..... un asso nella manica tutto svizzero per l' agognata sostituzione degli F-5E ?
Dal sito dell' azienda ..... "JANUS Advanced Trainer Concept" .....Multimission Concept For Lightweight Advanced Trainers .....
Tony Osborne - Aviation Week & Space Technology (May 10, 2016)
A Switzerland-based team of aircraft designers and engineers believes that a lightweight supersonic advanced trainer and multimission aircraft could be appealing to air arms investing in a new generation of combat aircraft such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
Janus is said to be smaller and lower-cost than contemporary advanced trainers such as Alenia Aermacchi’s M346, BAE’s Hawk or the Northrop T-38 Talon.
Conceived by the Arbeitsgruppe fur Luft-und Raumfahrt (ALR), Janus is meant to fill in for high-performance combat aircraft in the so-called red-air mission by acting as an aggressor for front-line crews, or as a companion trainer so live flight hours on new fighter types can be substituted for a less expensive aircraft type.
ALR also sees it playing a role in peacetime air policing, which is currently performed by front-line aircraft.
Another potential market is the increasing number of private companies that operate ex-military aircraft to service military training contracts.
Aircraft in use include the A-4 Skyhawk, Dassault Alpha and Hawker Hunter.
The seasoned ALR team draws on experience from a number of European aircraft programs.
The organization’s previous work includes a 1970s study on Piranha - a lightweight canard delta microfighter designed to meet the needs of small nations looking to replace the F-5 Tiger and the Mikoyan MiG-21, a challenge that remains today.
Both types are still in service with several European air arms.
ALR’s Janus is a lightweight, single-engine advanced trainer which could also perform limited air policing duties.
Credit: Arbeitsgruppe fur Luft- Und Raumfahrt
In part, Janus came about because of Switzerland’s woes with procurement plans to replace its fleet of Northrop F-5 Tigers.
A referendum in May 2014 rejected the purchase of the Saab Gripen in spite of the fact that just weeks before, the Swiss air force was unable to respond to a hijacked Ethiopian airliner landing in Geneva.
Neighboring nations scrambled to escort the airliner down.
ALR believes a platform such as Janus could handle 80% of Swiss air policing duties for far less than using F-5s or F/A-18s.
“There are no new designs for lightweight fighters, but if you wish to replace an aircraft [such as] an F-5, the only options are the Saab Gripen or second hand F-16s, but these are not low-cost options,” says Georges Bridel, managing director of ALR.
“A major cost factor is the use of high-performance combat aircraft in a variety of missions in which their performance and capabilities are not fully required. This consumes airframe flight hours at a high pace and leads to a waste of resources,” the organization states.
Janus would be a fly-by-wire 4,800-kg (10,500-lb.) mid-swept-wing monoplane powered by a single afterburning low-bypass turbofan producing 9,500-10,000 lb. of thrust in reheat, which could push the aircraft to Mach 1.3.
The aircraft bears a passing resemblance to the South Korean T-50 Golden Eagle, but features a deeper sweep of the main wing and is about 2 meters (6.5 ft.) shorter in length.
Around 50% of the aircraft’s structure would be composite, with a focus on using off-the-shelf equipment, including the powerplant.
ALR has identified three potential engines for Janus - the Ukrainian Ivchenko-Progress AI-222, the Honeywell/ITEC F-125 and the Japanese IHI Corp. XF5, the engine fitted to the X-2 demonstrator aircraft.
Supersonic capability is “essential” for the air policing mission, says Group Capt. (ret.) David Hamilton, who has consulted on what the air force requirements might be for such a role.
Air policing missions regularly have to intercept airliners traveling at high subsonic speeds, so a supersonic capability would be needed to catch up with them, although there is little need to exceed this level of performance; doing so would add to the cost.
As a trainer, the aircraft would have an advanced two-seat cockpit with simulated stores and radar.
ALR suggests that a live, virtual constructive training system could be implemented but weapon work would be simulated.
The company sees no need for a weapon capability on the aircraft in its current form, although a gun pod would be a requirement for the air policing mission.
Intercept guidance data could be provided by ground radar.
Bridel believes the Janus could eventually follow the development pattern of the T-38 and expand into a combat capability with weapons, in the way that the F-5 evolved from the Talon.
An “uprated engine version, a longer fuselage, armament and operational equipment make a combat version feasible,” says Bridel.
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