Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military From: shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: F14/15 improvements Message-ID: <1990Aug15.032819.27690@cbnews.att.com> Date: 15 Aug 90 03:28:19 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker) Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 37 Approved: military@att.att.com From: Mary Shafer Andy Pomski writes: Also, I recently saw a picture of an 'F15 testbed' aircraft on the cover of an aircraft magazine (can't remember which one offhand) This aircraft was brightly painted, and had a number of obvious design changes including a Canard foreplane arrangement, and a redesign of the variable outlets on the engines. Does anyone know if these changes might make an appearance in forthcoming F15 development? It isn't really a testbed, in the usual sense. It's the SMTD (STOL/Maneuver Technology Demonstrator--an acronym within an acronym, since STOL stands for Short TakeOff and Landing). It's one of the old (early 70s) pre-production F-15Bs, modified with a new control system and, most obviously, those canards. The canards, BTW, are F-18 horizontal stabilizers. Other mods include the thrust vectoring. The motivation for examining STOL fighters is battle damage to the runways. No point to have 'em if you can't get 'em off the ground. I would not, however, expect to see this on next year's fighters. Maybe the next decade's fighters, though. Pretty, isn't it? I saw it flying into Edwards for the first time, since they did a couple of low passes over the Dryden parking lot. I like to think they knew I was walking out to the credit union and wanted to give me a thrill, but suspect that they had some other reason.... -- Mary Shafer shafer@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov ames!skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov!shafer NASA Ames Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all"--Unknown US fighter pilot