Stealthy Weapons/Sensors Carriage

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publiusr

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Could you mount weapons on a collapsible fuel tank?

As the fuel runs out...the tankage moves/folds inwards, taking the munitions inward to the bays for stealth?
 

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F-18 screwed an IRST sensor to the front of a drop tank as well of course.
That F-14 patent had a revolving weapon mount that revolved into the space left by the fuel tank after it collapsed. Pretty significant redesign of the bomb bay doors required and they dont seem to have considered the clearance issues caused by the attached weapons being revolved, they would have to be a lot smaller than otherwise could be carried. (Picture Fig 5. revolving around the central axis as illustrated in the diagram.)
 
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Sticks out slightly, draw a perfect circle centred on the pivot and the bombs clip through it a bit. And thats before even getting to the pivot supporting several thousand pounds of bombs and assembly being the size of a dowel rod and the side structures guide rails of the bomb box supporting the vertical movement of the fuel tank as it fills and empties described in the patent is also missing from the illustration. (i.e. theres also internal supporting structure on the inside of the bomb bay that the bombs would be conflicting with).

Did the F-14 even have a large internal weapon bay by the way or was it taken up by the wing swing mechanism?
 
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WatcherZero said:
Did the F-14 even have a large internal weapon bay by the way or was it taken up by the wing swing mechanism?
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There was no weapon bay, but there was a tunnel in between the nacelles where the main weapon rails went.

Patent drawings are illustrative and focus on the idea rather than be accurate
 
On the opposite spectrum of things I remember back when the Mitsubishi X-2 was slatted to do weapons bay testing, there was talk they were going to use a detachable weapons bay that could possibly be jettisoned like external fuel.
 
WatcherZero said:
Did the F-14 even have a large internal weapon bay by the way or was it taken up by the wing swing mechanism?
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It's a deep tunnel between the engines. The wing swing mechanisms and load box is about 2x the wing thickness, 50% above and 50% below the wing upper and lower surfaces.
 
Kota said:
On the opposite spectrum of things I remember back when the Mitsubishi X-2 was slatted to do weapons bay testing, there was talk they were going to use a detachable weapons bay that could possibly be jettisoned like external fuel.
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Interesting, I hadn't seen mention of that

I don't see why you couldn't do that. It would be like a flying wind tunnel model I guess. Sort of like the practice bomb carrier below but with different external shape and doors.

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red admiral said:
Interesting, I hadn't seen mention of that

I don't see why you couldn't do that. It would be like a flying wind tunnel model I guess. Sort of like the practice bomb carrier below but with different external shape and doors.

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My memories are a little foggy on it as it's like almost 10 years ago thing, but if memory serves me right, some of the wind tunnel models had what was basically just a fuselage extension that would just attach to the existing belly of the X-2 and carry a couple missiles to retrofit an IWB.
 
Kota said:
On the opposite spectrum of things I remember back when the Mitsubishi X-2 was slatted to do weapons bay testing, there was talk they were going to use a detachable weapons bay that could possibly be jettisoned like external fuel.
Click to expand...
That's interesting.

A layered approach could keep stealth:

Bladder tank falls away..
exposed weapons--which are released---then their mounts.

Air-to-air internally.
 

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