I still have a teeny weeny itty bitty problem with the look of H-stab-less designs. Seeing that top view of this aircraft -- and other similar ones for that matter -- makes me uncomfortable for some strange reason. I know it sounds weird to have such an anal perspective, that something like that would bother me, but it just does.
Not only does it feel like something is drastically missing, but it adds to the weirdness of the overall look of the aircraft. Just from this angle (top and bottom) but any other angle it looks fantastic. Even the YF-23 which was really the first platform that exhibited that design (not necessarily the first to introduce it) and look about as beautiful as could possibly be, the fact that it was without horizontal stabilizers also gave just that little bit of tension, if you will, to its overall looks. The super canted V-stabs somewhat make up for it, but it still had that tension in it.
In this case, it's a lot more obvious to me, anyway, that tension is augmented even more with the shortness of the overall length of the aircraft and the not so drastic canting of the V-stabs.
The same applies to the Checkmate. It also gives me probably more tension when I look at it without any H-stabs.
Even from that angle, the Su-75 with that same design concept has too much tension with the missing H-stabs.
Some might say well look at all the Euro canard deltas and even the J-20? Those don't have any H-stabs and my answer to that is obviously the canards themselves make up for that because they simply take the place of the H-stabs and by virtue of having those canards, they force the wings to be pushed further aft of the fuselage, so it takes that tension away.
The same can be said of pure deltas such as the venerable Mirage in all its variations. The delta wings are large but more importantly because they are the only lift-generating components with large, inclusive movable surfaces which take on the functions & duties of those missing H-stabs and forcing them further aft of the fuselage, there is zero tension.
They look perfect from any angle.
It's just perfect without them.
But these new 6th gen designs without horizontal stabs just feel like they're missing something. Does that make any sense, or am I just being an anal donkey? lol
>> With each step - it is becoming more real.
That is just insane! Incredible. One can only imagine the testing they'll be putting this thing through and looking at that picture, it looks like they might even be ahead of schedule already.
British have allways been great military power but in recent years both the Tornado v mirage 2000 and the Rafale v Typhoon the french came with better product
While I agree with you on those two examples for the most part, I would have to say the Brits did have to take the Germans' and to some extent the Italians' & Spanish's contributions into consideration with the Typhoon. Still, though, despite that one can say the Typhoon does have some advantages over the Rafale. The difference is not considerable in other words.
The reason I say Tempest for India is because the Brits have tentatively had conversation about Indian involvement at some stage..
But I do agree French option is very realistic option for India as buyer and some work share on mass production ie outsourcing too
Indian french military cooperation is very deep
But Tempest looks world class too
As much as India takes a beating around here, one can't take away its accomplishments, without question and going way back, even. This is but one example and I chose it to make the point given the connection to the name, and context.
17 June 1961 – First flight of HAL HF-24 Marut ("Spirit of the Tempest") was an Indian jet fighter aircraft developed and manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) during the 1960s and early 70s. total of 147 Maruts were manufactured, with IAF being the sole operator.
