Stealth Interceptors not beyond many countries?

The MBB Lampyridae was a "Technologieträger" - a technical concept, nothing more, nothing less. Its goal was to see if a faceted fuselage could be merged with the requirements of an BVR interceptor. If it was really considered a live project it would have needed more than Reagan´s guys asking (or even "demanding" or "ordering") the project to get cancelled. The project was finished when it was proven that Germany had the technology to construct a low-RCS fuselage with acceptable aerodynamics.

In the mid-80s the Eurofighter Project was revived from its dormant state and it was decided that this was the future fighter aircraft for Germany (Where it was originally dubbed "Jäger 90" - Fighter of the 90s) and there was no place in the budgets nor a desire to develop the Lampyridae any further. It has earned its merits as first semi-practicable european stealth concept, but it was a long shot off really entering service and after the F22 surfaced in the mid-90s the technology was obsolete anyway. And, sorry to say, so are all your concepts with faceted bodies - The US Airforce itself claimed that the RCS of the F-117 is larger than that of the B-2 and F-22.

Tht being said, the first obviously RCS-optimised european aircraft will surface towards 2009 - the EADS Mako. Where to it goes on after that - who knows?

[edit on 13/12/2005 by Lonestar24]

Waynos, I hear you but I can’t help but think we’re thinking of slightly different mission profiles. My first thoughts were what is commonly called “point defense fighter’ or “point defense interceptor”. It may not be ideal, but the mere existence of a radar stealthy fighter roaming over your own skies proves a real headache for enemy planners, even if that fighter is in general terms less capable than current equivalents. Many countries, due to geography, don’t have the luxury of stand-off intercept far from their national boundaries.

Re the MBB design, what speed was it expected to have?

I see, so you are talking about a sort of Hawk 200 type of fighter rather than a 'Lightning', yes?

In that case I can see a benefit for such a fighter being stealthy, but also a demand on this type of fighter is that it is a low cost solution.

Have you see the BAe Replica? It strikes me that this could be an ideal basis for your throretical fighter.

Interceptors are not made anymore because they are outdated. Once they started making decent SAMs interceptors were obsolete. Why waste all the time and effort having loads of interceptors, pilots, bases, support, when they are still slow to react, when a batch on instantly available SAMs will do the job much easier, faster to react and cheaper?

Anything SAMs cant do is covered by existing air superiority fighters.

Interceptors are pointless and outdated, as manned aircraft will probably be soon.

Your argument is more true in wartime than it is, ironically, in peacetime.

Imagine any two nations between whom there is tension but no actual conflict. for example the UK and Russia, but it could just as easily be Japan and China or India and Pakistan, or anybody.

throughout the 60's and 70's Russian intrusions were met by Phantoms or Lightnings which were on QRA scramble and intercepted the bombers out to sea, the earlier, or furthest distance away, these manned interceptions took place demonstrated our defensive abilities to the other side and a sort of status quo was maintained without a shot being fired.

Imagine if we had replaced all our interceptors with SAM's, there is no chance of this happeneing, and likewise in wartime no possibility of a mistaken interception being recalled, and the only way to make the point is to shoot down the bombers. Not a good move.

What about the reliance on third party radar to provide the intercept data until its own on-board systems can take over ? I suppose it depends on who the adversary is in these cases as an advanced foe would target these as part of any SEAD mission.

Taking the more blended lines of the BAe Replica as inspiration, here’s a redesign but keeping to approximately the same layout:

I can’t help but think that the blended stealth technology, although demonstrably not beyond some European countries (French UCAV, EADS Mako), is all the same had harder technology than the cruder faceted stealth.

And the onboard radar seems a problem as it broadcasts the fighter’s presence (F-22…). And the reliance on third party radars is similarly a weakness. I have a thought about passive homing akin to a semi-active radar missile. But it is a limited concept.

to maintain low emissions with the Typhoon the radar's processing functions are slaved to the PIRATE IRST as the primary targetting system, maintaining zero emissions while keeping full multi target capability. Also, it is reported, with 160km range. This would have to be the system this fighter would use.

Aye, that’s the basic concept the Russians were using in the 1980s for the flanker/fulcrum; only burst of radar and IRST as primary targeting system. But low emissions is different from NO emissions. And IRST is extremely limited in certain weather conditions.

One possible idea is to try to use the enemies IFF system to compromise them (as was successfully used by the Germans against the British bombers in WW2). Given the sophistication of modern IFF this isn’t so easy, but a basic method is to record lots of the enemy’s encoded RF traffic (at the frequency range their IFF is believed to be working at) and rebroadcast it hoping that their IFF will be ghosted and thus transmit the response – giving away their location even though you can’t read the IFF coding.

Another idea is to have a band-hopping radar receiver (not emitter) and collect change radar waves rebounding of planes as a crude homing system.

Originally posted by R988
Interceptors are pointless and outdated, as manned aircraft will probably be soon.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more! While you made a couragious argument, You missed some key facts:

1. Interceptors almost always have better range then SAM's. If World War 2 type bombers where attacking, you might be right. However, when you throw standoff weapons like Air launched cruise missiles into the mix, you get a new set of problems:

A. Most Missle carrying platforms stay miles beyond the range of SAM's. these platforms would be safe from attack. You would have to wait untill you are faced with numorious cruise missiles to take action. (the longer you wait, the more dangerous things can get.)

B. ALCM's are difficult targets for radar because of their small size and low cruising altitude. The low Crusing altitude also allows them to use the terraing to hide from ground based radars amd SAM sites.

2. The enemy isn't always clear! Think about today's electronic warfare environment. There are so many possible ways to throw radar off. Also, even in wartime there are civilian aircraft in the sky. Manned interceptors give you a chance to have a person visually identify the target. While it's still not fool proof, it gives you one more safety check you can use to avoid mistakes.

3. Long range interceptos can be used in an effort to save lives! Remember 9/11? In situations like that, a manned interceptor could be used to try and force a hijacked plane to land. I know there is no gurantee that it will work, but when the target you are intercepting might be a passeneger plane with families on board, isn't it worth being able to try and force a landing before you kill everyone on the plane?

Tim

Originally posted by planeman
And the onboard radar seems a problem as it broadcasts the fighter’s presence (F-22…).

The Raptors Radar is LO. It uses rapidly changing frequencies that make it nearly impossible to detect.

Originally posted by ghost

Originally posted by R988
Interceptors are pointless and outdated, as manned aircraft will probably be soon.

Sorry, but I couldn't disagree more! While you made a couragious argument, You missed some key facts:....

The thing is: These tasks can be carried out exactly as good by any medium-heavy modern multirole fighter.

Originally posted by Lonestar24

The thing is: These tasks can be carried out exactly as good by any medium-heavy modern multirole fighter.

Right! My point was that manned fighters are Not outdated and obsolete! You just restated the premis of my argument. I agree that you can do these things with any modern medium/heavy multirole fighter. You might not need a dedicated interceptor like you did in the 1950's and '60's, but you still need a manned fighter. That is why they now have Fighter-Interceptors as oppose to pure intercepters. Weather you use a custom-build intercepter or a multirole fighter, you still need the manned fighter in the loop somewhere.

Tim

I think that the argument for the validity of the interceptor and point-interceptor roles varies greatly from country to country.

“Interceptor” can be defined as a fighter aircraft employed for the DEFENSIVE role of intercepting and if necessary engaging enemy aircraft. A dedicated interceptor is an aircraft used almost exclusively in that role.

In the US and Western Europe in particular, the shift has gone away from pure interceptors to multi-role and latterly swing-role designs. This reflects the lack of immediate air-threat to our home lands, and the fact that we often adopt interventionist policies (aka invasions, lol). This results in our aircraft being employed offensively and against far weaker air forces; in such scenarios that interceptors simply aren’t needed. Inevitably people start to think how much cheaper it could be done if we merged the air-superiority (which involves an element of interception) and strike roles.

At first glance swing-role; the ability to switch between strike and air-air, appears to make dedicated interceptors obsolete but that simply isn’t the case. A swing role configuration is inherently not optimum for either air-air or air-ground. It is a luxury which has cost savings when you are facing a much weaker opponent (like the Southern Watch patrols over Iraq in the 1990s), but if the poo hits he fan, the last thing you want is to be going air-air with load of bombs hanging off your aircraft.

AND, in many other countries the dedicated interceptor is still crucial: Taiwan, China (use of J-8IIs to intercept US reconnaissance aircraft), Japan, Greece and Iran among them.

In other countries, where the close proximity of an antagonistic neighbor rules out outside-the-boarders interception point-interceptors remain vital. Israel/Syria and South Korea/North Korea comes to mind.

The Stealth concept being discussed in this thread doesn’t seem suited to stand-off interception, as well argued by Waynos; both due to targeting difficulties and airframe performance issues. But it could be employed as a roving interceptor, particularly over your own territory.


Re the F-22’s agile frequency radar as a good solution for stealthy fighters. Yes it is a natural evolutionary step over fixed band radars, but is not impossible to track. It’s a question of computing power. And radar isn’t the only electronic emission that the aircraft would make –IFF, radio etc. The former creates a real problem for stealths –i.e. before firing on a target, do you check with IFF –which could give you away, or not????

I don't think 'swing role' is best defined by 'going air to air with bombs hanging off your aircraft'.

The definition of a swing role fighter is that the same squadron could take on a mission with some aircraft configured to the attack role with A2G weapons and the rest of the squadrons aircraft configured for 100% A2A with no physical modification needed, even the ratio of A2A and A2G components in the squadron can be changed from mission to mission depending on the specific mission requirement.

Swing role is far different from multi role which is a 'jack of all trades-master of none' solution.

No swing role means the ability to switch between two roles within a single mission. The likely combinations of roles are air-superiority + strike, and air-superiority + SEAD. It’s a major selling point of certain types, notably the Saab Gripen, F-15E/I/K and typhoon (tr3).

BTW Waynos, did you get the PM?

Ha, I too fell foul of trying to simplify my point, I remeber you doing it too and I should have known better

I was just trying to point out that swing role is not a compromise in the way that multi role is

Yes I got the message and have added the site to my favourites list for future use Thanks, but it seems that the site hopes to be quite technical whereas my speciality is more of the 'historical' nature.

I bvelieve too that "money" is a big factor in this issue... it would require much more testing, re-modelling etc. etc. to make a plane stealthy... I do believe that many countries would be able to do that kind of planes, but they just can't see any reason why to...?? And isn't the Raptor partially so expensive becasue of its "stealthiness"

A subtle but significant configuration change. In an attempt to smooth out the positioning of the fixed canards, the forward fuselage has been raised to give a two-tier leading edge. This arrangement increases the airframe volume but does little to resolve the weapons bay volume problem.
Revised configuration:

Original configuration:

The artist has also taken the opportunity to increase the canopy windows since the previous ones were above the pilot’s eye level (the triangular cockpit cross section is not very spacious, must be the same problem in the F-117)

Have you considered a tailless design? Boeing has several prototypes that don't have one, even a cargo plane concept by PW

I read that the Tail is a big obstacle in stealth technology...

Also I am not sure about the big cross pyramid front section of the plane. look at stealth-craft and see how it tends to be very small...