Atlas FCA-1 Carver fighter project

PaulMM (Overscan) said:
Scan it at 800dpi or higher, and send to me for processing.
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Couldn't improve on your scan, unfortunately.


It clearly has a canard though, so I'm still convinced its a Cheetah.
 

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Thanks for the larger pic, Overscan.

I guess a question should be whether we know what configurations were looked at for the original Carver.
We know the original was a single engined type, and that various configurations were studied.

It appears the settled single engined Carver design at the end was a delta, mounted mid fuselage with LERX, and leading edge slats.
But I guess we aren't sure whether earlier models looked at canards or not.
We also cannot be sure whether a cranked delta was looked at for Carver, or whether it was simply a mod for the Cheetah via the ACW.

I tend to think it's a Cheetah C with ACW too, but I guess the shadows on the pic are misleading, giving the impression of a mid mounted wing?
 
Grabbed and saved for posterity, I hope Paul is OK with me posting these?
 

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Brilliant and fantastic!!!!!!

And of the twin engined version too!

The twitter feed is illuminating. The fellow who took the pics said he asked the Denel reps at the stand (at the current Rand Show) for more info, as he knew immediately what he was looking at, and they didn't know what it was. They couldn't figure out why he was so excited. He reckons they were probably told to grab a bunch of models from storage to help the display. As stated, the model would have been inherited from Atlas Aviation when it was absorbed into Denel.
I know of the fellow taking the photos from another forum, and he would immediately have realised what he was looking at.

PS: This is at the Rand Easter Show in Johannesburg, which is ongoing to the 3rd of April. Any poster in the area able to go and take more pics, and possibly get some questions in? Graugrun?
 
Another observation:

It is clear that Pierre Victor, author of Those Who Had the Power, had seen this model when he was working at Atlas/Denel.
The side-profile drawing in his book a decade ago of the single vertical tailed twin engined model of the Carver is very close to this model.Clearly then, there is also the twin vertical tailed variant out there somewhere.

Also, whilst it is heartening to know that models still exist, it is also worrying that employees don't know what the model represents. Let us hope info is released before stuff is destroyed...
 
It is amusing to think that this pure-delta single-tailed twin engined design would've gone over well with the Canadian public...
 
A fourth picture from a slightly different angle. This one gives the impression of a slightly waisted fuselage between the cockpit and air intakes, but it might just be a trick of the light or the photo.

EDIT: Yes, on comparison to the first pic, whilst there might be a slight waisting, it is pronounced by the different blue and white lighting reflecting from the backround display.
 

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What a great discovery. Well done everyone. Lets hope someone takes a 3D scanner to this expo...
 
You don't need a 3D scanner, something like Intel real sense 3d web cam built in some laptops should do the trick.
 
Just a follow up FYI.
In replies 38, 43 and 44 between Graugrun, Paul and myself, we speculated over the fuzzy picture attached below.

I have been speaking to a person who previously worked at the CSIR wind tunnels who has given me some back round to the model.

The wind tunnel model is a standard Cheetah C which has had its wings modified as part of a technology programme that was aimed at developing wind tunnel technology and not at developing a new aircraft (Carver) or future Cheetah modification. As such, the configuration is not representative of any actual or proposed Cheetah upgrade. Except for the modified wing, it is a standard Cheetah C wind tunnel model.

Thus, it has nothing to do with the Carver nor the Cheetah and it's various Advanced Combat Wing configurations. This is probably why we all found the model to be so confusing.
Some very interesting stuff was going on apart from this, which he found relatively mundane, as has been very broadly intimated to me.
 

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Here are a few more pics of the same twin-engined Carver model from that show.
I really hope some more information is released about the project soon, not least the different configurations looked at.
 

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And 2 more from slightly different angles. Quite an attractive design that has a lot in common with the original single-engined version/model that was first displayed in public.
It would be interesting to know what the size difference between the original single-engined and later twin-engined designs were...what the design team calculated the weights and dimensions would be.
 

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beautiful design !
Wings and fin are almost taken from Mirage 2000.
Are those guns ports on each side on the LEX ? Very close to the canopy...
 
Earlier reports those years back stated the twin engine version was "like a Mirage 4000", as was some of the early speculative artwork but I think it has features more similar to the Rafale, with the LERX and other features sort of similar to that seen on the F-18.
I have seen some intimations that as the original (single engine) design was refined, it diverged quite a bit from the starting point, with quite a few configurations that were studied before the particular design configuration of the single engined model we've all seen was arrived at. The twin engined design was then started from that eventual single engined iteration.
I expect the gun port location was probably put there by the model maker, and it would have likely been slightly further away from the canopy if built, as seen on the F16 for example.

I'm not even sure it would have had 2x30mm cannon...I recall there was work done at the time on a 30mm cannon design in South Africa called the Vektor 55C5, based on a highly modified DEFA 553 that I think increased the rate of fire to 1800rpm, which would have lent itself to a single cannon installation that has become the norm.
I've always assumed that the primary reason for that gun being developed was the Carver, and probably in single gun installation format, as the timeframe is bang on, but that is me speculating.
 
That is a nice summation, CG.
It has been intimated to me recently that some of the very early single engine Carver's had canards, before discarding them for the LERX and different wing form as seen in the single and twin engined models that have surfaced in public, as seen on this thread.
While this has often been conjectured about, this was from a more solid source.
 

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Really nice drawings dceetah. Just a suggestion, people here tend to upload images as attachments in order to save them for posterity from capricious nature of image host sites.
 
Looks like a blurred, modified version of a Eurofighter Typhoon
 
A fellow at the saairforce website did a rather nice drawing in SAAF colours of the later twin-engined Carver, as detailed in the exhibited model by Denel.
It really is an elegant, beautiful looking design.
 

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A 1/72 kit of this aircraft is coming later this year from the international Resin Modellers Association:
 

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kaiserbill said:
A small update.

The Carver was to have a delta wing with LERX.

From what I can gather, the Carvers leading edge sweep angle was to be 55 degrees.

As a comparison, the Mirage 2000 has a leading edge sweep angle of 58 degrees.
The Mirage III had a leading edge sweep angle of 60 degrees.

The next bit I cannot confirm, but it has been mentioned that the length was to be 16,06m and wing span 9,2m. The wing area was about 38 m2 not including the LERX.
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Are those dimensions for the original single ATAR configuration or the subsequent twin M88 (SMR-95?) derivative? Was the wing scaled up for the later twin? I am puzzled by why a single M88 wasn't considered, as the rated thrust was equivalent to that of the 9K50, with a much smaller mass flow, and dramatically reduced dimensions and weight that would have allowed for a much greater fuel fraction than the ATAR. I also don't remember the M88 as being notable unreliable, unlike the early F100 which terrified F16A pilots.
 
Tinwing, those figures look like the single engined variant, before that was dropped for the twin engined variant.
I have seen it mentioned that the M88 (among other engines, Spey included)was indeed looked at, and would have been sourced via Yugoslavia who were going to use it as part of their Novi Avion project.
 
SpaceRanger said:
A 1/72 kit of this aircraft is coming later this year from the international Resin Modellers Association:
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Any further info or links?
 
http://www.internationalresinmodellers.com/irma_on-line_store
 

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Thanks..but that is based on a magazine (Flight) artwork that was guesswork based on a description of one of the platforms/configurations looked at.
The two (initial single engine, then later twin engined) officially revealed models would accurately be what the actual Carver would have looked like instead.
 
kaiserbill said:
Thanks..but that is based on a magazine (Flight) artwork that was guesswork based on a description of one of the platforms/configurations looked at.
Click to expand...
Still, it seems this is the kit SpaceRanger is referring to as it is announced on the IRNA site.
SpaceRanger said:
A 1/72 kit of this aircraft is coming later this year from the international Resin Modellers Association:
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One can only hope the kit will not match the site's image, but rather the later images.
 
Project Carver emerges from the shadows
by Darren Olivier | Nov 14, 2016 | Featured, Southern Africa | 0 Comments

Project Carver emerges from the shadows
This article was originally published in the May 2016 edition of FlightCom magazine. It has been lightly edited for republication here.

Denel’s stand at the Rand Show held earlier this year featured an unexpected surprise: It was the first time ever that a twin-engined model of South Africa’s highly-classified indigenous jet fighter programme of the 1980s had been shown in public.

This programme, called Project Carver, was an ambitious attempt to design and build a fourth generation fighter aircraft that could replace the aging Mirages and Buccaneers in South African Air Force (SAAF) service and match or exceed the later-generation Soviet-built aircraft that were entering service or predicted to enter service in neighbouring countries, specifically Angola, where the Border War was still raging.

By 1991, Carver had been cancelled, as the simultaneous end of the Cold War, the Angolan Border War and the looming end of Apartheid, and with it the international arms embargo, meant it was no longer needed. However, it remains one of the most fascinating technological programmes ever undertaken in South Africa. While the vast majority of information on Carver remains classified, this article is an attempt to describe the programme and its context as comprehensively as possible from the few public sources that have emerged.

The legacy of Carver can be seen everywhere in the South African aerospace industry, but it came at significant financial cost. By 1991 the country had spent US$2 billion on it, equating to over R54 billion in today’s money, without a single aircraft to show for it.

BIRTH OF THE PROJECT
Project Carver began in the early 1980s, when the South African Air Force initiated a series of project studies to determine the options for new or upgraded fighter aircraft. They needed to regain the upper hand in Angola, where the SAAF’s Mirage IIIs and Mirage F1s were unable to match the performance of the MiG-23s in service with the Angolan and Cuban air forces, and to ensure South Africa’s aerial superiority in the region for the next two decades.

Three concurrent programmes emerged from this process, with different time scales. The first, Project Brahman, started in 1983 and was a Mirage III upgrade to be done in conjunction with Israel. It resulted in the Cheetah Ds and Cheetah Es.

Project Carver was the second, a 1985 programme to design and build an advanced New Generation Fighter Aircraft System that would be able to replace all the aircraft in SAAF service from the year 2000 and match or exceed the performance of even later generation Soviet-built aircraft that were predicted to enter service in Southern Africa.

The third was Project Tunny, which had its roots in a project study from 1985 for an interim fighter that would bridge the gap between the retirement of the Mirage F1CZs and Cheetah Es and the arrival of the Carver aircraft. In 1988 it became an official project for the procurement of what would become the Cheetah C.

The requirements for the New Generation Fighter Aircraft System, for which Carver was established, were bold and demanding. The SAAF wanted an aircraft that was broadly in the same class, in terms of avionics and performance, as an F-16 or Mirage 2000. But this would have to be achieved at the height of sanctions, meaning that few components or systems could be acquired from outside the country. The only readily available engine option was the Snecma Atar 09K50 turbojet, which was used in the Mirage F1 and was heavier and less powerful than more modern turbofan engines.

According to the Carver Project Officer, as quoted anonymously in Winston Brent’s book ‘Cheetah: Guardians of the Nation’, it was estimated that over 4,000 engineers alone would have been required at the peak of the development phase, which would have lasted for about six years. The cost and development times were expected to be significant, owing to the effects of sanctions and the need to develop much of the technology locally.

To figure out how to make this happen, the Carver project team set about drafting the project’s User Requirement Specification (URS). A typical URS is a comprehensive document that’s prepared for any major SAAF procurement. It builds on the Staff Target and Staff Requirement to lay out in painstaking detail every requirement of the system being acquired. This includes not only the basic performance of the aircraft, but what roles it must perform, the capabilities and man-machine interfaces of its onboard systems, its maintenance needs and a full integrated logistics support plan. For instance, the URS for Project Ukhozi, under which the Gripens were acquired, ran to dozens of pages packed with detail.

However, the Carver URS was more difficult than most and took 15 months to draft because, according to the Project Officer, much time had to be spent on testing and re-testing the validity of the requirements and analysing whether local industry would be capable of meeting those needs. What emerged was no less than the biggest technological development programme in South African aerospace history.

A model of the twin-engined Project Carver concept, seen at the 2016 Rand Show
A model of the twin-engined Project Carver concept, seen at the 2016 Rand Show

STARTING FROM NOTHING
As South Africa had no experience with designing fighter aircraft, Atlas Aircraft Corporation (which was appointed as the prime contractor) began to recruit aircraft designers from around the world. One of those was David Fabish who, having worked on the Mirage 2000 at Dassault, was appointed as the lead designer on Carver.

In the initial design phase, many variations were explored for the aircraft, but by 1986 Atlas had settled on a light single- engined design 16 metres in length with a wingspan of about 9 metres, a single vertical stabiliser and a mid-mounted delta wing with F/A-18-style leading-edge root extensions (LERX) above curved side engine intakes. The design featured extensive use of composite materials, both to reduce weight and reduce the radar signature. It was to be able to carry all the weapons then in the SAAF’s inventory or in development at the time, including the H-2 guided bomb, V3C and U-Darter short-range guided missiles and the planned beyond visual range missile that later entered service as the R-Darter. Its payload capacity would have been comparable to that of a Mirage 2000.

Yet little of the technology required to build the aircraft existed locally, so Atlas and the SAAF began spending huge amounts of money in focused research and development in three main areas: high- strength composite materials, integrated digital avionics and communications systems, and jet engine development.

Much of the latter research went into Mattek and Aerotek’s work to increase the performance and reliability of the Atar 09K50 engine, by refitting the turbine with single-crystal blades and replacing the riveted compressor with a welded one.

This resulted in a 10% performance boost, greater reliability and much more carefree throttle handling in all flight conditions. However, even with this improvement, the 09K50 remained too heavy and too low-powered for Carver to meet its performance requirements, a problem which was never fully solved. Atlas attempted to covertly acquire Snecma M53s (as used in the Mirage 2000) and Snecma M88s (as used in the Rafale and the planned Novi Avion), but neither attempt came to fruition.

By 1987, the project was going forward at full pace and, when the Israeli Aircraft Industries Lavi was cancelled, Atlas went on a recruiting spree amongst the engineers who had worked on it, offering fantastic incentives such as salaries starting at US$7,000 a month paid in any currency into any bank account in the world, free accommodation and regular free or heavily-discounted flights back to Israel. Unsurprisingly, a few hundred engineers and designers accepted the offer and joined Atlas and the Carver project.

The project soon progressed to the testing of scale models in the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) wind tunnels, some of which had been built especially for the project.

By 1988, construction on some full-scale elements had begun, in the lead-up to a 1:1 scale mock-up and later a prototype. One photo shows the Carver design team standing in front of a jig with a machined frame section from the aircraft’s midsection, where the main landing gear would have been fitted.

A model of the twin-engined Project Carver concept, seen at the 2016 Rand Show
A model of the twin-engined Project Carver concept, seen at the 2016 Rand Show

CHANGE TO A TWIN
However, the project was thrown into disarray that same year when the SAAF made the decision to scrap the single- engined variant and to change the design to a twin-engined aircraft instead. The specific reasons for this remain unclear, but two main explanations have been submitted by those who worked on the project: The first was that even with the 10% performance increase that Mattek and Aerotek had managed to achieve with the Atar 09K50, the engine remained too heavy and too low-powered for Carver to meet its performance requirements, thus the decision to switch to a twin-engined configuration. The second was that the new Chief of the SAAF, Lt Gen. Jan van Loggerenberg, had flown Buccaneers and wanted an aircraft with a similar range and load-carrying capability.

Whatever the actual reason for the change in configuration, it set the project back by at least two years, as the use of two engines required a much larger and heavier aircraft — closer to the size of the Mirage 4000 – with more complex systems. This forced the design team to return to the drawing board.

The model shown in the accompanying pictures was the one built to showcase that twin-engine configuration. The Dassault influence in the design is obvious.

That delay, along with others, made the SAAF realise that Carver would no longer be ready in the timescales originally planned for, so in 1988 it approved the interim fighter project, Tunny, to acquire an aircraft that could fulfil the country’s air defence needs to around 2008-2012. The 38 Cheetah Cs that were developed under this project were delivered from 1993 to 1994.

CANCELLATION
In the end, the delays were the project’s death knell, as external circumstances changed and the project’s rationale began to fade away. The Angolan Border War, once the driver for the development of South Africa’s military capabilities, ended in December 1988 with a peace deal. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1990 and by 1991 it was clear that South Africa was on its way to a negotiated transition and the end of Apartheid, after which the arms embargo would be lifted. In the context of these developments, it no longer made sense to continue spending so much on developing an indigenous fighter and in February 1991 President FW de Klerk announced the cancellation of Project Carver.

The legacy of Carver can be seen everywhere in the South African aerospace industry, but it came at significant financial cost. By 1991 the country had spent US$2 billion on it, equating to over R54 billion in today’s money, without a single aircraft to show for it. On top of that, the acquisition of the Cheetah Cs as interim fighters had cost another US$1.8 billion or R43 billion in today’s money. To put this in context, the entirety of the controversial 1998 Strategic Defence Procurement Package, popularly known as the ‘Arms Deal’, cost US$4.8 billion for 26 Gripens, 24 Hawks, 30 A109s, 4 Valour-class frigates and 3 Warrior-class submarines.

Yet even with the knowledge that a production run of Carver aircraft would have cost another US$2 billion or so, it’s impossible to shake the wish that the timing had worked out a little more in its favour and that a prototype had flown. It would undoubtedly have pushed the local defence industry to another level of sophistication and might have created more sales and development opportunities after 1994.
Click to expand...

www.africandefence.net

Project Carver emerges from the shadows

Denel’s stand at the Rand Show held earlier this year featured an unexpected surprise: It was the first time ever that a twin-engined model of South Africa’s highly-classified indigenous jet fighte…
www.africandefence.net www.africandefence.net
 
As mentioned in the South African Aviation thread, I was once shown a couple of pictures of a model that immediately was apparent to me was part of the Carver project.
I suspect it was an early design in the programme from its features. We know that in the Carver programme, quite a variety of aerodynamic configurations were studied, and tested. Canard designs were looked at, but discarded, so I suspect it was one of those.

Operating from memory, the model looked like it had its design origins using a Cheetah type airframe (the size and rear primarily) as a starting point, yet was very different.
From memory, it had its main wing moved upwards, no longer at the bottom of the fuselage. I seem to recall a mid fuselage location, so in between a Cheetah type and Carver type location. The wing was no longer a delta, but a double delta.
The air intakes were no longer half round conical shaped as on the Cheetah, but had become squarer, sort of halfway between the Cheetah and the Gripen.
It had much larger canards, which were obviously fully moveable.
The front fuselage was different to the cheetah, and the cockpit was raised.
The overall impression was of a Fighter around the size class of the Mirage 2000/ F-16.

I think these pics were sent to me around 2016-2017, and the model was still in existence.

I have moved since then, and had a laptop crash, so am trying to locate those images, with the help of a fellow forum member.

I would need to try and re-establish contact with the source, as he didn't at the time want it to be put into the open domain, as the model was displayed internally at the aerospace company he worked for, and which had been hived off Atlas when that was made part of Denel.
 
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