I was looking around the interwebs and found this little fan

>french

Can't we develop better missiles?

What do missiles use for fuel? If we could find a fuel that's twice as powerful, the same size missile could have double the payload.

What about explosive? I know what they use isn't nearly as powerful as pure nitroglycerin, right?

If they could double the explosive power and double the fuels efficiency, planes could carry twice as many missiles.

Cruise missiles would be half the size, or get twice the range and have twice the power if they kept the size the same.


WE ARE STILL USING TECH FROM LIKE FIVE DECADES AGO, right?

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>>28443320
Most aircraft have some pipe dream like this, unless they're the F-18 or F-15, where they actually shell out the money and made it because they won the political war.

>tfw no engine was ever made that wasn't undersized for the F-14's massive pylons.
>ATG was a hack
>No bomber formations to shoot your massive missile at.
>Your radar was a hack from a different plane
>So was your wings.
>but you still look so cool

>>28443320
While the 5 million hours in MS paint are appreciated, the artist behind this missed something pivotal, literally.

Look at the mass, the wings, the weapons, the engine.
Now look where the landing gear are.

>>28443654
>not flying forever

>>28443320
A similar wing concept has been looked at with the F-16XL, which involved a stretched fuselage and double-delta wing. Just in terms of performance, you get far better range, payload, and supersonic performance. Adding these upgrades to that wouldn't be too much of a stretch.

The real issue comes with development costs. Back when the USAF was considering the F-16XL, it was flying off against the F-15E. Not only was the F-15E massively more capable, but the program cost projections were actually far cheaper for the Strike Eagle than the F-16XL. Turns out all of those structural changes made to accommodate the wing really fuck with production lines, raising costs to the point where it's better to either buy an all-around better aircraft or start development of a similar class of aircraft from scratch.

If you're committing to such a radical redesign of the F-16 itself, why not include increased fuel capacity into the redesign instead of using CFTs? That's what the F-16XL did.

>>28443845
Why not both?

>>28443567
Eh missiles have made quite some leaps and bounds. Take the AIM-9X, since the first firing of the AIM-9 in 1952 the little missile has gone a long way. The thrust vectoring and off boresight capability really makes it a good missile. You don't even have to aim. Just look at target with helmet and there she goes. In fact I feel like missiles have almost made planes obsolete, hell any airbase too close would get raped by missiles and too far would be less helpful and often need to use risky tankers.

>>28443633
I'll always miss the F-14.

>>28443654
I don't see anything wrong with the landing gear, they are in the same position as the normal F-16 and the F-16AT Falcon 21 which is basically this minus the DSI and the LOAN which is actually an official aircraft so I wouldn't expect it to be too bad.

>>28443831
Interesting point, perhaps it would be simpler to give it a thrust vectoring nozzle, perhaps even fluidic thrust vectoring.

>>28443845
True, they are ugly, but I didn't make the picture

>>28444149
Thrust vectoring for an F-16 would be unnecessary. It's already absurdly agile, and all thrust vectoring nozzles would do is complicate maintenance for a negligible agility gain.

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>>28443567
>Can't we develop better missiles?

you know about MPADS right? stingers and shit. well, those missiles only weigh about 25 lbs on average, have a rage of about 5 miles, and go around Mach 2.

>>28444260
The thing about the F-16 is it has great sustained turn capability, but lacks the instantaneous high alpha capability of like an F-18 or a MiG-29 or an Su-27. However it has a much better sustained turn due to its low drag and high T:W. But give it TVC it would not only have good sustained turn but good instantaneous turn, like the F-35.

>>28444338
Would be effective against low flying aircraft and especially choppers, the new Stingers with Passive seekers are deadly though.

S-500 (not MANPADS though) are quite scary

>>28443567
>WE ARE STILL USING TECH FROM LIKE FIVE DECADES AGO, right?

No, we're not.

What was the point of this weird little spergout?

File: F-16XL_parked_high_angle_view.jpg (1MB, 3000x2225px) Image search: [Google]

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>>28443320

Reminds me of the F-16XL

>>28443567
>Can't we develop better missiles?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder#Block_III

>In September 2012, Raytheon was ordered to continue developing the Sidewinder into a Block III variant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-120_AMRAAM#Air-to-air_missile_versions

>The AIM-120D is an upgraded version of the AMRAAM with improvements in almost all areas, including 50% greater range (than the already-extended range AIM-120C-7) and better guidance over its entire flight envelope yielding an improved kill probability (Pk). Raytheon began testing the D model on August 5, 2008

I know that google is hard but please spare us these autistic rants in the future.

>>28445239
>>28445416

I'll explain.

Tomahawks are 3 decades old. Naval cannons are like a hundred years old but we are finally making developments there.

Shit like that.

I'm the dude that made the "WHY DON'T WE HAVE STARFIGHTERS YET" thread.

Yea I rant.

>>28446220
>I'm the dude that made the "WHY DON'T WE HAVE STARFIGHTERS YET" thread.
Oh I see then. You're retarded.

>>28443567
>Can't we develop better missiles?
Of course, and we are.
>What do missiles use for fuel?
APCP, the most potent solid rocket propellant in widespread usage.
>If we could find a fuel that's twice as powerful
We can't. You just can't push the chemistry that far.
At best, you can get about another 30% with something exotic like CL-20, or you can go liquid and maybe get a bit more. Neither has the proven practicality and stability of APCP, though.
>What about explosive?
Same deal, more or less.
>If they could double the explosive power and double the fuels efficiency, planes could carry twice as many missiles.
But they can't.

What they CAN do - and ARE doing - is improve guidance and fusing technology so that a missile can reliably do sufficient damage with a smaller warhead. This, in turn, allows a smaller engine to be used to obtain the same range, resulting in dramatic reductions in missile size and weight (look up the CUDA missile, or most modern MANPADS). Alternatively you can keep the same size engine and use the warhead weight reductions to improve velocity and range (i.e. THAAD), or keep both engine and warhead large and use the accuracy improvements just to improve lethality (PATRIOT PAC-3).

>>28446357
where do you learn all this shit? looking to read up.

>>28446645
I'm not that guy, but there's plenty of resources on the interwebs; you just have the interest and know your Googlefu. Internet forums can also be a good resource so long as you take everything with a grain of salt and check the post history of people to see if they know their stuff.

>>28445416
>I know that google is hard but please spare us these autistic rants in the future.

AMRAAM is shit dude, it has shot down more friendlies than allies. The new meteor missile is far superior. This is because the meteor is a clean sheet modern design, where as everything the USA uses is just a simple modernization of a decades old design. You can only modernize cold war relics so much before you have to move on to a new design.

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>>28443320

>tfw OP doesn't know jack shit

>>28447205
The AMRAAM has shot down 11 aircraft; only 1 of them was friendly.

Also, while the Meteor is better, the AMRAAM is tested and proven; the AIM-120D even has a range similar to the Meteor.

>>28446220
>I'm the dude that made the "WHY DON'T WE HAVE STARFIGHTERS YET" thread.

Move along folks, nothing to see here.

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>>28443654

Genebal Dienamks plz

>>28446357
>We can't. You just can't push the chemistry that far.
You can get propellant thats a lot better actually
It's just that it's not stable/safe/easy to handle/solid at roomtemperature/etc