Re: FT in a Fluid

Peter Mancini wrote:

>Wouldn't it be cheaper to just have the missiles mounted on drop >down
brackets that allowed them to rotate?

[than to let the entire aircraft fly sideways for a while]

I strongly doubt it, since so many advanced aircraft can fly sideways
but none of them have the kind of hardpoints you describe :-/ Even the
F22 and JSF only lower their missiles far enough to clear the internal
weapon bay, but they don't rotate the missiles.

Possible reasons could be:

Drop-down rotating hardpoints would cause considerably more problems
for the avionics computers than "swerving" (or whatever the maneuver
should be called in English) does, quite apart from the increased
problems with structural strength of both hardpoints and missiles. 

Even though the overall direction of the air flow is the same close to
a "swerving" aircraft (and its conventionally-mounted missiles) and a
lowered-and-rotated missile, the side forces on the lowered missile are
considerably higher than on the conventionally-mounted one.

But these are only speculations based on what aerodynamics and gas
dynamics I read at the uni. My job was bought a company which builds
AAMs half a year or so ago, but we haven't really merged the
organisations yet so I'm still restricted to so professionally I still
only work with ATGMs and LAWs <g>

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."