Re: Rutan's RASCAL

From: Len (len_at_tour2space.com)
Date: 11/09/04 

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 10:09:07 -0600

Pat Flannery <flanner@daktel.com> wrote in message news:<10p0uol17p74953@corp.supernews.com>...
> Len wrote:
>
> >
> >The RA-5 Vigilante also looked interesting, but none are
> >available. There's lots of F-14As available.
> >
>
> Yeah, the center tubuler bomb bay would have been perfect for putting
> the rocket and it's fuel in.
> With an expendable rocket you could have jettisoned the motor assembly,
> then slid the orbital booster out after it.
> Did you ever see the proposed interceptor varint that carried a third
> engine in there?:
> http://www.vectorsite.net/ava56.jpg
> Did you consider the Sukhoi Flanker? Its underbelly is also of the right
> shape, and it already is designed to carry the big "Sunburn" missile
> down there: http://home19.inet.tele.dk/airwing/aircraft/moskit-su33.jpg
>
> Pat

Yes, we considered the Sukhoi--but acquiring them
is complicated. And, to meet DARPA's technology
desirements, we would have had to make just as many
modifications as we would have with the F-14D.
Without a requirement to use MIPCC and zoom climb,
adding a rocket system to the F-14A works just fine.

There was a time when technolgy got short-changed.
But for the past four decades, innovative, conceptual
system design has been short-changed. One would think
that high-payoff, low-risk systems that are innovative
without using risky technology would be in great demand.
However, no one in government seems to ask for that type
of system. Not since a hush-hush group with only five
government staffers produced the first recon satellites,
the U-2, the A-11/12, etc., has there been a group
dedicated to low-risk, high-payoff systems.

Len

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