That's a rather aft position for a cockpit - what's it hiding in the nose? A weapons bay? Liftjets?
Fineness ratio for low drag - supercruise/high speed - maybe. No need to make a massive nose just to put your side arrays forward.
Humour is dead, it seems.
Which put a liftjet in front of the cockpit.
Big freaking radar antenna.
Big AESA antenna normally means WIDE radome, not LONG and pointy. Long & pointy radome is typically a bad shape for best radar performance compared to some kind of ogive.
Big aesa+ relatively narrow angular spread of nose for better high speed performance.
It is WIDE though, you're forgetting that this thing has an extremely wide platypus nose. The nose array by some estimates could be as large as the V004 on the Su-34.
Narrow fuselage shape (required for other reasons) means a long radome in order to have space for a wide antenna.
That's another possibility, though I still suspect fixed side arrays.
If the plane's role ends up as a mini-AWACS it would make sense to have 360 radar coverage installed.
Maybe they just put it there for area rule reasons?That's a rather aft position for a cockpit - what's it hiding in the nose? A weapons bay? Liftjets?
Conical to ogival.
Yep, could be. I think multiple arrays is better if you can afford cost, weight, power, volume.
This Lippisch design based on the DM-1 was to be a coal-fired ram jet fighter and only armed with cannons. A prototype with a ram jet was never flown to my knowledge but the configuration does have quite an aft cg, probably would have been difficult to fly. The XF-92 was spawned from this configuration which then evolved into the F-102 and F-106 fighters.
I was responding to Overscan's original question about the canopy position on the J-50.
I guess, no weapons bays on the side.
My guess is it's due to the design being tailless. Generally, you don't want the cockpit being too far forward and sticking up too high, especially with a higher fineness ratio design, as it can be destabilizing in yaw at high speeds and at low speeds with moderate crosswinds. It's going to be directly proportional to how much yaw power can be generated to maintain stability throughout the entire envelope.
Of a sort. Not so much a highly maneuverable dogfighter, the operational concept is closer to an interceptor.
the more lift and the less weight, means a lower corner velocity, the more weight higher torsional forces, the wingtips will suffer a lot of buffeting, since modern aircraft use basically the same fuel, more fuel, more weight, in few words most 6 generation aircraft are not that nimble, higher corner velocity will make lower G load and lower turn rate, higher altitude the same.
Exactly.
I'll give you the J-50 for air superiority but the J-36, in my opinion looking at it's configuration and with the number of elevons plus the four (2 per side) split wingtip surfaces, not so much. The J-36 is a large platform and could function as an interceptor and medium strike but it's not designed for maneuverability. The number of elevons scream supersonic trim similar to the XB-70. Not unless you're tied to the program in some manner; systems of systems, power generation, EW, range and bleeding edge, maybe or maybe not.
Why does dogfight maneuverability matter with all-aspect ARH and IIR missiles?
Northrop did a lot of boundary layer laminar flow development work for sub and supersonic inlets including the airfoil work (along with NASA) with its X-21 testbed aircraft, so you can see why Northrop designed the YF-23 inlets in this manner. The X-21 was somewhat difficult in keeping the airfoil orifices open and preventing clogging to maintain maximum efficiency of the boundary layer for the purpose of drag reduction. It did make improvements but deemed not feasible for operational aircraft and for standard maintenance practices.From a dead forum:
As for perforations near the intake, it looks similar to YF-23 solution:
View attachment 770677
The YF-23's Air Inlet Design Was Its Most Exotic Feature You Never Heard Of
Northrop engineers used an innovative solution for dealing with an old airflow problem that is especially troublesome for stealthy designs.www.twz.com
Agreed, I've seen some previous posts hinting at maneuverability due to the number and configuration of the flight surfaces.
They could reduce wave drag when supersonic as well.
I generally agree with you that it's air superiority but think it's more. I think it's meant to do carry out a modern day pearl harbor. There's no way that chinese transport ships can reach taiwan shores without suffering heavy heavy cost unless china can preemptively destroy runways surrounding it. The range, speed, stealth, sensor package and large payload are meant for it to be self sufficient without relying on traditional strike package (electronic and surveillance support assets etc) which could give away a preemptive strike.
