LOCKHEEDMARTIN plans to offer a tailless-delta design for the USAir Force's planned Fighter Aircraft Enhancement (FATE) programme to build pilotless demonstrators to flight-test new technologies. The company has been working on the tailless-fighter design since 1991, most recently under the Air Force's Innovative Control Effectors (ICE) research programme.
Produced by Lockheed Martin Tactical Aircraft Systems of Fort Worth, Texas, the design, dubbed Configuration 101, is for a single-seat, single-engined fighter with a 65í-sweep delta planform. The design is intended to combine the low radar-signature of the Lockheed Martin F-117 with the agility of a Lockheed Martin F-16 with multi-axis thrust-vectoring.
Under the FATE programme, which may eventually involve the USNavy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and NASA, the Air Force plans to select two teams to each build two different subscale, pilotless, aircraft to demonstrate structures, flight-control, aeromechanics and subsystems technologies for manned and unmanned combat aircraft. Four 16-month, $250,000 study contracts are scheduled to be awarded in June.
Under the $1.1 million ICE programme to investigate new flight-control technologies, Lockheed Martin has windtunnel-tested models of the Configuration 101 and a naval variant equipped with foreplanes for carrier suitability. o
Source: Flight International
