Well, with the usual caveats, it is interesting that so far the clues we've seen point to both NG and Boeing (for which i take as reference the canard diamond wing design shown in a PPT from some time ago) configurations being tailless canards.
It's obviously a 3D model of a fan game/pixel art variation that was also featured in a past article about 6th gen and drone. The pixel art is from at least a decade ago. I don't remember from where and it seems google has purged old links from results.Not without surprise it looks like that NG PPT is from 2024. Has anyone done artwork of the configuration depicted? Apart from being in a NG PPT, that configuration gives an uncanny vibe of actually fitting overall with what little we've seen from F-47 renderings so far.
It's actually 53° and outside angle so the sweep angle is 90-53=37°. A lot of people are confused by this. I've given it for the outside because the inside is usually cluttered and would be more confusing.@Seragina Regarding the 52 degree wing sweep, that's the sweep for a mach 1.6+ regime, but wouldn't that mean less efficient flight in the speeds up to mach 1.5 - 6 ish where you'd be spending the majority of your supercruise flight + BVR fighting at? Also - there are canards on this fighter which would need a leading edge sweep matching the wing sweep. I would think something like mid 40's sweep would be good enough but I'd love to hear your (and others) thoughts on that.
Well, ventral intakes are also bad for sucking in ground water and debris.This is actually what caused me great headache when trying to fit a single central intake.
Arguments against a ventral intake:
- Primarily, the reason for this is that we know it's a twin engined fighter. Every single example of a ventral intake proposed for a stealth fighter (of which there are extremely few) also only feeds a single engine and thus doesn't need a split airflow. For this and other ventral intake renders, I'm curious in this render how you've split the airflow. Last I asked about this, it was said that you need to split the airflow upfront rather than internally - a splitte plate like the Su-75 or Eurfighter kind, but that's now somewhat problematic RCS wise. The Su-75 remains the only stealth fighter with a splitter plate looking thing in it's intakes (even though it's been said that that isn't a splitter plate either).
- Tangentially, landing gear placements and internal volume also don't lend itself to this. Looking at the few examples we have of fighter aircraft with ventral intakes, the front landing gear is always sitting on the ventral intake itself - I presume due to creating turbulent air and kicking up debris if it sits in front of the intakes. That means:
- Your intakes must sit further forward and the narrowing of the fuselage also begins to constrict the intake area, which, from what's been discussed on this forum, should be generally wider than other stealth fighter intakes due to VCEs
- The other option is to have a much longer fuselage to allow you to put your ventral intake and front landing gear further back while still having large bays, but then we aren't talking about an F-22 or YF-23 sized fighter.
- A wider or thick airframe. In this configuration, I couldn't fit tandem bays in my model because that interferes with the front wheel bay position. Going with a side by side bay configuration couldn't fit nearly as many weapons.
No.It's obviously a 3D model of a fan game/pixel art variation that was also featured in a past article about 6th gen and drone.
Not that I'm nit picking here, but you can see what I'm talking about here in your screen caps - I've also got it to overlap "sorta" right but you align one thing and something else is off.Brief thoughts on the renders:
- Having pushed stuff around a bit (see attached) I am 90% sure that these are undistorted renders of the same model
- The cameras are set up in a pretty weird way though, having focal lengths that make them almost orthographic.
- In my set up (using Blender) I have a focal length of 362mm for the hangar shot, and 264mm for the flying shot.
- (Another way of replicating this would be to zoom way out, then crop in on the plane.)
- As a side note, I'm pretty sure the hanger image is reflected down the middle.
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...ion-of-the-boeing-f-47-ngad.45793/post-805564
The J20 has canards like this:I also thought about that. The nose & canard could be located above the wing, maybe a similar arrangement like on Rafale... But it's hard to find a satisfying solution that blends nose, canard, wing and airintake seamless into a LO shape.
The J20 has canards like this:
View attachment 792455
The root might not be higher but it's angled more?
At wings level, mine sits lower than the wing and blends completely into the wing's own angle so...I guess back to the drawing board.
Hi!If I’m being greedy I would still love to see a variant with a flatter and wider central body with more conventional and separate intakes for the engines.
Also Rodrigo have you spun up any swing wing, vertical tail-less regional or medium range strike concepts? Thanks!
Keep up the beautiful art!
Hello again,If I’m being greedy I would still love to see a variant with a flatter and wider central body with more conventional and separate intakes for the engines.
Also Rodrigo have you spun up any swing wing, vertical tail-less regional or medium range strike concepts? Thanks!
Keep up the beautiful art!
As a proponent of the wide body design, I think proportionally, neither the X-36 nor any of the MDD drawings floated in this thread before were narrow or conventional per se. In fact of the MDD drawings I've seen posted here, almost all of the tailless ones ended up being flat and wide or conventionally shaped. This has been carrying through in the more recent Boeing released renders as well.All of McDonnell Douglas's studies from the 1990s were based on narrow aircraft, some of them twin-engine.
Even Boeing's own proposal for the ATF was a very narrow model.
Hi!As a proponent of the wide body design, I think proportionally, neither the X-36 nor any of the MDD drawings floated in this thread before were narrow or conventional per se. In fact of the MDD drawings I've seen posted here, almost all of the tailless ones ended up being flat and wide or conventionally shaped. This has been carrying through in the more recent Boeing released renders as well.
Tailed ATF designs shouldn't really bear much weight on a tailless 6th gen design with greater range and volume requirements beyond design philosophies that a company may or may not prefer. In fact, I'd even argue that the X-32 wasn't even a narrow design.
I actually really liked your more recent F/A-XX model. I think it fits well with the kinda general designs we've seen being floated in the past 5 - 10 years.
View attachment 792979View attachment 792978
Could still. Nobody who can say has spilled the beans.Call me crazy but i thought that the f-47 was going to have a dorsal intake
You know since you said this...From what I've been able to gather from some engineers at other companies, they highly doubt the F47 will ultimately have canards.
That would be an honor. However, I think I need to do some more work. After messing around with targetpractice's model, I think I need to do a narrower planform like yours and targetpractice's models. I'm hoping to get it done over thanksgiving and I'll posted here along with the .blend file.On another note, I'd love to do some renders of your model if you'd like.
Did the industry insiders you talked with give any insight about why the F-47 might have a dihedral ?Hi!
Yes, you might be right and the F47 might be a classic Dorito-style plane. I'm basing my opinion mainly on the render with the flag in the background. I see a plane that isn't very wide, but I could be wrong, and besides, you did a great job with the camera angles and analyzing perspectives.
From what I've been able to gather from some engineers at other companies, they highly doubt the F47 will ultimately have canards. They tell me that they literally increase the radar signature and make the plane look like a Christmas tree (their exact words).
As far as I know, both of them worked on sixth-generation fighter development for their respective companies.
And as I said, they both agree that the F47 won't be very pretty.
Obviously, for security reasons, my conversations were limited to what I just said.
But, from what I've discussed, the F47 might end up looking more like this model I made back in 2018, which is a version of my FA-XX but without canards (this model is the aircraft that appears in the AFResearchLab video "Air Force 2030 - Call to Action"
No, they didn't mention the dihedral. What surprised them most was that it had canards. They both agreed that it's an outdated design concept. I don't know if there are so many differences in design criteria between the various companies that two companies see canards as antiquated while the other uses them in its two most important projects: NGAD and FA-XX.¿Los expertos de la industria con los que usted habló le dieron alguna idea de por qué el F-47 podría tener un diedro?
The fun part is that I believe the only render released (nearly 9 years ago) by Boeing showed a plane without canards. The one with canards was their render for F/A-XX.It could be there are no canards at all (which still feels unlikely to me, as I don't know that there is a precedent for this kind of misdirection in previous teasers)
The canard trailing edge is appears very strange as the front view makes it look crooked:It could be that the middle of the canard is actually really thick, and the change you see is actually the middle hump obscuring the inner trailing edge. Rodrigo's render hints at this: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/attachments/15-jpg.792894/
Interestingly, the J-20s canards are much larger than those seen on the Boeing image, something of great significance given that protruding structures can increase radar signature and increase drag. While canards can increase drag, the extent to which this happens largely depends upon their placement and size. This seems quite significant, as the canards on the PLA AF’s J-20 are much larger than the small canards visible on the available image of the F-47. It might make sense that the canards are added to the F-47 to support its air-to-air combat maneuverability, particularly given that the frame of the NGAD does not appear to have any fins or vertical structures typically used to better enable high-speed vectoring. Now the question is : does the canards have a lower raddar signature than any fins or vertical structures ? Idk if someone could answer that in theory, without knowing the size of said canards wingJ-20 canards sit on the side/behind the intakes... I chose Rafale as an example because the nose transions smooth into those "cheeks" above the intakes, where the canards are mounted. However, the wings are lower and the leading edge transitions into the side wall of the air intake. I wonder if this kind of arrangement woukd be feasible for a stealth fighter (...with DSI intakes?)
View attachment 792457
In the J20 thread there was a post about an analysis that showed no effect on RCS for the canards being deflected 20degrees or less.Interestingly, the J-20s canards are much larger than those seen on the Boeing image, something of great significance given that protruding structures can increase radar signature and increase drag. While canards can increase drag, the extent to which this happens largely depends upon their placement and size. This seems quite significant, as the canards on the PLA AF’s J-20 are much larger than the small canards visible on the available image of the F-47. It might make sense that the canards are added to the F-47 to support its air-to-air combat maneuverability, particularly given that the frame of the NGAD does not appear to have any fins or vertical structures typically used to better enable high-speed vectoring. Now the question is : does the canards have a lower raddar signature than any fins or vertical structures ? Idk if someone could answer that in theory, without knowing the size of said canards wing
More Arrow shape fuselage ? Can you make a draw with the 54 degree ?The fun part is that I believe the only render released (nearly 9 years ago) by Boeing showed a plane without canards. The one with canards was their render for F/A-XX.
View attachment 793290
The canard trailing edge is appears very strange as the front view makes it look crooked:
View attachment 793285
But now that you mention it, yeah the change in incidence seems to echo the same curvature as the shadow being casted so it could well be a beefy inner trailing edge.
And also - the more I play around with the camera angles, the more I think I might be wrong. The fuselage is indeed narrow. Not just that but I'm revolving around something like a 54 degree LE sweep which seems... really high. Maybe that's why it needs canards or something.
It's also not a given that both renders are of the same model. It's entirely possible that some design changes reached the art department in between the two graphics being produced.My initial idea to reason this away is that perhaps that section in both renders are different angles because that part is movable.
This is what im inclined to believe - or at least some iteration of it. There are things that line up well, but dont make sense and then there are parts that refuse to line up so either its not the same model or its been altered enough that even with the same underlying model, its not going to line up.It's also not a given that both renders are of the same model. It's entirely possible that some design changes reached the art department in between the two graphics being produced.
It ain't pretty. Too little fuselage too much wing. I'm of the opinion that the greater the sweep, the less reason there is to introduce aft reflectors against the fuselage hence why I stuck to the dorito form, but I'm still messing around with the camera angles while I'm working on it so... who knows.More Arrow shape fuselage ? Can you make a draw with the 54 degree ?
and I've noticed that the black figure on the bird's chest looks a lot like an airplane.
To illustrate your final point:Hahaha yes Rodrigo I agree and had also noticed the same thing. Actually the person who mentioned the RCS spike similarities of that patch is what drew me to it.
Let’s just say I have stared at all of these patches and have extensive notes as all the patches seem oddly loaded with a lot of references. I will not share them, bc it literally sounds insane.
One final note, if you squint your eyes that black bit could also be a canarded aircraft with the nose to the left and the exhaust on the right.