Build planning: "Ultimate Eagle"

[elmayerle]

Next question: a suitable "stinger" radar. Am I stuck with warning only, or is there an AESA on the shelf good enough and small enough that I could use it as a full attack radar for tailgaters and/or supplemental tracking of ground targets?

Also, would building up a "spine" on the back like some late-model F-16s provide enough structure to mount a rear-facing DAS aperture between the engine fairings? (I'm assuming that the Tiger Eye, LANTIRN Nav FLIR and "Super Sniper" would be integrated for forward apertures, and one could be mounted in each wingtip, which takes care of three out of six axes. Belly might fit in the ammo bay under the ICS gear... Maybe spine on top of the ICS.)

Biggest problem on the F-15 is working a "spine" around the dorsal airbrake (I can think of more than one solution for that).  You might look at a smaller spine starting aft of the airbrake; 'twould take some doing, but you could fair that in reasonably well to keep the added drag count down.  You'd need some definite wingtip pods to put the DAS there and you've got enough wing flexing that I wouldn't think it'd be the most desirable location.  Consider that the F-35 has forward/up, LH, and RH DAS sensors installed in the nose, forward of the cockpit (and that upper one was a right pain to install given the canopy mechanism the F-35 has).

[Diamondback]

Good point, I was thinking of the airbrake T/E as the start of the "expanded" area continuing out between the afterburners, or maybe blended to the contour of the upper engine skins and filling in the "dip".

[elmayerle]

Good point, I was thinking of the airbrake T/E as the start of the "expanded" area continuing out between the afterburners, or maybe blended to the contour of the upper engine skins and filling in the "dip".

That sounds doable with a comparative minimum of structural mods.

[Diamondback]

So, how far out from the nozzle would I need to stick the "stinger" to keep it out of hot afterburner flame? I'm thinking the spine and stinger would flow into one another via shared longerons for added structural strength...

[elmayerle]

I'm thinking that the fairing between the nozzles would fair up into the stinger.  Given how close the nozzles are, I think I'd keep the "stinger" above the nozzles (also avoids potential fouling situations).  I also don't know that I'd extend it too far aft of the aft face of the nozzles as certain conditions would allow a "bloom" of the exhaust plume under full burner.

[Diamondback]

So, maybe the AESA antenna roughly at the position of the A/B stinger tip with only the radome beyond that, and have the radome treated for heat resistance, and a DAS above the radar unit? Then I still have to figure out where to mount the DIRCM's...

Then I've been reading interesting things about ALE-50 towed decoys being mountable on fighter rails like BOL, and the next version being retrievable if not destroyed in decoying... so that becomes a question of balance between towed and dropped CM's.

[elmayerle]

So how long before the towed decoys become something more?  ISTR that ALCM started as a Quail replacement.

Yeah, your concept sounds reasible.  If there's room, I'd mount the DIRCMS on the outboard sponsons behind the horizontals, one above and one below each if there's sufficient real estate.

[Diamondback]

LOL good question... depends what "more" is. Would you believe part of the mayhem my prof and I hatched for the B-52 was proposing to dust off the Quails and refit them for target-designation work? (Then again, I could envision one of these birds' AIs trying to suck a tailgating fighter in, then launch a decoy right down his intake to feed him an engineful of scrap-metal... LOL)

Good idea on the tailboom mount... eliminates decisionmaking about which antennas to use, and an R2D2-shaped laser CM with a dome-like laser emitter may not need above/below but would have full rear-hemisphere coverage from each side. Could I sell the missile-vaping "point-defense laser" I'm incorporating on another build as a next-gen Nemesis, or does this much smaller install mean plausibility limits me to decoy/diversion only?

[elmayerle]

I'd say decoy/diversion only.  I don't think the tech is near there, yet, for a PDL in that volume.

I like the idea of an AI sucking a chasing fighter in close and then dumping some "scrap metal" down the intake.  Be amusing if chaff bloom could be controlled and a solid chunk be shoved down the following fighter's throat.

[Diamondback]

Oh, for metallic black to represent coatings? Tried it on a spare afterburner, and 80/20 came out a waste of silver, couldn't see any difference from straight black.

If I could find an add-on part for an ALE and a BOL, maybe one of each on each station, dispenser outboard and towed inboard. (1A/2A/8B/9B BOL, 1B/2B/8A/9A towed) Then what to mount on the tips? Another pair of ALE-50's, or still more expendable chaff? Thinking all of the fuselage CM racks would be filled exclusively with flares... or is a staggered loading of every second or third as flare and loading that way all over better?

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Have you given some consideration to possibly mounting dispensers on either side of the pylons in a fashion similar to what was done on the F-4E and F-4G?  Or is that too old fashioned for your project?

[Diamondback]

I'm open to the possibility, if I could find an AM part... I've got twenty years of storyline to develop these birds before they're turned loose on the world on their own, so if all else fails I can always say the model is "mid-upgrade" if I go forward with the build and then add detail later.

Could probably in-story get TONS of those dispensers out of Boneyard Phantoms... modeling, I'll need some references and ideas about kits or aftermarket that have 'em. And since I can't mount either ALE-50 OR -52 on Station 5, those might be a good way for it to contribute to defensive measures too...

Really, the only thing "too archaic" is "no longer available"... if I thought some piece of a P-51 Mustang would offer an effectiveness gain and were still in production I'd have no qualms about using it.

[elmayerle]

As I remember, fuselage CM dispensers are programmable, I'd leave a mix of "goodies" within including some active non-visual frequency "flares" for decoying home-on-jam or air-to-air ARMs.

Would you be mounting dispensers on the wingtips as part of the IR AAM racks or in place of the missiles?

[Diamondback]

They'd be as part of the rails--I like the BOL system so much because it adds defense capability without costing you anything on offense. (Granted, it doesn't play nice with carrier catapults, but I think if the Navy had stuck with the Tomcat long enough they'd have found a way to adjust them for more tension holding 'em in at plane launch and loosening up once airborne.) And, as a bonus, LAU-125/6/7/8 are AMRAAM capable too, so Stations L/R wouldn't necessarily have to be IR Only. Maybe Python 4 on the wingtips for their optical guidance to get better FOV, AIM-9X or IRIS-T on 1A&B/9A&B, AMRAAM or equivalent on 2A&B/8A&B. Decent GP A-A load with pretty good sneak-attack potential while still having the CFT's and C/L for A-G stores, 2/8 for drop-tanks or heavies, and maybe either a modified VER with a pair of SDB's or a small ECM pod hanging under 1/9.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I'm open to the possibility, if I could find an AM part... I've got twenty years of storyline to develop these birds before they're turned loose on the world on their own, so if all else fails I can always say the model is "mid-upgrade" if I go forward with the build and then add detail later.

Could probably in-story get TONS of those dispensers out of Boneyard Phantoms... modeling, I'll need some references and ideas about kits or aftermarket that have 'em. And since I can't mount either ALE-50 OR -52 on Station 5, those might be a good way for it to contribute to defensive measures too...

Really, the only thing "too archaic" is "no longer available"... if I thought some piece of a P-51 Mustang would offer an effectiveness gain and were still in production I'd have no qualms about using it.

Should be easy enough to source from several brands of Phantom kits that are available.  I know the Italeri F-4E/F-4F/F-4G kit has the ALE-40 included but it is a bit simplified.  Hasegawa includes them in their F-4E/F-4EJ/F-4F/F-4G kits but not sure if these are included as excess parts in any of the Navy versions.  Aftermarket offerings at this point are unknown.  Fabricating from a lump of plastic to get something that looks close is easy enough to do.  I tried to create my own by using the connecting pins from some old army camouflage nets that I had acquired a long time ago.  The pins had the pointed features and were made from a plastic that accepted liquid cement without issues and you could cut the wedge shapes to different lengths if you wanted to represent different types of chaff and flare dispensing things.   

See the images at the links below courtesy of Burkhard Domke's Aviations Images:

1. F-4F -- Outboard ALE-40 chaff/flare dispenser on left inboard pylon

2. F-4F -- Outboard ALE-40 chaff/flare dispenser on left inboard pylon

3. F-4F ICE -- ALE-40 chaff/flare dispenser on left inboard pylon.

[Diamondback]

ALE-40 was also used on Jaguar and Buccaneer... HobbySearch instruction scans tell me the parts are J8/9, and Modeling Madness sprueology tells me I need a full J, J** or J*** sprue, not the sawed-off J*. Looks like I need to either find an E/F that can be backdated to before the ALE-40 was fitted, or just buy one and clone the parts...

If I can find a suitable tail-mount AESA, maybe a missile could be fried with an EMP counterattack to make up for lack of PDL.

[elmayerle]

For tail-mounted AESA, use one of the F-16 replacements or the F-18 radar with just fewer modules to fit the frame space available.  ISTR that there was one novel where a fighter attacking a Saudi AWACS got fried when they fixed the antenna on it and then hit it with the full power of the system.

[Diamondback]

So, designing a new vectoring, reversing LO exhaust nozzle... OD 31/32" to fit Revell kit, OAL uncertain--should I just fake it by carving "teeth" on the end of a petaled PW or GE?

Also, re heat-resistant LO coatings... given that the entire back 1/3 of an F-15 is bare titanium for heat control and other reasons, is it plausible to assume these birds might have their engine areas treated with similar coatings?

[Diamondback]

Project update re parts selection as of June 2013...

->Basic airframe: Revell cheapo F-15E
->F-15I/-K-specific pylons and CFT's: from Academy F-15I
->AN/ALE-40 countermeasure dispensers: Eagle Designs 48-CK-21 or clone from 1/48 F-4E/F/G
->AN/ALE-50 decoy launchers: from Tamiya F-16C (parts J30/33/34)
->AN/ALE-58 countermeasure dispensers:
->SUU-61 Stn 1/9 pylons: OldMonogram -A, Academy early tool, Tamiya or Hasegawa
->Stn 1AB/9AB LAU-128+ADU-552: Shull24 if back in production? (Was thinking of using Shawn's LAU-128s across-the-board...)

Notes:
1. ALE-50 looks like it completely replaces the outboard pylon on F-16, so it would probably replace the ADU-552 in an F-15 install.
2. ALE-58 I could probably chop off the back of a Steel Beach LAU-138 and graft it onto a LAU-128, but that's getting into kinda nasty surgery...
3. Tamiya SUU-61 is integrally cast with 1/2 of ALQ-119 ECM pod. Hasegawa (part C28+2xC5, from the "Ca" version of the sprue) is a clean, bare pylon, so it is preferable.

Possible donors:
->ALE-50:
---Tamiya 61098, 61101, 61102, 61106
->SUU-61:
---Tamiya 61029, 61030
---any Hasegawa
Any suggestions about which of these might be my most affordable options?

[Diamondback]

Further update: one set of SUU-61's coming off a Hasegawa 09850 ADTAC F-15, which is also giving up its ASAT pylon as a master for casting.

[Diamondback]

Alternate approach under consideration: rather than bulking up the "shoulders" and relocating the starboard actuator to above the gun, I'm now considering relocating the gun above the actuator, adding a couple longitudunal blisters on top to house the gun and IFR receptacle.

Path of least resistance and all... LOL