Message posted by Rob (Member since 03/13/2018) on May 31, 2023 at 12:31:16 PST:
You're missing context. This is the full quote: If that's the case, they are fine with vertical tails because that's the big discriminator for VHF stealth is having any of these vertical surfaces that you see on fighter aircraft today.And also why in the mid-teens, you also saw all of the defense companies show renderings of a next generation fighter before that got locked down and they weren't allowed to do that anymore. All showing tailless supersonic plan forms and AFRL also investing significantly in how to design an efficient supersonic air vehicles called the ESAV program. But that being tailless and supersonic at the same time. The "they" in your sentence refers not to the Air Force, but to the Navy, which clearly has different requirements than the AF.
So expect something like that being involved too. And let's not forget, this is only one of the NGAD programs. There's also another one, the Navy, which pronounces theirs as NGAD, not NGAD and it's probably a different aircraft. They have different requirements. The last time we heard anything from the Navy about their specific requirements, it was in May of 2019 at Sierra Space where the representative at OPNAV who was speaking told me afterwards that they don't have the same requirement for penetrating stealth as the Air Force, VHF penetrating stealth. They're focused much more on endurance.
In Reply to: Re: Question on flying wing aerodynamics (NGAD) posted by Altner on May 31, 2023 at 11:55:48 PST:
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