OT: the F-22s replacement has flown.

warchild said:
personally, I think they need to re-visit this guy..
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Where the SR-71 beat this design on performance (Speed, altitude, and range) I think the Kingfish was more advanced with regard to it's stealth. Of course, it was winning the competition until Kelly Johnson decided to dial back a bit on Mach 4 at 120,000 ft and add stealth. General Dynamics did some really outstanding design work on highspeed aircraft throughout the years.
 
Sundog said:
Where the SR-71 beat this design on performance (Speed, altitude, and range) I think the Kingfish was more advanced with regard to it's stealth. Of course, it was winning the competition until Kelly Johnson decided to dial back a bit on Mach 4 at 120,000 ft and add stealth. General Dynamics did some really outstanding design work on highspeed aircraft throughout the years.
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Welll, However fast it could travel, the SR-71 with its ability to outrun missiles was nothing to sneeze at, bat as far as a front line fighter goes, it was lacking ( being originally designed as a possible bomber/missile platform ( The YF-12A if I remember correctly. 60 years is a long time, even for something as impressive as that ) ). The Kingfish on the other hand ws smaller, nimbler and leaning more towards a front line interceptor like the F-4 became. The odd thing is, it remained classified for over fifty years and aspects off it may be classified to this day. I dont think we evenh know what it really looked like as all these images are artists interpretations, but those interpretations really dont look a whol lot different than whats shown in this thread above.
 
warchild said:
Welll, However fast it could travel, the SR-71 with its ability to outrun missiles was nothing to sneeze at, bat as far as a front line fighter goes, it was lacking ( being originally designed as a possible bomber/missile platform ( The YF-12A if I remember correctly. 60 years is a long time, even for something as impressive as that ) ). The Kingfish on the other hand ws smaller, nimbler and leaning more towards a front line interceptor like the F-4 became. The odd thing is, it remained classified for over fifty years and aspects off it may be classified to this day. I dont think we evenh know what it really looked like as all these images are artists interpretations, but those interpretations really dont look a whol lot different than whats shown in this thread above.
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That image is very accurate as to what the Kingfish looked like. There's very good pictures available of the L.O. pole model that were quite detailed.

If you like highspeed, You might like these McDonnell Douglas Mach 3+ and Mach 4+ interceptors. The one on the left is the Mach 4+ design and the one on the right is the Mach 3+ design.
 

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Nooo, I'm not so much into speed. Its a non contender any more.. But looking at The ATS, and being one who believes we should build on the successes of the past I think we should look closely at revisiting the design of the Kingfish. Lets do a little comparison and youll maybe see why..

The F-22 is a 62 foot long modified delta wing twin engine aircraft with angled intakes to aid in its stealthiness.
The Convair Kingfish is a 73 foot long pure delta wing twin engine aircraft with angled intakes to aid in its stealthiness.

The exhaust nozzles on the F-22 aare rectangular and allow for the blending of cold air with the exhaust to decrease its thermal signature.
The exhaust vents on the Convair Kingfish are rectangular and in the same location laterally as the nozzles on the F-22.

The F-22 was designed to scatter radar reflections away from the sending source.
The Convair Kingfish was designed to scatter radar reflections away from the sending source as much as possible.

These two aircraft have so much in common, its not funny, but the Kingfish was designed for Mach 3 and 70000 feet while the F-22 was designed as a mach 2+ super maneuverable air superiority fighter.. It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to see how the Kingfish design from 1959 could easily be updated into the design for the next US airsuperiority fighter of 2024...

kingfish4.jpg


kingfish3.jpg
 
Well of course not. Thats why Sundog stated in the title that it was off topic.. Certainly we dont have to be so rigid as to not allow for OT conversations every now and then??

Speaking of Off Topic. I admire the history of Cape Town, especially that fortress and the Dutchman. It;s an amazing place with an amazing history.. You see, I have a friend that lives up in Ponchefstroon and FS2020 is the first piece of software that lets me leave the confines of my chair and visit these incredible places..
 
All of this reminds me of the famous Aurora rumors. I remember back in the 90's when Oldsmobile came out with a model by the same name. At the end of one commercial, then announcer said something like "OK Air Force, you've seen ours, now show us yours!" I don't think that commercial ever aired twice!
 
Aurora was the development code name for the B-2. Having said that, there was reportedly a development program involving all of the major aerospace companies for a TSTO (Two Stage To Orbit) vehicle system. Here's one link. There are multiple patents of such designs. The second stage may have been a sub-orbital recon vehicle. It makes me think it was a continuation of the earlier Isinglass program.

The two stage vehicle system was reportedly built and flown, but it proved too expensive to operate. Hopefully, the system will be declassified in the near future, since we already have the X-37 for such missions and it's been nearly thirty years. It's time to move it to the USAF museum, like they did with Tacit Blue and the BOP.
 
Sundog said:
What I find interesting, is that of all of the ATF submissions, the ones we still haven't seen are Grumman's and Rockwell's. Although, the Paul Metz book on the YF-23 did show some more developments of the generic model that I hadn't seen before, including the subscale demonstrator they proposed to be built by Scaled Composites. With regard to the Grumman submission, I have some images of the canard/sept wing concepts they were working on at the time (G-719J) and their submission was supposedly somewhat similar.

Edit: BTW, I didn't know Rockwell was in El Segundo. I knew NAA was in the L.A. area, but I wasn't sure where. Also, Kindelberger came from Douglas, so that should have been my first clue.
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The Rockwell submission (and we may have teamed up with Grumman for the ATF program but I don't recall for sure) was never built, even as a mockup.
I do recall the highly classified images though and there were some elements quite similar to the F-22.

Rockwell-NAA was very much in El Segundo. We occupied one of the tower buildings at the corner of El Segundo and PCH. And a whole line of buildings research and fabrication buildings along Douglas. Most of it is gone now since they moved to Seal Beach after the B-1B program was over. Rockwell itself had a building down by what is now the 105. Atwood Way was named after Lee Atwood. I worked in the tower building and Bldg 100 as well as Bldg 92. Bldg 92 is now long gone.
:ernaehrung004:
 
warchild said:
Well of course not. Thats why Sundog stated in the title that it was off topic.. Certainly we dont have to be so rigid as to not allow for OT conversations every now and then??

Speaking of Off Topic. I admire the history of Cape Town, especially that fortress and the Dutchman. It;s an amazing place with an amazing history.. You see, I have a friend that lives up in Ponchefstroon and FS2020 is the first piece of software that lets me leave the confines of my chair and visit these incredible places..
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It's quite rare that a forum thread remains on topic, especially at SOH. We should all be used to it by now.
:ernaehrung004:
 
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