Hypothetical Aircraft Design

One of my favorite pass-times is to draw or model in 3d some of my aircraft designs. Most are only the airfoil - not even including internal structure or figuring up the 'real' structuring.

I've recently been working on an aircraft, that, for the sake of giving it a name - 'HypersStrike' - It's a two-seat multi-role aircraft designed to work as a self-contained unit capable of pinch-hitting in nearly any role in the air.

I got to thinking if maybe we, here, could work to develop our own sets of aircraft for fun or for those durn government spies to go use our designs (who knows). I'm more into military aircraft... but I know there are those of you that like to design concept airliners and private aircraft. We could look at each others' designs and give criticism or offer knowledge of the systems (declassified) to improve the designs and make them more practical. Just an idea I had...... plus, after the 24th of August I'll be gone for 2 months to Basic and then going to A-School and I'll probably have to tone down on public forums that deal with military technology (not sure what restrictions there will be). So I kinda want to live up my days left of speculating before I am only allowed to say "If only you knew...."

I'll put the pictures at the end - but I'll go ahead and do a sort of run-through. I'll post more intricate details of the workings of the various systems as questions arise or I think of them.

The overall design is a blended lifting body design with its wings extending from the fuselage and resembling more of a manta-ray design. The nose begins at a sharp point and continues into a forward 'chin' that resembles that of the F/A-18E Super Hornet (I actually did this by accident - I was trying to get the wings to have a sharper leading and trailing edge - and that was the effect). There are four air intakes - two above, and two below - symetrically placed. The exhaust is expelled through a single duct that may/may not use thrust-vectoring (the way the body forms around it would definately allow for it - even 3d thrust vectoring)

There are four radars that are automatically equipped on the aircraft - one located in the nose, one placed at a 30 degree angle on either side of cockpit (in the 'chin' structure), and one rearward facing radar. A small network of Radar Warning Reciever pods are built internally into special sections of the aircraft. Using these sensors, an enemy radar can be passively triangulated and locked into a GPS or Anti-Radiation weapon.

The two 'pods' on the underside of the far external wing house a combination of ECM, countermeasures (passive and intercept), as well as air-to-air munitions. However, these can be reconfigured for increased radar survailance or electronic warfare capabilities.

The main munitions bay has yet to be decided in size... but assuming I don't have to slim the aircraft down, it can compare to the munitions bays of some of today's bombers.

The aircraft is designed for a Pilot and a RIO team to accomplish the missions - however, the aircraft can be used in a more narrow role with single-seat configurations. The data systems within the avionics allow for all data - visual, audio, etc to be transfered to either console and to a unique HUD system that is built into the canopy both left and right of the pilot (however a more standard HUD is used for forward displays).

The plane is unfinished - I'm still trying to get the durn model to behave.... that's apparent in one of the shots. I'm also not sure of the ridges that formed above the intakes.

Cockpit View

1

2

3

4

looks cool, but not much view downwards. also theses 4 small radars, will they be less powerful (less range) than a larger unit?


justin

Nice plane

I'am just wondering why the end of the wings are bent upwards?

The radars would be just as powerful, if not moreso than existing radars. I'm also curiously contemplating the idea of using sections of the 'skin' of the aircraft as receiving antenas - although my knowledge of radars is somewhat limited - but it would be possible, in theory.... although chalk up a few hundred more watts to computer processing.... But, looking better at the scale of the aircraft in comparison to others - a fairly large radar would be capable of being placed in all of the areas mentioned. In fact - I'm concerned that the aircraft might be far too thick in many areas........ however, this allows for an absolutely ridiculous amount of fuel storage (assuming it doesn't have to be occupied mostly by internal structure...)

The wings are bent upwards partly to add more stability - and also to try and blend the 'pods' (more like an abnormally thick area) at the root of the upward torsion of the wing.

I'm trying to work my head around the avionics of this aircraft, mainly.... They have to do a lot of work - which can even encompass using multiple filters on one radar return to attempt to locate elusive targets - such as low observable aircraft, ground targets, terrain following aircraft, and low-flying missiles. They also have to be capable of being able to shift necessary displays to their selected monitors and prioritize the information to present to the crew based on threat and mission objectives. The targetting systems must also be able to target up to a maximum of 12 air threats, 32 immediate ground threats (within 15 Nautical Miles - range of improved Maverick missiles), and 4 distant ground threats (greater than 15 Nautical miles) and engage them simultaneously.

To accomplish multi-band infrared targetting - a new system is used. Rather than glass and mechanical pieces to aim and focus a laser - a magnetic lens is used. Its response rate is far greater than any mechanical device - and also more accurate. The laser is pulsed at various luminous frequencies, and each pulse is directed at a different target over a very short period of time, before cycling around again. Each missile is programmed, immediately prior to launch, with the frequency it is to home in on. The cycling of the targetting laser is so fast that it is, effectively, up to eight separate beams - each dynamically adjusting their alloted pulse-time with the distance of the missile to the target (the closer the missile is, the more time is allotted to that laser, to better its accuracy as it closes in) - assuming this feature is necessary.

There's not much of a view of the underside of the plane because there's not much to see.... it's pretty flat..... although I guess a complete view would include the bottom.... I'll have to get back to work on it and get a 'from below' render.

nice plane, what software do you use for modeling?
I personally use SolidWorks, but i've tried to find a prog. that gives better visual results. SW is an engineering CAD software, so it makes accurate pieces that can exist, but has limitations on visual output.

I use 3ds max mostly. It does REALLY well for graphics..... but I'll be damned if I can ever get machine-quality parts out of it.

I worked with SolidWorks a bit at my college.... I beleive it was SolidWorks.... We were using it for our solar car team (which eventually floundered due to lack of participation and poor leadership... I was bummed... I had an experimental system that I wanted to use to increase power gains.... but I never got the chance...). I learned enough to know that I need a class or something on it to kick me off on the right foot.

Another good visual one is 'Blender' - it's freeware (last I checked) and eludes me as to how to properly use it... but it is a fairly powerful program - I just never sat down and took the time to learn how to use it beyond the cool 'blob mesh' objects and different transformer actions.