AX Contenders (alternatives to the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II)

[overscan]

McDonnell-Douglas's AX design was Model 206.

 

[Pioneer]

Please excuse my ignorance, but is this (pictured below) a Fairchild-Republic early A-10 design study? ??? ?

And the Fairchild-Hiller design that actually won the AX comp - the Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II was designated FH-129 design by Fairchild-Hiller itself??

Regards
Pioneer

 

[overscan]

No, its the Convair Model 70 AX design I believe.


http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2615.msg109820.html#msg109820

 

[Stargazer2006]

No, its the Convair Model 70 AX design I believe.

And yet the Model 70 is always shown with pod-mounted engines under the wings. Here the engines are blended into the wing, which doesn't appear on any of the other AX pictures we have had so far...

the Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II was designated FH-129 design by Fairchild-Hiller itself??

I believe this is only an assumption based on the fake "FH-129" buzz number that appears on the aircraft's nose in one of Fairchild Republic's paintings.

 

[Stargazer2006]

No, its the Convair Model 70 AX design I believe.

On second thought, and after browsing through the whole topic once again, I believe what we have here is the CESSNA design.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2615.msg59490.html#msg59490

 

[overscan]

No, its the Convair Model 70 AX design I believe.

And yet the Model 70 is always shown with pod-mounted engines under the wings. Here the engines are blended into the wing, which doesn't appear on any of the other AX pictures we have had so far...

the Fairchild A-10A Thunderbolt II was designated FH-129 design by Fairchild-Hiller itself??

I believe this is only an assumption based on the fake "FH-129" buzz number that appears on the aircraft's nose in one of Fairchild Republic's paintings.

"FH-100" appears on a Fairchild F-X model, giving this more credibility.

 

[overscan]

No, its the Convair Model 70 AX design I believe.

On second thought, and after browsing through the whole topic once again, I believe what we have here is the CESSNA design.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2615.msg59490.html#msg59490

I think you need a new pair of glasses, Stephane


Here's why I think its a version of the Convair Model 70, with the engine pods moved up slightly into the wings (see attached)

Tony's book has General Dynamics Fort Worth AX, Grumman twin turbofan Model 450-4 (eerily similar to the A-10), 2 more Lockheed AX designs, North American NA-339...

 

[Stargazer2006]

I think you need a new pair of glasses, Stephane
Here's why I think its a version of the Convair Model 70, with the engine pods moved up slightly into the wings (see attached)

Agreed. The aircraft's general lines and proportions all converge toward the Convair Model 70. I can't argue with that! You'll have to admit though that the engine installation is extremely different from the various images we have of that design. Hence my (false) assumption that it might have been Cessna (I realize of course that the latter's lines are different).

 

[overscan]

Yes - it is most likely an earlier version of the design given that a desk model of the podded engine version exists which means its probably the submission design.

 

[overscan]

Thanks to Secret Projects members' donations and Mark Nankivil, Vought V-502-11 AX project from 1967.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Greetings All -

A recent EPay buy of a 1968 LTV AX Concept print.

Enjoy the Day! Mark



[See revised version below - Admin]

 

[overscan]

Cleaned up to remove effect of textured paper:

 

[Stargazer2006]

Cleaned up to remove effect of textured paper:

Wow! I'd be curious to know how you did that one!

 

[overscan]

GIMP plugin set GMIC - Bilateral Filtering. Its a noise reduction filter which preserves edges pretty well.

 

[Triton]

Northrop A-9 contractor model found on eBay.

[link no longer active]

Genuine?

 

[overscan]

Mark has sent me the originals - here is my scan. Marks scan is actually more faithful to the original artwork, which is kind of a little "washed out", but I prefer my version.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Greetings All -

Drawings of the V-502-11 from the Vought Archives.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[overscan]

3 view...

 

[Pioneer]

Once again great work and great find Mark!!
I thought of the Vought AX design, after first seeing the artist impression was that it was somewhat more compact than the likes of the Fairchild/Northrop designs. Your finding with these drawings seem to support this!!

Keep them coming mate!!!


Regards
Pioneer

 

[saba]

My favorite thread !
Thanks, MM. Nankivil and Martell !
IMHO, these last drawings for the V-502 are related to the -10 in place of the -11 wich is longer and has full scale TF34 (see previous 3 views drawings of different V-502 in this thread)
Cordialement,
Dominic

 

[AeroFranz]

Mark, it's fully redundant at this point, but your posts are gems. Thanks for taking the time to dig 'em up.

 

[alfakilo]

Interesting...but the last thing we were thinking about dropping was M117s. Until the first Gulf war, forward firing ordnance (gun and Maverick) was our primary choice. If we had to go with free fall bombs, it would have been parent mounted Mk82, probably tossed into the target area.

 

[Stargazer2006]

A cleaned-up version of pictures seen earlier in this topic:

1°) The first Convair design reminds me of the much earlier OS-117 proposal for the Navy.
2°) No mention of the Vought V-502 in the report. It might have been dropped at an early stage in the competition.

Enjoy!

 

[Stargazer2006]

... and of course the two finalists, the other Northrop and the Fairchild-Hiller designs, as well as a chart comparing four of the designs with the specified requirements.

Source: A-10 Thunderbolt II (Warthog) Systems Engineering Case Study

 

[AeroFranz]

outstanding

 

[overscan]

3 years earlier, in the same topic....


http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2615.msg59489.html#msg59489


;D

 

[Orionblamblam]

3 years earlier, in the same topic....

Meanwhile, in the distant past...

 

[Jemiba]

Well, searching for pictures often is quite hard. A function, to show all pages
of a thread as thumbnails would be great ....

 

[cluttonfred]

Thanks for sharing, even if not for the first time.

One question on the Convair AX-1 proposal...how they heck did they envision syncronizing a 30mm Gatling gun to fire through the prop? I have never heard of an externally-powered gun being syncronized in that way. The only system I can imagine is electric ignition and the gun would just spit out, unfired, the rounds that would have hit the prop, which seems very wasteful given the price of depleted uranium.

 

[Stargazer2006]

So sorry for the duplication (not quite so in fact, since the pics were cleaned up a bit).

I honestly couldn't remember seeing these before here, and I didn't check the rest of the thread beforehand.

As for a visualisation of a whole topic before posting, what I usually do is that I click on "All" instead of a page number, and the whole topic then shows as one page only.

 

[Triton]

Northrop A-9A model found on eBay.

Source:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NORTHROP-A-9A-VINTAGE-AVIATION-COLLECTOR-COMPANY-DESPLAY-MODEL-/281022592776?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item416e407708

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Greetings All -

Found the attached artwork (appears to the be the Grumman AX design) in a 1974 issue of National Aeronautics magazine.

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[Pioneer]

Does anyone have any links to footage of the Northrop YA-9 flying, firing cannon or dropping weapons, during the YA-10 & YA-9 flyoff / eveluation???
There has to be something out there that shows this design in flight, so as to compare too that of the YA-10 footage :-\
I've had no luck with Youtube

Regards
Pioneer

 

[The Artist]

Does anyone have any links to footage of the Northrop YA-9 flying, firing cannon or dropping weapons, during the YA-10 & YA-9 flyoff / eveluation???
There has to be something out there that shows this design in flight, so as to compare too that of the YA-10 footage :-\
I've had no luck with Youtube

Regards
Pioneer

Just a thought. See if any of the Air Force Now segments from that period have been digitized and placed on the web. We saw a lot of the Air Force Now installments on 16mm in an explorer post back in the 70s and I think there was some of what you're looking for in that series.

 

[circle-5]

Northrop YA-9A at March AFB, California, earlier today.

 

[overscan]

Nice pic - and A-9 is not in too bad condition.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Nice pic - and A-9 is not in too bad condition.

Was thinking that myself.

 

[Pioneer]

G'day gents
I just stumbled across this great video on Youtube! It's titled 'Northrop A-9 and Fairchild Republic A-10 Briefing'
Look it up, for it shows the best and for that matter the only footage I've seen of the Northrop A-9 flying and delivering weapons during the trials!


Regards
Pioneer

 

[cluttonfred]

To save some cutting, pasting and clicking....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRsor-m9CB4‎

 

[Pioneer]

Good on ya Cluttonfred!
For some reason it wouldn't allow me to cut and past the link last night

I'm thinking there must be some very interesting video/film footage of the A-9 out there in internet land!!

Regards
Pioneer