Yeah seems like that it would from the testing of AMRAAM on the F14 using the same AIM-7 rails
There is a LAU-93 adapter, but I was referring to the rail launcher for AIM-9.
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I think we might be talking about different things. I was referring to this photo of dual rack Aim-120s. This is on the LAU-93 pylon for Aim-54s.
For this picture,
I think this is a custom rack attached to the LAU-7 launcher.
It doesn’t look like these pylons would be conflicted at all, since the Aim-120s would be on the lower 1B and 8B LAU-93 pylons, and the Aim-9s would be on the higher 1A and 8A LAU-7 pylons.
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Yes, there was some confusion.
However the adapter with the AIM-120 dual rack is not a LAU-93, because its shape is lot different and able to accommodate a bomb rack (BRU-32?). This one is most likely a new mock-up made up for the concept demonstration, so we need more material to prove its workability.
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Quick summary for the F-14 and AMRAAM:
- F-14A-65-GR BuNo 158625 performed an eject and ignition test for AMRAAM, utilizing a LAU-92 launcher.
- During the 1980s to early 1990s, plans called for the F-14D to be equipped with the AMRAAM.
- Pre-Deployment Update software was required for the AMRAAM capability, but it was not completed and no F-14D ever had it.
- There were several ideas to expand the F-14’s AMRAAM payload up to 8 or 10. However, none of them were proved to be functional and not a part of the actual integration effort.
- Therefore, if the F-14D had been equipped with AMRAAM in real life, most realistic loadout would have been 6x AIM-120 + 2x AIM-9.
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- 2x BOL pod
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that looks like it’s the same adapter used to carry the lantirn pod.
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Isn’t it LAU-92?
umh…i’m not sure. if you look at the upper gear bay door, you can see they are the same height. i think this is just a perspective thing.
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LAU-92 has that oblique section at the back to make space for the sparrow’s rear fin, it’s probably not that.
Yeah, you’re right. It was a distortion due to perspective.
My hypothesis on this is that they were working on integrating LANTIRN into the F-14 at the time, so they modified the LANTIRN adapter for concept demonstration of dual missile launcher. Actually the LANTIRN adapter does not used to accommodate bomb rack, but it doesn’t matter for the demonstration purposes. So I guess that’s what they did.
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yeah, about that.
the image has the AIM-120s mounted on station 1B, but afaik the LANTIRN pod was tested only on station 8B and 6.
what i think happened is that both this adapter and the one for the pod are derivatives of the HARM adapters from when they were tested on the tomcat.
thus, no modifications would be required, as it’s already compatible with BRU-32 bomb racks trough the ADU-703A/A adapter (this is the same one used to allow bombs to be carried on the pods for the AIM-54).
furthermore, i found this a few days ago:
A study of the integration of the lantirn targeting system on the F-14 tomcat
no modifications to the HARM adapter are mentioned, nor to the ADU-703 adapter. a third adapter between the pod and ADU-703 was developed to provide a more rigid mounting system than the BRU-32 ejector rack. in other words, BRU-32 can still be mounted in its place.
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Does anybody know about F-110-GE-429 integration for Service Tomcats?
They were supposed to be an upgrade in the ST21 Program. Along with better supercruise, the engines would be thrust vectoring:
Giving the Tomcat unrivaled performance in a dogfight.
Installed thrust can be estimated to be around 32-33,000 pounds of thrust, given that the regular thrust was going to be 30,000). We know this because the uninstalled thrust of the current F-14B engines saw a boost of around 2000 pounds (from ~28,000 to 30,200). Further upgrades to the IPE/EPE would see this number rise.
This would easily bump the TWR of the ST21 to a very respectable ~1.6. With thrust vectoring though, the performance would be astounding, as that’s on par with the F-22’s TWR.
The ST21 overall would be unrivaled. It would be an F-15EX with the flight performance just shy of the F-22, all while being on a carrier deck.
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maybe once gaijin runs out of prototypes, and in service aircraft, they’ll start putting the concepts in game
Yeah. That would be nice. Especially with current planes being completely classified, I’d rather them have these concepts added the the game over a neutered 5th gen jet.
indeed true, concepts have much more available information than aircraft still in use today and which are more or less heavily classified
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Don’t forget the f14D also got a airborne self-protection jammer (ASPJ, infrared search and track (irst ), itids link 16, the ECA is placed in the position of the LAU-93 missile launcher/bomb rack and can carry an extra pack of chaff and flare decoys, new ALE- 47 Airborne Countermeasures Dispenser System… datalinked radar and radar can track up to 24 targets simultaneously
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Bro. You trolling or?