of 2007. With the Duma now refusing export clearance, Boeing’s further upgraded proposal rejected and the arrival of the new GQM-163 Coyote – the MA-31 was retired.
— Special thanks to Thomas NewdickÂ
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First Impressions of Rafale? ‘It’s a space shuttle!’ was my first impression. It is very agile, very responsive* when you’re light and very very manoeuvrable… you can easily bump your head, I bumped my head twice on the first flight! Flight controls are very different as you can barely move the stick, it’s just centimetres compared to the former flight control system of the Super Étendard, so it took me couple of hours to get used to that. That’s the big difference. A lot of fun on that. First impression was the thrust, speed, comfort – the fact the aircraft was really sanitised for sound so you have no clue what speed you’re flying at — you really have to look at the instruments. And extremely responsive.”
“Best thing about it. It is very very responsive, very good situational awareness if you know how to manage all the screens and everything. A lot of capabilities. the omni-role stuff is very impressive it can really switch extremely fast from air-to-ground to the air-to-air mission.”
And the worst thing? “The worst thing would be the noise. Pretty noisy aircraft. Like most of them, the ECS (environmental control system) is pretty noisy. Not the engines really, it’s the ECS.”
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 How you rate the Rafale M in the following categories?
Instantaneous turn/High alpha/Sustained turn “It’s good, it’s very good. you have two types of ‘flying the aircraft’: you have the air-to air mode where you pull +9 Gs up to 11.Then you have with bombs and full tanks, when your performance is not as good: about +5g and about 200 degree roll rate less – so it’s two different aircraft. When you’re in air-to-air all this stuff is pretty good. Instantaneous turn and sustained turn pretty good. So it’s two different aircraft – when it’s in air-to-air mode it’s very good. It depends what you make of it – I’ve never had any issues.”
Sustained turn
“Sustained turn is good.”
High alpha
“Less than a Hornet, but still good. High alpha could be better, but it’s really what you make out of it — I’ve never had any issue.”
Acceleration & Climb rate “The acceleration is insane! Climb rate is firm – to give you an idea: if we’re at 500 knots & 500 feet… put the afterburner on — wait for the afterburner to kick in — then put the nose up at 60 degrees so you’re feeling like you’re vertical because of the angle of the seat (that’s 30 degrees) and at some point you have to throttle back in the afterburner to make sure it doesn’t go supersonic…in the climb 60 degree nose up! So that’s for the climb rate.”
“Typhoon is a joke, very easy to shoot.”
As a carrier aircraft?
“And as a carrier aircraft it’s a good jet. Very versatile. Very robust. Really no issue on the carrier side. Fuel is efficient. You have enough fuel and it’s pretty fuel efficient. You’re burning less fuel in afterburner at high altitudes than Typhoon does without the afterburner.”
 What was your most memorable mission? “The best ones are air shows. Air shows are insane. Yeovilton air show was a blast. But combat mission wise, I had a mission back in 2016. I was leader to two Rafale in Northern Iraq. I was fitted with GBU-12. He was fitted with SBU-38 (Hammer) . My laser designation pod wasn’t working. My wingman’s one wasn’t working. And with ten minutes left of flying time basically on station and then hitting the refueller and transit back to the aircraft carrier that was in the Gulf. We were then instructed to go East, as US Marine Special Forces from a recon got ambushed and were getting shot at by a few snipers. So about 80 miles of transit and we had to redo everything. And my wingman and I had already dropped some bombs on enemy guys. And we had to redo everything: negotiate a new tanker; advise the carrier we’ll be late; come up with a game-plan. Pretty rushed and then on arrive on scene. It was quite difficult to spot the first group of snipers. They had ‘IR shields’ and stuff like that so we found them with the help of the SF on the ground using small UAVs and compare my footage with this SF UAV footage. I got rid of those two guys. They told me I had to drop on a third guy to the south. And I was completely ‘bingo’ on fuel…don’t tell anyone! The tanker was coming, so basically I decided to take my chances I couldn’t find a guy and my laser pod wasn’t very good that day. So I just went, ‘OK one or two metres‘, knowing there were virtually no civilians as it was in the desert, so I took my chance and it ended with me being at three metres to be efficient. But that was pretty memorable as sometimes you just have to take actions. And I guess it was a lucky bet…I’m not saying it’s a good thing to bet…it wasn’t that much of a bet as I had so much information and I actually had a very precise view on the enemy guys. So that as a pretty memorable mission. It went very well, the result was great. Everyone was happy. It took me out of my comfort zone and at that point it was one of the longest missions from the boat.”
“So come and get me with your S-400 if I’m at 200 feet above the ground — that’s not going to happen anytime soon. So I’m not afraid”
Which aircraft have you flown DACT against? “Against F-16, against Typhoon, against Super Hornets. Against Harrier. Against Alpha Jet. Against Mirage 2000.”
…which was the most challenging? “The F-16 is pretty cool. Typhoon is a joke, very easy to shoot. F-16 actually was a good surprise actually, I found it to be a pretty good aircraft. I think the most challenging was the F-16, it’s a pretty small jet so it’s easy to lose sight of it. So I think that was the big one. The Harrier can really turn around pretty fast, so you have to play it very close so you have to be careful with that. And with the Alpha Jet don’t go into a slow fight with it. It can manoeuvre and do some rolls at pretty low speed, some barrel rolls at pretty low speeds so you really want to pay attention. You can easily be tricked at low speed by an Alpha Jet. So you want to keep your energy high.”
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How good are the sensors?Â
“Sensors — we haves some pretty good sensors. The laser tracking device is being replaced now. It was ‘old skool‘ and not as good as it could have been. There’re doing a better job with the new one I’ve heard. Otherwise the other sensors are extremely good. The radar —— with the new one — is insanely great. The electronic warfare stuff is great as well. So it’s pretty good sensors. We have radar, we have electronic sensors, we have laser. We have basically, all the stuff. We have the small camera on the aircraft, it’s pretty good at day. You can use it air-ground or air-to-air – it’s a pretty good tool to have.”
How easy is to fly? What is the hardest thing about flying it?
“It’s an aircraft that’s easy to fly. It’s designed to be an easy aircraft to fly but one thing is you have a lack of feedback, you have no clue if you’re flying at 200 knots or mach 1.5. Same noise, same altitude, everything. It’s a big big trick and big concern in this generation of aircraft is feedback is poor, so deal with it. Be careful about time slipping by, be very very careful about your environment as you can be easily trapped we’ve had lots of close calls with young pilots getting trapped. Be very very careful about time slipping by or acceleration kicking in so you really want to be careful about that. So the lack of feedback is a difficult thing about the aircraft.”
What are the differences between the C and the M? Are there performance differences? “C and M difference is about 650 kg, we have a bigger landing gear, bigger structure, a small hydraulic pump, we have access to the flight-deck that’s integrated in the aircraft – and we have much better pilots of course. In terms of performance, because you have a 650-kg difference, the nose is going to feel heavier in a Rafale M. Rafale C might be able to endure better in air-to-air combat because it’s lighter. But it’s no major difference – no concern.”
How would you rate the cockpit? Do you like the head-level display? “The cockpit is great. Very very immersive. Everything is well designed – maybe the position of the safety horizon at 30 / 30 degrees to the right and down isn’t optimum, but you prioritise other instruments. It’s not something you have to use very often in real life — like I never had to use it. I never had to use it in SE, never had any screen issues. So it’s a very reliable aircraft. The HUD is awesome – it’s pretty big. We’d all like to have head-up displays in our helmets, but that’s life – we don’t have it right now. But it should be in the pipeline for the future.”
The cockpit seems very snug, are there large Rafale pilots?
“We do have larger Rafale pilots! But trust me, when you come from the Super Étendard you find the cockpit to be large! So really, no concern about that.”
Have you fired live weapons- if so, what was it like? “Yes. Dropped bombs, shot missiles — it’s pretty cool. The aircraft is a very stable platform. I’ve shot with the gun too. The firing system is well done. It’s a bit stressful because you don’t want to fuck up when you’re dealing with real ordnance. You really don’t want to fuck up. From a general point of view every time you step into an aircraft you really have to be careful – so just keeping up the mindset and dealing with the pressure. Making sure you are prepared.”
Against a Super Hornet? “Honestly the issue is comparing aircraft all the time. Life isn’t that easy. Combat is unfair. It’s never going to be fair. It isn’t designed to be fair. If you get into fair close combat you’re a bad pilot. Don’t put yourself in a fair fight in real life as that’s stupid. Manoeuvre — take advantage and surprise your enemy. It’s not about one individual defeating an enemy, you’re here to get results. We are result-driven personnel. It’s not all about me. You’ve got thousands of people building a Rafale, and building and maintaining carrier. There’s thousands of people making sure I can take-off -— if I want to go fair-against-fair, I’m stupid. What I want to is make sure I win. Why do I say that? If I’m going to fight against a Super Hornet, I’m going to find a tricky way to defeat him. Look at the Messerschmitt 262 back in World War Two, most of them got shot down on landing. An aircraft shot down still makes the count. If we have to face the US Navy, it’s going to be disproportionate in terms of numbers – it’s going bring entire tactics to another level. Now, you want me to do a fair 1-v-1 fight with a Hornet in close combat, actually I’d rather a Super Hornet; I find the C to be more manoeuvrable than the Super Hornet. As a Rafale we can take an advantage on a Hornet again. What I would be careful of is their AIM-9X and helmet visors. So I would be very careful about that.”
The Rafale and Typhoon are often compared, how confident would you be fighting against a Typhoon? And why?
“I don’t know why they’re compared so often – it’s really not the same design, ideas or philosophy. We’re a truly omnirole platform. Typhoons are great, they like to use their big engines at 40,000 feet. I can’t count how many times I’ve shot down Typhoons at 45,000 feet in the contrails. And my radar off, everything off, I was coming from 100 feet below, supersonic in the climb from below. Absolutely undetected. So I have absolutely no fear of the Typhoons. Both the tactics used by the Typhoons, the agility and the cockpit of the aircraft make it easier for us to take the advantage — basically we have better fusion of the sensors — so we can be way more aggressive in terms of tactics. It’s a great aircraft at high level, but we’re not dumb enough to try to fight Typhoons at 50,000 feet or 45,000 feet. We’re going to put them outside their comfort zone. Against devious tactics. Now if you want to rate a Typhoon with AMRAAMs against a Rafale at 50,000 ft, then, yeah, Typhoon is going to have better performances for sure. But as a Rafale pilot, I’m stupid if I take him on like that, so I’m going to move the combat a bit. I’ll fake a combat at 50,000 feet and I’m going to send a guy sneakily low level to surprise the Typhoon, it’s more easy than you think!”
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Biggest myth?Â
“It is an aircraft that didn’t sell. It was truly finished before 2014 anyway in terms of omnirole. Once the aircraft was fully operational it sold right away. It’s not a bad aircraft, but it just took a while to develop, a lot of strategic reasons behind that, and now it’s developed it’s an awesome jet.”
How combat effective is it?
“It is really combat effective. You can switch to one mission from another.”
It is easy to maintain?
“I’m not a maintainer, but It looks easier to maintain than Super E and we have less emergencies than earlier generations.”
Something I don’t know about Rafale?Â
“I don’t know what you know! Oooh…ECS is loud as fuck! You lose the ECS and you think you have a two engine fire! It happened to me once.”
Tips for new Rafale pilots?
“Keep it simple and stupid. Back to basics. Fly the aircraft first and don’t get tricked into trying all the buttons and the screens. Make sure you fly the aircraft. It isn’t giving you any feedback so you’re your own worst enemy in the cockpit — so make sure you don’t fuck up. It’s going to accelerate very fast. Scan your instruments and make sure you keep that airspeed under control.”
How would you rate the Rafale’s ability to land back on deck with a heavy load of unused munitions and fuel? “It’s much less of an issue than it was maybe for the Super E, you have a better and more reactive engine so honestly when you come back heavy there is not a big difference for the pilot.
Hardest manoeuvre to pull off?
“Downward combat spiral from, maybe 45,000 feet to 5,000 feet, you are extremely close to your enemy — and it takes practice. You are metres away and spirally down together. Slow airspeed. And you’re just spirally down together at an extremely close distant, you are so close you can basically see what is on the other guy’s knees! And then spiralling further down – and first time you have to do that single-seat it’s quite an experience. You cannot do that in a Super E because you’re using the delta to sit the aircraft at a high AoA.”
Personal opinion: what should the Indian Aircraft Force procure?Â
“Pass. I’m not an expert. Recent experiences show, they could do with a couple of Rafale, maybe with full French stuff or maybe working with a mix of a different type of technology is good. French is good because there’s not as many limits as the US (like trade restrictions) and there’s some pretty nice stuff. I think the Indians are getting a really nice advanced version of Rafale. They should just get more.”
What should I have asked you? “What was the biggest shock on Rafale? When you reduce the power. Go idle power power, airbrakes out at a low level — it’s impressive how fast it decelerates. It’s just insane. It’s actually almost more astonishing than the acceleration. When you cut the engine, go to idle power and put the ‘boards’ out – it’s impressive. On the other side, above mach 0.69 on the afterburner at low levels at air shows you’re just holding on to the stick and it’s a pretty unique sensation.”
What did you feel on your first deck launch and recovery? “First deck launch is fun, you don’t have to do much. First recovery you’re stressed, you’re getting graded… there’s a lot of pressure and you’re just relieved.”
Navy or air force pilots…and why?
“Not sure I even have to answer that question. People will know anyway. Jokes aside, if the air force could land on a boat they would be doing it. We’re truly omni-role, we don’t have a choice. And also we have a more diverse type of flying. I was flying airshows and then I deployed like two weeks after switching from airshows to combat mission in a very short amount of time develops unique sets of adaptability. And most important a respect of timing – In Navy we try to go plus or minus two second s when we land. Lots of reasons behind it, but a small aircraft carrier gives you lost of constraints. so we’re really into precision and we’re more disciplined than the air force guys. I’ve got nothing against air force pilots, my dad was air force fighter pilot — they’re good guys. It’s just a bit different- our environment is so much more complex — so we have that increased discipline that really makes a difference.”
 What equipment would you like to see integrated on the Rafale? “A remote jammer that you can carry behind you — I think the Indians are going to get it — that’s something I’d like to see- like a towed decoy. It’s great. I think it would be good to communicate with the onboard systems, you can trick the missiles. And you can be more aggressive in terms of tactics if know the first missile is not going to hit you but is going to destroy your towed decoy.”
How would you rate the MICA?
“Is great… I like the singer. Jokes aside. MICA is a good missile. What really surprises people is its IR/EM capability – you can really switch. Overall it’s a good missile. I can’t complain but I haven’t used it in combat yet — a good training missile. Good stuff. I think it’s going to be good with the Meteor as well. Not unhappy with my missiles, but never used it in combat.”
How good is the high altitude performance?
“High altitude performance is great. It can take a couple of Gs even at 50,000 ft – you have two engines – and you can tell.”
Has the Rafale sufficient engine power, would you like more?
“You never have enough power. You find a guy who tells you he has too much power- he’s a liar – or he’s not manoeuvring his aircraft hard enough. The aircraft is overpowered in air show conditions — you know when you’re flying with all the bombs and stuff it’s not the same aircraft at all. Air-to-air it’s a good jet, but we could always always use more power – but then that means using more fuel maybe. I’ll go with a nine ton version – right now its 7.5 tons per engine – I’d go with a 9 ton version any day. That’s just how we are – we want extra power all the time.”
Do you feel confident flying against modern air defences in a non-stealthy aircraft?
“Great question. I’m not sure an aircraft’s stealthiness is going to make much difference anyway against very modern stuff. We’re not afraid of low level penetrations in the french air force. So come and get me with your S-400 if I’m at 200 feet above the ground — that’s not going to happen anytime soon so. I’m not afraid. It’s something we’re trained in and so it’s part of the job. And if you want a lot munitions or stores you’re going to lose on your stealthy signature anyway. So it’s not something of much concern – that’s why we train to keep current at very low level penetration. Which is really good as we get to fly at low level – which is awesome. I can’t complain.”
“I like it, I must confess I find the Mirage 2000 very good looking as well… and slimmer and maybe faster looking — and it is faster than the Rafale. Rafale is slower than the Mirage 2000. We’re talking Mach 1.8 against 2.2. But I like the design of Rafale aircraft a lot. I think it’s a good-looking aircraft, but then again, it’s like asking a dad if he thinks his kids are good-looking or not! So we’re biased anyway. But compared to Typhoon you can tell it’s a good-looking aircraft. I like the Hornet’s shape, I think that’s a good-looking aircraft too. And the F-22 is one of my favourite looking aircraft! The F-35? I really don’t like the design, I think it’s a shitty looking aircraft to be honest…but don’t quote me on that!”
 How confident would you feel fighting a F-22 in WVR DACT?Â
How confident would you be fighting a F-22 Raptor in within-visual range air combat? “Obviously you have seen videos (see above). Is it going to be guns only? Is it going to be Sidewinders? If it’s gun only I don’t have any issue – if it’s Sidewinders — and he has his helmet-mounted stuff* and 9X then I’m going to be careful — I would be concerned. I definitely don’t have no concerns otherwise: it would be tougher for me because he has his 9X and mounted vizor. If I play my cards correctly there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be OK. I have questions, like what is the set-up? Is it going to be ‘Butterfly’ with one close to the other one? It really depends on these situation. But guns only? Honestly, no concern. And it’s a big aircraft so it’s easy to shoot at.”
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*Editor note: as far as I know Raptors have not been fitted with HMS.
When did the French Navy procure the Rafale M and where were you trained? “We got it in 2000/2001 as a replacement for the F-8 Crusader. I got trained back in 2014. I got my ground training with the French air force and I was fully trained. We all had different trainings possible and I went the full solo direct. I never flew with the air force. I only flew single seat Rafale M directly. So ground school with the air force and back to Landivisiau. Taxi the aircraft up to 200<100?> knots, abort the take-off. Then next mission you take off and you fly on your own, you break through the sound barrier and all that stuff. I did all my training on a single-seat Rafale never flew a two-seater.”
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(U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Madeleine E. Jinks)
According to a study by the Californian Institute of Cool, the long revered job role of fighter pilot is to become uncool by 2025. This alarming development is the result of the increasing safety of the role and the supremacy of digitalisation. Â
The paper highlights several alarming historical trends, one being the changed nature of the fighter pilot’s lifestyle. In 1917 many fighter pilots flew while under the influence of cocaine, while from an open cockpit firing two machine-guns, wearing a fur coat and facing mortal danger every day; in 1943 things were equally exciting and the jackets were really cool — however by 2019 fighter pilots spend an estimated 43% of their time looking forward to software updates and 4% Googling jobs in civil aviation.
The study is sending shockwaves throughout the fighter pilot fraternity who have been forced to stop speaking in cliches and reading car magazines long enough to read the 80-page paper. One fighter pilot we spoke to on condition that we mentioned his name and the size of his watch* commented, “If I’d known I’d be using middle management jargon, talking about nodes, hubs, situational awareness and software iterations I would have become a firefighter. I feel like a boring guy who just happens to be able to travel really fast to blow up goatherds. I also spent too much of my time killing one AK-armed teenager with a $200,000 weapon dropped by my $65 million jet – with the support of a vast, errrr infrastructure. I mean the optics on that are not great, right?” Another pilot, who insisted his callsign was CobraSword, noted that – “We’re not even allowed to blow shit up anymore – we ‘administer kinetic effects’. I don’t even have a jet these days – I have an ‘ISR platform’. If we’re not considered cool anymore they’re going to have start paying us properly. If I can’t pull a girl in a Cardiff pub off the back of my job, then what’s the point?”Â
*Col. Gary ‘Splat’ Doberman, 4-cm wide and 1-cm thick
Today, Airbus stunned observers by the revealing the existence of the LOUT low observable unmanned air vehicle testbed. Jim Smith shares his first impressions on this exciting news.Â
The revelation of the Airbus Defence and Space LO UAV testbed (LOUT) is an interesting development, particularly as it throws down a credibility marker for the Franco-German-Spanish FCAS program, in the same way that Taranis provides a capability indicator for BAE Systems and the Tempest programme.
However, unlike Taranis, LOUT appears to have been focused on exploring the issues associated with designing a credible LO (low observable) concept, rather than building a flying vehicle. So, in some ways, there is a parallel is with earlier UK FOAS (Future Offensive Air System program) and its Replica Demonstrator exploring the issues of fabricating a LO strike aircraft, rather than building a flying demonstrator.
What can we infer from the appearance of the LOUT? It appears to me entirely consistent with the statements reported by Craig Hoyle of FlightGlobal.com, and highlighted on Twitter by Tim Robinson of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and Gareth Jennings.
LOUT has a delta planform with a swept-forward trailing edge, with engine intakes and exhaust on the upper surface of the vehicle. This suggests that the key concern is shielding from ground-based systems, indicative of a design mission focussed on the attack of defended high-value targets.
The stated focus has been on the testing of LO materials, particularly for the engine ducts, and assessing radar signature and IR suppression. Mention was also made of the conduct of aerodynamic testing and acoustic modelling. In addition, LOUT is said to have been used to investigate sensor apertures, and is seen in the photographs to have a cockpit-like feature, and centreline weapons bay.
What else might be inferred from the pictures available, and the statements made by the FCAS program manager, Mario Herzog?
Well, here are some guesses.
My conjecture is that a key role of LOUT is model validation. What do I mean by this? Well, the first step in establishing the confidence and competencies necessary to design a LO air vehicle, is to be able to predict the behaviour of such a vehicle.
To do this one needs the necessary modelling tools to predict the radar, infra-red and acoustic signatures; to predict the aerodynamic characteristics of unusually configured aircraft; to design with confidence propulsion systems, flight control systems and sensors; and to understand the impact of necessary apertures for the weapons bay, cockpit and sensors on both LO design and aircraft configuration.
To ensure that the tools to refine and optimise such a design to meet real, or at least realistic, mission requirements, are reliable and fit for purpose, a demonstrator like LOUD could be very useful. It would provide a reference shape for which aerodynamic, structural, propulsive, signature, control system and sensor models could be developed, and then tested by comparison with ‘real-life’ testing of the demonstrator. The simple shape, and the rather triangular leading-edge profile, are suggestive of this purpose for LOUT, as a step to perhaps a more refined design for which actual flight test could be an objective.
What else? Well, the design is modest in size, but the relevance of this is uncertain. It may be ‘just the right size’ for an affordable LO UAV demonstrator – I am unconvinced that LOUT is intended to actually fly, let alone be a mission capable system. What it is likely to have done is to provide confidence in design methodologies and models which can be applied to a future operational FCAS design, or, indeed, to LO UAV adjuncts to a manned FCAS.
A mission capable system would probably be sized by the carriage of the weapons required to meet its design mission, and by the fuel required to meet the payload-range requirements, with some dependency on the availability of a suitable propulsion system.
Challenges likely to be faced in developing and optimising LOUT-like systems, will include all the usual air vehicle challenges of meeting payload-range and point performance requirements, while also being constrained to provide a solution with low radar, infra-red and acoustic signatures.
In particular, aspects such as designing a flight control system able to cope with highly non-linear aerodynamics, using novel control strategies and effectors to also meet low signature requirements, may prove to be difficult and require innovation.
The inherent characteristics of a near-delta wing are likely to lead to the need to manage relatively high landing speeds, and the lateral-directional characteristics may well result in significant constraints arising from crosswind and/or gust limitations.
— Jim Smith
Special thanks to Jim for a late-night writing session (in Australia) to get this story out quickly)
References – Tweets by Tim Robinson and Gareth Jennings; Article by Craig Hoyle of FlightGlobal.com quoting statements by Mario Herzog, program manager, FCAS
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First Impressions of Rafale?
“I like it, I must confess I find the Mirage 2000 very good looking as well… and slimmer and maybe faster looking — and it is faster than the Rafale. Rafale is slower than the Mirage 2000. We’re talking Mach 1.8 against 2.2. But I like the design of Rafale aircraft a lot. I think it’s a good-looking aircraft, but then again, it’s like asking a dad if he thinks his kids are good-looking or not! So we’re biased anyway. But compared to Typhoon you can tell it’s a good-looking aircraft. I like the Hornet’s shape, I think that’s a good-looking aircraft too. And the F-22 is one of my favourite looking aircraft! The F-35? I really don’t like the design, I think it’s a shitty looking aircraft to be honest…but don’t quote me on that!”
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