več smo pričali o tome ali evo nešto novo...

Japan's ATD-X Shinshin stealth demonstrator will look a lot like the F-22. Official models and specs confirm it will be Gripen size and, while it will have three-dimensional thrust vectoring, the paddles won't be stealthy.

The engines and electronics are to be ready by 2009, final assembly is scheduled for 2010 and a first flight in 2011.

Span will be 9 meters (30 ft.), length 14 meters (46 ft.) and "weight" 9 metric tons (20,000 lb.), officials say. That weight figure is almost certainly for the loaded aircraft, without external stores, because the Gripen's numbers are about the same.

The configuration looks like it's been taken straight from the F-22, but notice that the planform is quite different, and much more conventional. In particular, the main-plane has less leading-edge sweep and greater aspect ratio than that of the supercruising F-22.



Note the duckbill nose and the flare of the forward fuselage, with a pronounced chine, on that display model.

An engineering model (below) doesn't have the duckbill nose and the chine is less prominent.





We can't be sure which model is the newest and therefore most representative, but it seems likely that the display model would be newer than the engineering model.

By the way, the engineering model isn't for wind tunnel test. We're told it's for radar cross-section tests, but can't confirm that.

The arrangement of the ATD-X's thrust-vectoring paddles is similar to a system that NASA tested in the 1990s. Any operational follow-on to the ATD-X would have to have a stealthier design.






The XF5-1 looks simple, with the small number of compressor and turbine stages that one would expect in a modern combat aircraft engine. Hats off to the Japanese for achieving such a design.



Finally, here's the ATD-X canopy, which uses indium tin oxide to disperse radio energy.

Da se ne ponovi priča kao sa japanskom varijantom F-16? 

Bas to,10 puta skuplji nego sto bi trebao da bude