F/A-37 Talon

reply to post by Johann


Sorry, but so many of your arguments don't work. The F-117 is one of the first attempts at a stealth bomber, but if you look up other newer stealth planes, you will notice that the body of the plane is not as angular as the F-117. Other stealth planes are the famous B-2 Spirit, the F-22 Raptor, and the new F-35 Lightning II. Your next argument is that the plane wouldn't be able to go speeds near Mach 4, but in this case, you are wrong once again. Of course the popular, yet retired, SR-71 "Blackbird" by Lockheed Martin can go those speeds because it uses a modified engine, combining the standard jet engine with the ramjet, allowing it to go those fast speeds. The F/A 37 Talon as seen in the movie is supposed to use much more advanced engines, combining the scramjet with another type of engine which i cant remember now... Anyway, the scramjet i know can go in theory up to somewhere around Mach 15, shattering the SR 71's record. Also the design of the Talon allows high speed flight because it uses an inverted wing design of the F-14 Tomcat, so the plane can unfold the wings to cruise at extremely slow speeds, but also then it can fold the wings up, so the plane is more resembling NASA's X-43 scramjet concept. The plane also does not have a rudder, or any major vertical stabilization features, reducing the drag by large amounts. To replace the rudder and also maintain supersonic speeds, it uses varied thrust techniques on the two engines, speeding up one, and slowing down the other, creating a yaw effect. You can see this example clearly by searching, "FA37 vs Su37" on youtube. There is no doubt however, that this is a fictional plane. I just think personally that there is extreme potential in the design and I intend to work on similar concepts in collage. (Im a 14 year old in 9th grade right now) There are major problems with the design though, such as the inverted F-14 wing design having major stress points, making it unsafe and increasing the possibility of the wings breaking off. Also the variable thrust on the two engines might not work. Instead of producing a yaw effect it could instead make the plane turn in an odd way to make it uncontrollable, or simply rip it in half from the stress directly between the engines. I do not believe there is any hope for it at all unless fly by wire is upgraded significantly, or changed completely. Thank you for your time.