Looking back at fighters like the Morningstar, I was surprised that not many other fighters have very aerodynamic desings. The Morningstar was very aerodynamic, and is overall a cool looking ship. I also noticed how not many ships took Stealth design into account, so I looked to combine the two in my new conceptual fighter. I used the MiG 37B "Ferret" as my basis for the design, but it has been heavily tweaked. All the drawings are hand drawn. The idea is a post-Secret Ops Stealth Interceptor/Medium fighter that works in tandem with heavier fighters. It is armed with a trio of Reaper Cannons in a 'V' formation under the nose, as well as six Javelin Heatseekers. Small pop-up turrets in the nose reveal two laser targeters, used either to mark targets for Torpedos or Capship Missiles, especially for ground bombardment. Special VTOL Jets allow for greater maneuverability in space and in atmosphere. Along with the Cloaking device, the armor is built with radar absorbent materials and shaped to reflect very little, making it appear very small on radar. An Electronic Counter Measure package allows the Vapor Eagle to fly Cloaked near enemy ships and jam radar and communications, along with advanced sensors used on short to long range reconnisance. Finally, my own touch, the Radio Missile Disruptor. It can be used to override the detonater on FOF and IR missiles, allowing you to detonate an enemy missile while still inside the enemy fighter, causing a catostrophic explosion of all missiles in the same area.
Yet another Conceptual Design: Vapor Eagle Interceptor
- Thread starter Fatcat
- Start date
Jason_Ryock
Vice Admiral
If fighters (presumably) have manuvering thrustrats mounted around them at intervals to assist with steering/aiming the craft, then isn't vectored thrust a little redundent?
Mace
Vice Admiral
well, having a re-look on those fighters:
I liked the panther and the way it could manouver thanks to that rotating engine, i never like the vampire's though, the design simpy does not look sturdy enough, from my mind the dragon from WC4 would be the best design, togehter with the hellcat and the morningstar.
my original comment was on the aft. section of your fighter, too much a conventinoal jet, not that it is bad, but i don't think that aft. section would have any use on a starfighter
I liked the panther and the way it could manouver thanks to that rotating engine, i never like the vampire's though, the design simpy does not look sturdy enough, from my mind the dragon from WC4 would be the best design, togehter with the hellcat and the morningstar.
my original comment was on the aft. section of your fighter, too much a conventinoal jet, not that it is bad, but i don't think that aft. section would have any use on a starfighter
Did it ever occur to you when designing this just how completely unreasonable it is? Your making connections to technology in this ship that exists today. We have the ability to detect aircraft that have stealth technology, whos to say in 600 more years we haven't perfected the detection of "radar absorbant" materials with something else. A jammer that can explode missiles while on an enemy ship? What stops one ship from being cloaked, running up along side the biggest ships in an enemy fleet, and just detonating the matter/anti-matter, nuclear, biological, and every other flavor of warhead it has? It's unrealistic. Even if that did exist, the cost would be so prohibitally expensive only a few would exist-- and that is to say that such important devices wouldn't be trusted to something as small and frail as a fighter.
If your going to draw parallels to modern technology, then keep in mind ALL ECM equipment is generally carried on seperate pods off hardpoints on a fighter. This also decreases any and all element of stealth it once had. The United States employs fighters with ECM equipment but to the point where thats all a plane can do. We dedicate planes to the task of ECM. It would be unbelievable for even the newer F-22's, the pride of our fighter technology, to be able to jam enemy radar, destroy missiles before they are launched, and run around completely invisible. It always comes down to a balance-- a balance which has always existed. Your talking about shoving A LOT of equipment into something which looks like it would have a hard time taking the smallest amount of damage.
I'm not really wanting to be pessimistic, but this design needs a reality check. I hope you take my suggestions to heart and try to improve it, but somehow I feel I've just opened myself to a flame war.
If your going to draw parallels to modern technology, then keep in mind ALL ECM equipment is generally carried on seperate pods off hardpoints on a fighter. This also decreases any and all element of stealth it once had. The United States employs fighters with ECM equipment but to the point where thats all a plane can do. We dedicate planes to the task of ECM. It would be unbelievable for even the newer F-22's, the pride of our fighter technology, to be able to jam enemy radar, destroy missiles before they are launched, and run around completely invisible. It always comes down to a balance-- a balance which has always existed. Your talking about shoving A LOT of equipment into something which looks like it would have a hard time taking the smallest amount of damage.
I'm not really wanting to be pessimistic, but this design needs a reality check. I hope you take my suggestions to heart and try to improve it, but somehow I feel I've just opened myself to a flame war.
Who's to say that in 600 years we may find some newer, even more absorbant materials, especially after exploring the universe as Confed has? We've already invented seemingly unrealistic materials, like conductive plastics.
Well, capship missiles are much more heavily shielded, so the Disruptor's effect would be nullified. Unrealistic? What about toting around a Matter/Anti Matter drive (Ahem, Dragon)
The Dragon was the same way. This definitly isn't a main-line fighter, something more suited to Special Ops, like on the Cerberus.
Not always. Its still the "In the future..." argument, who's to say (I'm being redundant) that in 600 years we can't compress ECM equipment to fit inside the ship? The F-22 has completely internally stored missiles.
Look at Secret Ops. The Panther, once a main-line fighter, is used for Wild Weasle and Recon. If you notice, the Vapor Eagle has very little in the way of armaments or armor. It relies mostly on maneuverability and stealth, like the original Rapier.
wolfboy
Captain
Edfilho said:
actually it looks more like the F-35, sounds like it to from the discription, but as always the marines would probably look into it, they always like vectored thrust aircraft for ground support, and in the future a space to ground medium fighter with vector thrust available for in atmosphere, (where the attitude jets wouldnt help much) would be high on their list i believe
Jason_Ryock
Vice Admiral
Uber fanships galore.
A very important point was made here I would like to remphasize. So little is known about "modern" Radar Technology in the WC Universe that it is pointless to attempt to develop any sort of "stealth" craft. I think we have a thread somewhere where several of us go on and on, and ON about modern stealth applications that really have no practical place in the Wing Commander universe.
That being said, the lack of information does not justify the over loaded stats of this fighter. It's the sort of ship people term as a "fanboy uber ship" and really has stretched the limits of reality.
Here's the Thread:
http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=8068
It's quite amusing. Also, I have another point to make. The argument has been made here that "significant leaps" have been made in radar and electronic systems that justify the elaborate ECM's place inside this fighter. If that's so true, why did we go from Corvette sized SWACS craft to Fighter-sized SWACS craft (that are still really to large to be considered a fighter)? This seems contradictory to your "advanced tech" theory.
Just one more point, really. What stops the missiles under the ships own wings from blowing up when using that fancy gadget you thought up? Or the missiles under say, an allies fighter? And if instead it can only detonate one missile at a time, that would really make it to expensive to use, as five missiles tracking on it would give to great a chance of destruction for such a special and sensitive piece of equipment.
So here's another one for you, I don't know how much you know about "real" aviation, but in a real airplane you have to arm the missiles before you fire them, generally you do this two to five seonds before you fire the missile, depending on how fast you are. Since we're talking about advanced technology, inevitably some of the missiles in the WC universe have "failsafes" on them that prevent them from detonating to close to the launching craft, which means even after they are "launched" they might not be armed yet (this is true, in fact of modern torpedoes, it would not be such a stretch to assume that missiles in the WC universe have some same sort of concept in them).
And for that matter, how hard would it be to program your missile to not arm until you dropped it, flew a thousand meters outside the blast radius, and then started it tracking? This would, in affect, nullify your plan all together. Drop three missiles, dart away, when the little cloaky ship comes after you they all arm, either he detonates all missiles in the area (his own included) or is forced to train his special gadget thingy on every missile one by one and blow them up, and while he's busy doing that, either one of the three missiles has caught up with him, or the fighters have doubled back around. Remember, Stealth isn't a sure thing ever. I recall in Fleet Action when Bear is sent after a Stealth fighter and he is talking about how sometimes you can catch a glimpse of the ship.
I would also point out that the "Advanced" tag that applies to this sort of fighter also comes with a very HIGH Price tag, and such a casual threat to the fighter (IE: Multiple Missiles) makes it very unlikely that a several million dollar fighter would ever be deployed.
Not to mention the fact that traditionally all the Confederations Enemies have come from without, bearing greatly differant technology. You sight that this ship should be used in the Secret Ops era, but I doubt the same technology that would detonate a Kilrathi missiles or one of the strange aliens from SO's either. Who by the way, casually disregard cloak, I might point out, nullifying another matter of your advanced fighter.
So, while we're on the topic, who exactly is this fighter meant to be deployed against? What's going to convince the military budgeters to assign money to this sort of project? There's a great story about the F-22, you know. It was originally designed to replace the F-15, but the production cost ended up being to high, and the technology level as well. So they plugged in the F-16 as a stopgap to keep the Air Force alive until the F-22 could enter service. Now, the F-16 doesn't have the capablities of the F-15 OR the F-22, but you know what? They can buy 2 F-16's for every F-15 they buy. And two Light Fighters can take out a Medium Fighter anyday.
Frankly, it makes more sense for the Confederation to buy a whole seconde fleet of Pirhanas, which significantly upgrades it's fleet in terms of numbers and technology then to sink a few billion into an advanced technology craft that has unproven technology that may or may not work against the enemy of the future.
It would be like the United States today trying to build an Airplane designed to do nothing but explode the ordinance on a WWII battleship, which no one uses anymore and is generally a pretty useless idea to begin with.
A very important point was made here I would like to remphasize. So little is known about "modern" Radar Technology in the WC Universe that it is pointless to attempt to develop any sort of "stealth" craft. I think we have a thread somewhere where several of us go on and on, and ON about modern stealth applications that really have no practical place in the Wing Commander universe.
That being said, the lack of information does not justify the over loaded stats of this fighter. It's the sort of ship people term as a "fanboy uber ship" and really has stretched the limits of reality.
Here's the Thread:
http://www.crius.net/zone/showthread.php?t=8068
It's quite amusing. Also, I have another point to make. The argument has been made here that "significant leaps" have been made in radar and electronic systems that justify the elaborate ECM's place inside this fighter. If that's so true, why did we go from Corvette sized SWACS craft to Fighter-sized SWACS craft (that are still really to large to be considered a fighter)? This seems contradictory to your "advanced tech" theory.
Just one more point, really. What stops the missiles under the ships own wings from blowing up when using that fancy gadget you thought up? Or the missiles under say, an allies fighter? And if instead it can only detonate one missile at a time, that would really make it to expensive to use, as five missiles tracking on it would give to great a chance of destruction for such a special and sensitive piece of equipment.
So here's another one for you, I don't know how much you know about "real" aviation, but in a real airplane you have to arm the missiles before you fire them, generally you do this two to five seonds before you fire the missile, depending on how fast you are. Since we're talking about advanced technology, inevitably some of the missiles in the WC universe have "failsafes" on them that prevent them from detonating to close to the launching craft, which means even after they are "launched" they might not be armed yet (this is true, in fact of modern torpedoes, it would not be such a stretch to assume that missiles in the WC universe have some same sort of concept in them).
And for that matter, how hard would it be to program your missile to not arm until you dropped it, flew a thousand meters outside the blast radius, and then started it tracking? This would, in affect, nullify your plan all together. Drop three missiles, dart away, when the little cloaky ship comes after you they all arm, either he detonates all missiles in the area (his own included) or is forced to train his special gadget thingy on every missile one by one and blow them up, and while he's busy doing that, either one of the three missiles has caught up with him, or the fighters have doubled back around. Remember, Stealth isn't a sure thing ever. I recall in Fleet Action when Bear is sent after a Stealth fighter and he is talking about how sometimes you can catch a glimpse of the ship.
I would also point out that the "Advanced" tag that applies to this sort of fighter also comes with a very HIGH Price tag, and such a casual threat to the fighter (IE: Multiple Missiles) makes it very unlikely that a several million dollar fighter would ever be deployed.
Not to mention the fact that traditionally all the Confederations Enemies have come from without, bearing greatly differant technology. You sight that this ship should be used in the Secret Ops era, but I doubt the same technology that would detonate a Kilrathi missiles or one of the strange aliens from SO's either. Who by the way, casually disregard cloak, I might point out, nullifying another matter of your advanced fighter.
So, while we're on the topic, who exactly is this fighter meant to be deployed against? What's going to convince the military budgeters to assign money to this sort of project? There's a great story about the F-22, you know. It was originally designed to replace the F-15, but the production cost ended up being to high, and the technology level as well. So they plugged in the F-16 as a stopgap to keep the Air Force alive until the F-22 could enter service. Now, the F-16 doesn't have the capablities of the F-15 OR the F-22, but you know what? They can buy 2 F-16's for every F-15 they buy. And two Light Fighters can take out a Medium Fighter anyday.
Frankly, it makes more sense for the Confederation to buy a whole seconde fleet of Pirhanas, which significantly upgrades it's fleet in terms of numbers and technology then to sink a few billion into an advanced technology craft that has unproven technology that may or may not work against the enemy of the future.
It would be like the United States today trying to build an Airplane designed to do nothing but explode the ordinance on a WWII battleship, which no one uses anymore and is generally a pretty useless idea to begin with.