Fleet Air defence fighter of 1980 challenge

Sorry I'm late, didn't check the time.

General Dynamics - British Aerospace Engineering F/A-21 "Gryphon"

In the years following the Vietnam War (1967-1971) and the lessons learned from it, the United States Navy set out a requirement for a new all-weather fleet fighter with secondary ground attack capability. The aircraft was expected to reach a maximum speed of Mach 2.1, have a combat range of up to 800 Kms full-load with a ferry range of 1200 Kms, two-engines and have the capability to utilize laser-designated munitions in all types of weather, while still being able to defend the fleet from attack.

As time went on, the challenge slowly but inevitably morphed into request for a new naval strike plane. A RFI was floated across the board in late 1979, with proposals needing to be filed by 1982. At the time, the Navy was gearing up for a massive increase in force numbers, so it was questioned whether or not the budget existed to purchase such an aircraft. This notion was discarded by reassurances from Department of Defense and the White House.

With submissions by contenders Grumman, Lockheed, and McDonnell-Douglas, the joint-venture between GD and BAe was not seen as viable option due to both its ungainly size and questionable design characteristics. The aircraft filled out the list of requirements yet was believed to be both overweight and even possibly outmatched by the Grumman and McDD models. However, in the end, the Navy chose the outsider - and despite protests from Congress about GD having two major combat aircraft contracts under its belt, the F/A-21 was selected as the new strike fighter of the fleet in the fall of 1985. At first, money and material was slow to move, with the prototype only being rolled out by '87 - the first flight came the following spring - and the very first frontline squadron didn't induct the type until the end of 1988.

However, the Gryphon's luck soon changed once second Gulf war came about. Flying in low over Persian waters, the F/A-21 soon became well-known for its skill as a bombtruck, dropping thousands of pounds of ordinance on Iraqi positions whilst maintaining an edge over enemy fighters.

The aircraft continued on into the new century, at first flying strike missions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom and later on in the Third Pacific War. The latter saw the Gryphon being especially deadly when attacking fortified yet isolated Chinese positions in the South China Sea, with the final version of the aircraft - the F/A-21E - having the ability to not only use 'smart' munitions, but also the option to 'laze' targets for AGM-109 and AGM-168 ATACMS.

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I'd make actual schemes but I waited too long to finish her. :c

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shib goes bork

Ok thank you all for your submitted drawings, the challenge is now closed for new entries. I will form a poll from all participants later today

Lots of stunning entries at the last moment!

Regarding the poll, I assume one rule is that nobody can rate their own drawing? That would seem fair.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Well thats would be impossible to monitor with the forum system so its down to gentlemans code of conduct of each member.

Anyways the poll is up, vote hard, vote soon!

Absolutely stunning work in this thread from all the artists. Congratulations to all. The polling reminds me of the “drawing of the month” polls that used to be held years ago. Maybe this is something that could be reinstated for Real Designs/Never Built to encourage more artists to tackle some real-world projects.

Indeed very nice work from all artists here, congratulations to all!

It seems that Mirage G has particularly strong folowing here (three).

Number of Harrier relatives (two) is less surprising, same with more or less distant variations on F-14 and F/A-18 (sometimes in combination).

To me it's a pity that structure of the forum polls is so limited, and allows just to select "preferred winner", but not to give "grades" in various categories (like: design realism, style and quality of drawing, "extra effort" etc.). Particularly in regard to that "extra effort" - Charguizard's aircraft carrier and Gollevainen's payload options are things that IMHO deserve particular recognition, while at the same time I don't like their aircraft as such - don't get me wrong, both are excellent works - I just don't like the F-16 (which is clearly an ancestor of Char's A17M1) and I'm not fan of that particular Lavi-esque design of Novi Avion (always preferred the mini-Rafale).

That said, my own vote goes to Hood's Yak-45.

Wonderful works of art by many of the participants, make it very hard to choose just one.
The "Extra Effort" that was behind Charguizard's work, or various colour schemes in Garlicdesign's work, or Deskjester work, apart from various payload options in some work makes the choice even harder.
Any way I'm glad I did take part, though I don't usually do FD scale work.
Thank you all for taking part in this, as it was also very inspirational.

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Thank you Kim for the crest

"Never fear to try on something new. Remember that the Titanic was built by professionals, and the Ark by an amateur"

I agree with Eswube, it is unfortunate that the poll only allows one vote given the vast array of excellent designs here - it was very tricky to pick only one!

The poll has its pros and cons. But I hope everyone considers all the factors before voting. That way the end result would be same as some judge panel would rate the designs by some categories.

Quote:

I'm not fan of that particular Lavi-esque design of Novi Avion (always preferred the mini-Rafale).

Well actually so was I initially but as the aircraft is part of larger AU project (with cohesive aircraft production line) the earlier model of Novi Avion which was larger, serves that AU better.

Shipbucket

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