Pre-ATF fighter study with stores mounted on top of the fuselage? Can't find it.

[AeroFranz]

I need a little help finding the thread for this vehicle study, circa pre-ATF era, maybe Northrop. It had these weapons mounted conformally on top of the fuselage. I remember seeing some artist's renderings.
I'm using the search function but i just don't have good keywords to find it. Do you guys know what i'm talking about?

For that matter, can you think of other fighters mounting ordnance above the wing/fuselage, other than the British limited experiments with EE Lightning and Jaguar? It seems that loading the stores would be challenging.

Any help is much appreciated!

 

[aim9xray]

Rockwell, for one.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,331.msg71571.html#msg71571

There were other posts with better versions of the art.

HTH!

 

[_Del_]

I seem to remember a swing-wing design with similar missile carriage as well.

 

[flateric]

Grumman
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,106.msg341578.html#msg341578
Rockwell
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,331.msg138715.html#msg138715
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cosmolutz/8697685570/sizes/o/

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Rockwell design

 

[AeroFranz]

That's it. I bow to the collective knowledge of this forum that found it (and more) in record time! ;D

Well, at the cost of being greedy, does anyone know how overwing stations on Lightnings and Jaguars were loaded? as far as i know you could put Sidewinders, rockets, and fuel tanks on those stations. But they're pretty high up for loading crew to reach, not to mention some of those stores are heavy.

 

[Sundog]

That's it. I bow to the collective knowledge of this forum that found it (and more) in record time! ;D

Well, at the cost of being greedy, does anyone know how overwing stations on Lightnings and Jaguars were loaded? as far as i know you could put Sidewinders, rockets, and fuel tanks on those stations. But they're pretty high up for loading crew to reach, not to mention some of those stores are heavy.

There's a picture of them being loaded (Magic on Jag) at this page with an adapter arm on the loading cart. But, this page makes my web security go off, but I'm protected, so it wasn't a problem.

https://thechive.com/2017/03/31/story-behind-missiles-over-the-wings-25-photos/

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2017/03/story-behind-missiles-over-the-wings-218.jpg

 

[sferrin]

Funny thing is I'd never seen Jaguars with overwing Sidewinders then in Desert Storm they were all packing them.

 

[AeroFranz]

There's a picture of them being loaded (Magic on Jag) at this page with an adapter arm on the loading cart. But, this page makes my web security go off, but I'm protected, so it wasn't a problem.

https://thechive.com/2017/03/31/story-behind-missiles-over-the-wings-25-photos/

Interesting. It looks like an adapter arm mounted on top of a regular Jammer lift. I wonder if with this attachment they're still able to make the tiny adjustments required to align the rail with the pylon.
I've only recently been looking into how weapons are loaded, but my understanding is that the driver of the jammer gets the table with the store roughly in the right place, and another loading crew member uses some controls situated next to the table to look at the store and make fine adjustments to the alignment, before lifting it into the final position and locking the assemblies.
This looks like what's happening in this video starting at 0:55 and then again at 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1hGvsnpkhs

Funny that Sidewinders are just man-handled into place! it's probably easier that way for stores that are light enough.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Funny thing is I'd never seen Jaguars with overwing Sidewinders then in Desert Storm they were all packing them.

It was a right pain to put them on, so in normal times they rarely bothered, but in war, you'd appreciate the Sidewinders for self-defence.