A EE Lightning development

[AndrewN]

Hi Folks!
I've been lurking around for a while and I've decided to contribute a piece that some of you my find interesting. This s a doodle around a development of the Lightning F6. I was just messing about one day with an unfinished Revell F6 (or FROG or Hasegawa...) and I wondered what it would look like if I filled in the gap on the wings XL 16 style. I hope to model this some day (when I get the time).

Cheers

Andrew

 

[Mat Parry]

I wish I could "doodle" that well. She's a beauty!

 

[AndrewN]

I admit that I did several "doodles" before these drawings to get the layout straight. There are still some Lightning "issues" though, lack of fuel being the obvious one. I did wonder about designing in "saddle tanks", like on the MiG 21 bis but these didn't look right.

Andrew

 

[Grey Havoc]

Maybe have it as a atomic powered Lightning variant?

 

[_Del_]

Might have to make the wings extend farther aft to keep the center of lift and gravity in a similar spot. Also adds more wing area, reduces wing loading,, and potentially increases volume for more fuel... You pick up weight though.

 

[Mat Parry]

http://hushkit.wordpress.com/2013/02/01/the-ultimate-what-if-bae-super-lightning/


I prefer your cranked delta


and on the topic of atomic what if's, this is still a puzzler!.... http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14770.30.html

 

[pathology_doc]

As I understand it, they played around with the idea of a full delta, found that the bit which ended up being left out contributed more drag than lift, and so ditched it. It was little things like this which made the Lightning supersonic without afterburner. OTOH the tradeoffs in the modern era, with a different mission perspective, might be worth it. And engines have improved too - more thrust for less fuel...