Lockheed Martin Vectis CCA

quellish said:
That was the idea back in the 90s. Simplifies some things, complicates others, like launching weapons
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Couldn't you just design weapon bays to be placed upside down? So the plane takes off on and lands on one side, but then cruises and does combat turned on other side?
 
This reminds me of the debate about the NSM, which launches with its inlet on the dorsal side but is normally portrayed as flying with its inlet on the ventral side (I don't know if there was ever a conclusion about which way it actually cruises). That being said, the video that Lockheed just published consistently shows the Vectis flying with its inlet on the dorsal side.
 
Not James Stockdale said:
This reminds me of the debate about the NSM, which launches with its inlet on the dorsal side but is normally portrayed as flying with its inlet on the ventral side (I don't know if there was ever a conclusion about which way it actually cruises). That being said, the video that Lockheed just published consistently shows the Vectis flying with its inlet on the dorsal side.
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And almost all videos and pictures show JASSM flying inlet down, yet. . .
 
Not James Stockdale said:
This reminds me of the debate about the NSM, which launches with its inlet on the dorsal side but is normally portrayed as flying with its inlet on the ventral side (I don't know if there was ever a conclusion about which way it actually cruises). That being said, the video that Lockheed just published consistently shows the Vectis flying with its inlet on the dorsal side.
Click to expand...

For NSM it makes sense to change orientation from inlet on top to inlet on bottom depending on which phase of flight you are in. At launch you want the inlet on top to mitigate FOD or sea-spray ingestion. Once the missile is in sustained flight and sea skimming, you want the inlet down because until the terminal phase your most likely going to get detected by another aircraft looking down; in which case you want inlet down so the inlets are obscured.

The trade off here is you’d probably have to fly with some less than optimal airfoil on at least some phase of your flight. You want your airfoil to have some camber which means the airfoil on your wing is upside down at least some of the time. You might have to compensate for this with less range and/or larger tail surfaces or more deflection to maintain control in either orientation. I only see this as realistic for something like NSM where you are only inverted during launch phase but spend vast majority of your time right side up, whichever side that is.

I think people are over-prioritizing high AoA performance in modern air to air combat; especially for CCAs. CCAs are going to be used as long range missile trucks. If these things find themselves in dogfighting ranges, they are put there as sacrificial lambs or as bait.
 
It would suck even more for the pilot:
Would he be upside down on the ground, with a surely interesting boarding sequence?
Or would he fly the whole rest of the mission upside down?

Like the Shadoks once said: Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut faire compliqué...
Why make it simple when you can make it complicated?

(poor Shadoks, whose Gibis defaulted into ioukés...)
 

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