| Welcome to CONSORTIA, a military storefront run by a member of the online government simulation game NationStates. We hope you enjoy your visit. You are currently viewing our forum as a guest. To avoid spam accounts registration has been disabled on this board. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you cannot use. |
| F-26A Tempest; Air domination fighter | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 1 2015, 05:25 PM (2 Views) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Etoile Arcture | Jun 1 2015, 05:25 PM Post #1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Administrator
|
![]() F-26A Tempest ![]() (F-26A "Tempest" in Block 40 configuration) DESCRIPTION The F-26A "Tempest" is a single-seat, twin engine, all weather, air superiority fighter designed to penetrate, operate in and dominate enemy airspace with the additional capability to perform maritime attack and long range interdiction missions. The F-26 is lethal and survivable with its balance of high manoeuvrability, performance and range via its two 40,000 lb thrust class variable cycle engines; fault-tolerant integrated offensive and defensive avionics for dominant battlespace awareness and precision targeting; multi-spectral warning and countermeasures systems; and low-observable characteristics. Easily replaceable avionics modules and aircraft components, reduced logistics footprints and high sortie generation rates also allow for rapid deployability and greater supportability. Low detectable multifunction aperture radar, passive radio frequency (RF) recievers and advanced optronics allow detection of low signature threats and precision targeting without betraying position or entering into the lethal range of enemy sensors and weapons. These grant a first-look/first-shot/first-kill beyond visual range (BVR) capability, the ability to engage multiple threats simultaenously, and to perform multiple ground attacks in a single pass. Above all, the F-26A is highly agile and retains the capability of closing with, outmaneuvering, and destroying any current or projected threat aircraft in the visual arena.
Construction: The airframe features a shaped nose, semi-trapezoidal wing planform with positive sweep on both leading and trailing edges, two horizontal close coupled stabilisers and two canted vertical stabilizers with large-area trailing-edge rudders, cheek-mounted diverteless box inlets with wire mesh diffusers, and a flat-bottomed fuselage with twin parallel ventral weapons bays. The primary structure, including the fuselage and wing subframes, as well as spars, ribs and stringers for the aircraft wing, intakes, ducts, weapons bays and landing gear bays consist of lightweight scandium aluminium alloys. The engine bays and self-sealing fuel tanks are constructed of laser welded titanium alpha-beta alloy, the latter being fitted with tear-resistant, self-sealing cells lined with reticulated foam. Fibre-reinforced carbon composites are used extensively in the aircraft skinning, in addition to construction of the ailerons, spoilers, leading/trailing edge flaps, stabilizers, trailing edges, landing gear bay doors, radome and antenna fairings. Accomodation: The clamshell bubble canopy is constructed from transparent polycarbonates fabricated to the Zone 1 optical quality standard so as to provide maximum visbility for the pilot. - Powerplant: The Tempest is designed around the Sequoia Electrodynamics F155-SE-201VCE augmented turbofan rated at 177.9 kN static thrust, with two-dimensional thrust vectoring/reversing nozzles that pitch ±20° to confer signficant energy advantages in a turning engagement. The F155-SE-201VCE selective bleed turbofan is a two shaft, three compressor, variable cycle gas turbine. At subsonic flight speeds it operates as a medium bypass turbofan producing low noise signature at take-off. At higher flight regimes it becomes a low bypass turbofan, producing high specific thrust at high altitude and capable of supersonic cruise on dry thrust with a high manoeuvre envelope. The major advantage of this engine is that all the components are employed all the time, for all operating modes, thus incurring low weight penalties for an engine of its size and power. This has enabled the F-26 powerplant to remain lighter and smaller, and the aircraft to be faster and more manoueverable than many of its peers whether flying at high or low altitudes and speeds. Flight characteristics: - Landing gear: The landing fear consists of a cantilevered nose gear and semi-levered main gear. The landing gear and bay doors are hydraulically operated and electrically controlled and sequenced, with the gear locked in the extended position using drag braces. Lightweight carbon brakes of superior heat resistance, wear and braking efficiency are fitted to all wheels augmented by an adaptive anti-skid system that prevents wheel locking in wet and icy conditions. Emergency brake pressure and nose wheel steering can also be supplied by an emergency accumulator fed by redundant hydraulic lines. - Avionics: The integrated modular avionics (IMA) suite is based on redundant arrays of field-programmable gate array (FPGA) multi-processor system-on-chip (MPSoC) single-board computers based on 64-bit quad-core PowerPC processors. They form the basis of the quadruplex redundant digital flight computers and optical (fly-by-light) flight control system, the engine control system, and various flight susbsystems including the navigation and mission computers, to perform data and signal processing services for all vehicle subsystems, sensors and flight systems. These include: realtime vehicle heath monitoring and management, mission management and mapping, communications, navigation and indentification (CNI), multi-spectral electronic warfare, stores management, mission mapping and multi-channel sensor and vehicle data fusion to the pilot interface. The computers are capable of adaptive serial and parallel processing and produce reliability through automatic fault location/repair, lock step processing and time and memory partitioning by running the LynuxWorks LynxOS-178 safety critical ARINC-653-2 compliant fault-tolerant real-time operating system. All subsystems communicate point-to-point/point-to-multi-point over a mesh network data bus backbone interconnected by FireWire-based MIL-1394 (SAE AS5643) Fibre Channel links running bi-directionally at 1 gigabits-per-second. Situational awareness: The Synergy Electrodynamics AN/APG-84(V)2 Advanced Multifunction Integrated Radio Frequency System (AMIRFS) is an all-digital, solid state, coherent pulse Doppler, multimode active electronically scanned array (AESA) fire control radar operating in the 8-12 GHz I/J band (X band) frequency range. It can scan sectors of ±120° in azimuth and ±60° in elevation with electronically steered beams. The 90 cm planar antenna packs 2,200 transmit/receive (T/R) microwave modules with a transmit power of 3-15 watts. The system broadcasts at a peak power of 33 kW, allowing it to detect a 3 m² RCS target at 550 km, a 0.1 m² RCS target target at 240 km and a very low observable 0.001 m² RCS target at 75 km in tracking modes, and at 360 km, 160 km and 50 km respectively in velocity search. In the air-to-air mode it offers velocity search for long-range wide-angle searching, track-while-scan, range-while-scan and moving target indication of up to 250 tracked targets with full look-down/shoot-down capability, and engage 40 air targets or 20 surface targets simultaneously. The radar processor employs massively parallel processing (MPP) techniques for non-cooperative target recognition (NCTR). Air-to-surface modes include Doppler beam sharpened sector and patch mapping, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and inverse synthetic aperture radar (ISAR) imaging with a resolution of 1 metre, fixed and moving ground target track, and sea surface search decluttered to remove waves.
- Instrumentation: Weapons, sensors and flight systems are controlled using the Air Warfighter Interface 2.0 system which drives sensor fusion to aid the observe, orient, decide and act (OODA) sequence for cueing and firing weapons, and performing air combat manoeuvres. - Pilot aids: - Life support: These include oxygen generation, anti-g protection and personal cooling. These consist of:
All aspect low observability, being key to signature management and aircraft survability, is achieved through airframe, inlet and exhaust shaping with radar absorbant structure (RAS) used to minimize scattering from hard edges and radar absorbant material (RAM) to reduce scattering from surface breaks. Serpentine inlets hide engine faces from radars and two-dimensional exhausts minimise infra-red signatures. A clean configuration using internal-only stores, comformal antennas and flush sensor bay windows achieves further reduced radar reflections, weight, and drag. Electro-magnetic emissions are also carefully controlled by a signature management subsystem that is part of the avionics suite, and a Topcoat paint system is applied to the exterior to divert RF and IR energy away from the aircraft. The result has been a total measurable radar cross section (RCS) of only 0.0001 square metres or -40 dBsm (decibels per square metre). Defensive aids: - Armament: The F-26A Block 40 flies with a clean configuration with no provision for underwing external stores as this would compromise its low observable characteristics. A 20mm/85 M61A2 Vulcan six-barrel aircraft cannon is mounted internally on the ventral centerline between the two intakes and is hidden behind a flush sliding door. Behind the gun bay two internal weapons bays are located ventrally side-by-side for carriage of compact ordnance and missiles with clipped wings. These fit behind 4.2 metre long sawtooth-edged doors. Weapons are deployed using non-pyrotechnic pnuematic ejectors that extend out of the bay into the airflow to throw munitions clear of the airplane at supersonic speeds. Each bay has three weapon stations rated up to a 9+ g load factor, with ordnance interfacing to the Stores Management System (SMS) via a MIL-STD-1760C Aircraft/Store Electrical Interconnection System (AEIS) fibre-optic bus. The inside bay station mounts a single launch rail and the inner door station a duplex launch rail, with a triplex rail or single rail for outsized stores on the centre hardpoint, which is also plumbed for a single 330 US gallon conformal fuel pack for ferry flights. Ordnance: A wide range of stores, to a total of weight of 2,442 kg (5,383 lb), can be carried on six internal hard points. The F-26A Block 40 has been rated for a wide range of current and projected future precision stand-off weapons compatible with MIL-STD interfaces.
* Stores interface requires data converter and coupling adaptor on hardpoint.
VARIANTS F-26 Block 10 EMD: Engineering and Manufacturing Development initial production version; powered by two 35,000 lb thrust class Sequoia Electrodynamics F155-SE-100VCE variable cycle engines; interim avionics equipment with multi-mode radar, holographic panoramic HUD, digital and analogue cockpit displays; internal weapons carriage limited to two 1,000 lb class stores; less than 40 produced. F-26A Block 15: Refined production version; re-engined with 40,000 lb thrust class uprated F155-SE-200VCE turbofan/turbojet; airframe improvements totalling 550 kg in extra weight including revised wing design and conformal weapons bay enlarged from 3.95 metres to 4.2 metres for accomodating a 2,000 lb class store; enhanced avionics equipment fit for "swing-role" mission versatility; addition of superscalar processor architecture, 15W 2,200 T/R module AESA radar w/ SAR/ISAR/GMTI modes, helmet cueing system and fibre-optic towed decoy for self protection; all Block 10 aircraft were rebuilt and upgraded to Block 15 standard; less than 90 produced. F-26A Block 20 FSD: Full Scale Development batch of a carrier-based fighter for service testing; airframe changes made including new folding wings, additional aerodynamic surfaces for low speed approach and recovery, strengthened landing gear and retractable arrester hook, fuel dumping for emergency landings, new rugged outer coating designed to withstand a salt air environment, net weight growth by only 290 kg; avionics upgrades including automatic launch and landing system, multi-static shared datalink networking and electronic warfare upgrades. F-26A Block 20 FSP: Full Scale Production (FSP) version of the swing-role air domination fighter, with a production run of 1,500 produced. F-26A Block 40: Current and largest production block of aircraft - SPECIFICATIONS
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
![]() |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| « Previous Topic · Fixed Wing Aircraft · Next Topic » |








12:51 AM Jul 11