Are canards bad for stealth? - An Endless Discussion

That was one reason why the F-22 does not have canards unlike the Typhoon and Rafale, LM realised that fact early on in the ATF competition and decided not to go with them.
 
FighterJock said:
That was one reason why the F-22 does not have canards unlike the Typhoon and Rafale, LM realised that fact early on in the ATF competition and decided not to go with them.
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Surely a difference between Boeing and Lockheed since the start of Boeing rendering on the Ngad we see canards
 
It will be interesting to see how Boeing deals with the canard problem on the NGAD dark sidius. Perhaps they have found a way to reduce the radar cross section of them, ever since the days of the ATF competition which is now over forty years ago now.
 
My two takeaways from this video:

Based on the misdirection from industry during the run-up to the ATF competition, and the fact that NGAD appears to be much deeper in the black, I think we now know what the Boeing NGAD certainly doesn't look like.

I physically cringed when they said the line "...well before we start fastening bolts."
 
I don't know if canards are inherently a problem for radar cross section. I don't see why they'd automatically be worse than the horizontal tails on a more conventional layout.

That said I really don't see what the benefits of using canards on NGAD or F/A-XX would be.
 
Given that jets fly at approx 4 degree angle of attack ( f-22 specifically) when cruising, I wonder what sort of view angles does that offer to enemy radars which are positioned at same level as the plane?

Alternatively, a ground radar 300 km away from a plane that's already flying at 4 deg AOA would effectively look at the plane at 7 degrees below its horizontal plane (in total).
 


Colonial-Marine said:
I don't know if canards are inherently a problem for radar cross section. I don't see why they'd automatically be worse than the horizontal tails on a more conventional layout.
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Supposedly, small canards show up a lot better than you'd expect. That and stealthing them needs volumes that small canards don't have, so you end up with stealthy canards so big they're almost a second wing.


Colonial-Marine said:
That said I really don't see what the benefits of using canards on NGAD or F/A-XX would be.
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Better controllability, better maneuverability, shorter takeoff runs.

And for FAXX specifically, slower approach and landing speeds.
 
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Scott Kenny said:
Better controllability, better maneuverability, shorter takeoff runs.

And for FAXX specifically, slower approach and landing speeds.
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All true but wouldn't some sort of tail at the rear of the aircraft provide all those same benefits while having less of an impact on RCS?
 
Wouldn't that negate the effort to be tailless? ;)

C'mon those canards are only placeholders to prevent anyone to think further.

But we have a Crane thread here.
 
1zblaQC.png My guess is we are seeing some rejected revision. Interestingly, most contemporary aircraft designs have a 'canard phase', but tend to evolve to look like the F-22, at least this was the case for the Korean and Turkish efforts.
And for the stealthiness of canards, there tends to be a lot of 'folk wisdom' on the internet, as to what constitutes a stealthy shape and what doesn't. It commonly comes up that canards and exposed inlets are not stealth. Some people did the stealth shaping analysis on the J-20, and found that canards contribute a relatively minor amount to the return. I don't want to dig up the article but it was posted here.
Likewise, the YF-23 had a partially exposed engine face, and the X-23's was fully exposed, yet both aircraft were said to do well in terms of stealth.
 
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Colonial-Marine said:
I don't know if canards are inherently a problem for radar cross section. I don't see why they'd automatically be worse than the horizontal tails on a more conventional layout.

That said I really don't see what the benefits of using canards on NGAD or F/A-XX would be.
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because for a air superiority fighter frontal stealth is the most important aspect.
 
Colonial-Marine said:
All true but wouldn't some sort of tail at the rear of the aircraft provide all those same benefits while having less of an impact on RCS?
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Specifically for the USN plane, using a conventional tail also means a longer aircraft overall.

So now that the canard-haters are likely out of the USN, I think it's likely that the FAXX will have a canard.
 
Tool_Shed_Toker said:
A predator doesn't turn its back on its prey.
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Depends. Do you want your prey to think that *it* is the predator? if so, pretending to be either unaware or simply stupid is a dandy way to get the prey to try to sneak up on *you.* Whereupon either you attack... or your partner, which your prey was unaware even existed, leaps out of the bushes at it.

I can see this being a common enough tactic for 5th/6th gen fighters... a group that can be readily seen serving as bait for the fighters that *can't* be seen.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Depends. Do you want your prey to think that *it* is the predator? if so, pretending to be either unaware or simply stupid is a dandy way to get the prey to try to sneak up on *you.* Whereupon either you attack... or your partner, which your prey was unaware even existed, leaps out of the bushes at it.

I can see this being a common enough tactic for 5th/6th gen fighters... a group that can be readily seen serving as bait for the fighters that *can't* be seen.
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While I agree this is a tactic, couldn't this be accomplished via EW? I mean this is also discussed in F35 circles. Say in a 4 ship flight, 1 or 2 are using active radar while the remainder are cued targets.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Specifically for the USN plane, using a conventional tail also means a longer aircraft overall.

So now that the canard-haters are likely out of the USN, I think it's likely that the FAXX will have a canard.
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Is a longer aircraft overall really a bad thing in this case? The Navy is going to need a rather big aircraft for the range and payload they desire anyway. As far as I know the reason the early Lockheed Martin JAST/JSF designs used a canard layout was because of an overall length limit imposed by the dimensions of the aircraft elevators on Navy LHA/LHDs that would be operating the STOVL variant. In that context such a layout allowed for better performance than a similar length conventional design.
 
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Colonial-Marine said:
Is a longer aircraft overall really a bad thing in this case? The Navy is going to need a rather big aircraft for the range and payload they desire anyway. As far as I know the reason the early Lockheed Martin JAST/JSF designs used a canard layout was because of an overall length limit imposed by the dimensions of the aircraft elevators on Navy LHA/LHDs that would be operating the STOVL variant. In that context such a layout allowed for better performance than a similar length conventional design.
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You still have a hard limit defined by the size of the elevators, even on the Ford class (and remember, the Ford is down one entire elevator compared to the Nimitz)

Remember that the NF23 proposal chopped the tail way back instead of the super stealthy exhaust trough from the YF23.
 
Scott Kenny said:
You still have a hard limit defined by the size of the elevators, even on the Ford class (and remember, the Ford is down one entire elevator compared to the Nimitz)

Remember that the NF23 proposal chopped the tail way back instead of the super stealthy exhaust trough from the YF23.
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The NATF-23 needed the canards to meet the USN landing speed requirements from what I understand (I think this is mentioned in Paul Metz's book as well). Also the NATF-23 had three large elevons per wing, again for pitch control in conjunction with the canards, plus the NATF-23 also had vectored thrust. No matter how you configure canards, you are paying an LO penalty. Just being in the Navy environment with the salt water/salt air, you need more of a maintainable OML and trade-off some LO but you will have a level of LO capability though not to the levels like USAF platforms.
 
Orionblamblam said:
Depends. Do you want your prey to think that *it* is the predator? if so, pretending to be either unaware or simply stupid is a dandy way to get the prey to try to sneak up on *you.* Whereupon either you attack... or your partner, which your prey was unaware even existed, leaps out of the bushes at it.

I can see this being a common enough tactic for 5th/6th gen fighters... a group that can be readily seen serving as bait for the fighters that *can't* be seen.
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That's the role the F-15 (and others) has been playing in exercises. Increases the noise level and let's stealth aircraft sneak around better.
 
sferrin said:
That's the role the F-15 (and others) has been playing in exercises. Increases the noise level and let's stealth aircraft sneak around better.
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Sure, but once the US is out of legacy fighters that's no longer an option.
 
Elysium said:
Some people did the stealth shaping analysis on the J-20, and found that canards contribute a relatively minor amount to the return. I don't want to dig up the article but it was posted here.
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J-20. Glad somebody mentionned that one.
 
VTOLicious said:
What about LEVCONs? It seems they are kind of a stealth-variant of canards.
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LEVCONs (e.g. dropping leading edge control surfaces) are definitely the long-term solution.
CF-18, HAL Tejas, etc. already use dropping leading edge flaps to increase wing camber and lift to help slow landing speeds.
The next step is configuring LEVCONs to improve maneuverability.
The third step involves incorporating boundary bleed air to substitute for hinges. Hinges are difficult to “stealthify.”

Eliminating vertical tails is another step to “stealthifying” combat airplanes. Wind tunnel tests and a few unmanned X-planes have been done to confirm stability and control without vertical tails. Think about the tip-mounted drag-rudders on B-2 flying-wing. The next step is incorporating boundary layer blowing to replace moveable control surfaces.
 
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riggerrob said:
LEVCONs (e.g. dropping leading edge control surfaces) are definitely the long-term solution.
CF-18, HAL Tejas, etc. already use dropping leading edge flaps to increase wing camber and lift to help slow landing speeds.
The next step is configuring LEVCONs to improve maneuverability.
The third step involves incorporating boundary bleed air to substitute for hinges. Hinges are difficult to “stealthily.”

Eliminating vertical tails is another step to “stealthifying” combat airplanes. Wind tunnel tests and a few unmanned X-planes have been done to confirm stability and control without vertical tails. Think about the tip-mounted drag-rudders on B-2 flying-wing. The next step is incorporating boundary layer blowing to replace moveable control surfaces.
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Still wondering if we'll ever see Fluidic Thrust Vectoring on a production aircraft.
 
riggerrob said:
LEVCONs (e.g. dropping leading edge control surfaces) are definitely the long-term solution.
CF-18, HAL Tejas, etc. already use dropping leading edge flaps to increase wing camber and lift to help slow landing speeds.
The next step is configuring LEVCONs to improve maneuverability.
The third step involves incorporating boundary bleed air to substitute for hinges. Hinges are difficult to “stealthily.”

Eliminating vertical tails is another step to “stealthifying” combat airplanes. Wind tunnel tests and a few unmanned X-planes have been done to confirm stability and control without vertical tails. Think about the tip-mounted drag-rudders on B-2 flying-wing. The next step is incorporating boundary layer blowing to replace moveable control surfaces.
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if I recall correctly, the X-36 project was exactly just that. how control the plane without vertical tails
 

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