Intelani Aeronautics F-31A Stingray

(The following is a completely fictional history!)

 

By 1982, the deficiences of the SA-77C Wildfire program were rapidly becoming apparent, and so the FIRAF began looking at a replacement. To preserve the FIR’s self-sufficiency and desire for armament sources beyond the United States, Minister of Defense Akela Canis authorized Intelani Aeronautics to begin designing a replacement for the Wildfire in strict secrecy. Emphasis was placed on affordability and manueverability above all other aspects of the new design. Like the SA-77C, it would be a pure fighter rather than a multirole aircraft.

 

The design team decided to start from scratch, and numerous ideas were put on the table. This included a license-built, simplified F-16A (based on the unsuccessful F-16/79 proposal), resurrecting the Northrop YF-17 Cobra (which had provided the prototype for the F/A-18 Hornet), and essentially a scaled-down version of the Wildfire with variable-sweep wings. The proposal that was liked the most was to design something that would be “radical and practicable,” and centered around the research being made by Grumman Aerospace on forward-swept wing designs. The forward swept wing (FSW) would offer unparalleled (at the time) manueverability, excellent low-speed handling characteristics, and high-Alpha capability.

 

With the permission of Canis, IA contacted Grumman and offered to partner with them in the design of a testbed for the FSW design, which would become the X-29, in August 1983. The X-29 had already begun design work funded by DARPA, and Intelani Aeronautics’ involvement in the design was officially “observer only,” and the fact that much of the research funding came from IA was kept secret.

 

In the interests of speed and cost, the X-29 prototypes were adapted from existing F-5A Freedom Fighter airframes, retaining the forward fuselage and nose landing gear of the type, with main landing gear and control surface actuators of the F-16A. IA, with a better knowledge of composites than Grumman, provided the wings. The X-29 first flew in December 1984.

 

By this time, the Third World War had begun, and a crash program was started to design a military version of the X-29, designated XF-31 Stingray. The second X-29 was designed with a strengthened wing to simulate the addition of hardpoints and first flew in March 1985. By this time, the third X-29 prototype was already being reworked into the first XF-31.

 

Though the X-29 performed well in all respects, Intelani Aeronautics made some improvements to the design. The wing was made slightly larger with more area, while the forward fuselage was made slightly longer and deeper to accommodate the APG-65 radar of the F-16A. A gatling gun setup similar to that of the F/A-18 was proposed, but ultimately rejected in favor of two M39A2 20mm cannon; this was because the F-5 fuselage that the XF-31 was adapted was easily fitted with the M39s and FIRAF pilots were already more used to the cannon armament of the SA-77C and A-4ES. The analog cockpit of the X-29/F-5A was revised to include three multifunction displays, and, taking advantage of combat reports from Europe, an undernose Television Camera System (TCS), adapted from the F-14A+ Tomcat, was added underneath the nose. Because of weight distribution, the decision was made to place the TCS behind the forward landing gear rather than in front of it.

 

Wingtip and underwing fuselage hardpoints were added (the fuselage being too narrow for an underfuselage hardpoint), with the inner pylons “plumbed” for drop tanks. Though the XF-31 was cleared for unguided rocket pods and bombs, and software included for air-to-ground missions, the Stingray was meant to be a pure fighter first and foremost. For the same reason, the canopy was revised as a bubble canopy and the rear fuselage slightly cut down from the X-29, giving better all-around visibility, though not as good as the F-16’s.

 

The most radical change to the X-29 design was the rear fuselage. While it retained the long rear-leading edge extensions (RLEX) of the X-29, a forked twin-tail configuration was adapted for better handling. It was also planned to equip the XF-31 with two engines instead of one, but in the interests of speed the X-29’s single F404 powerplant was retained. The “canoe” that the X-29’s tail was mounted on was retained and used to hold a Holly Stinger ECM suite, essentially equipping the Stingray with internal ECM equivalent to the ALQ-119 pods used over wartime Europe. It was also a “no-frills” aircraft, designed to be built purely for the air superiority role in a hurry at a reasonable price; indeed, the flyaway cost of the Stingray was only $6.2 million per aircraft, half that of the F-16. Because of the speed required to get the aircraft into production, no two-seat conversion trainer F-31 was built.

 

For all the design changes, the XF-31 first flew in May 1985. Again, it was found to be generally a good design, and not as difficult to fly as first thought; the forward swept wing made it virtually impossible to stall, and it was found to be controllable even at an angle of attack of 67 degrees. The heavier nose and twin tails caused some airflow problems, and so the canards were raised a foot higher than those on the XF-31 and made fully controllable; pilots could angle the canards completely down and drop their airspeed precipitously, though this made the Stingray very difficult to control. Strakes were added to the nose (similar to that of the IAI Kfir) to improve longitudinal stability.

 

Production of the standard F-31A was already begun before testing of the XF-31 prototype was complete, and the first production aircraft was rolled out in August 1985. This was done without a formal ceremony to keep the design secret, and the first three F-31As were intended purely for research; these were flown against captured MiG-21s and MiG-23s to develop tactics. Instrumental in this development was Akela Canis Jr., the top-ranked intelani ace, who test-flew the Stingray in October 1985 and proclaimed the design “superb.” The formal announcement of the F-31A was made in November, by which time six were already in Europe with the 51st Fighter Squadron.

 

The Stingray saw its first combat in December, and pilots reported that Soviet pilots were obviously stunned by the radical design being operational. These combat trials also revealed a number of small technical problems, mainly with the guns and TCS system; it also showed the Stingray’s Achilles heel, though one that had been anticipated: the design was very short-ranged compared to other fighters, and was not truly suited for all-weather operations over Europe. Nonetheless, the design was a huge leap forward over the SA-77C and A-4ES, and was placed in full production with priority over all other weapons for the FIR armed forces.

 

Akela Canis Jr. lobbied hard for his 1st Fighter Squadron to be reequipped with Stingrays, and got his wish in February 1986. Pairing the most manueverable fighter then in existence with some of the best-trained fighter pilots in the world proved to be a deadly combination, and “Polar” would go on to score an incredible 420 aerial kills in the Stingray between February 1986 and May 1987. Canis, in his memoirs, attributed this high number to a number of factors: the Stingray’s sudden appearance caught the Soviets by surprise and did not give them enough time to develop counter-tactics; the marked decrease in Soviet pilot quality by summer 1986, which meant poorly-trained pilots were going up against hardened veterans; the Stingray’s unmatched capability in the short-range turning dogfight—up to that point one of the Soviets’ best tactics against large, less manueverable fighters like the Wildfire, F-4, and F-15. This, in Canis’ words, gave Polar the “perfect storm” they needed to achieve a murderous kill ratio, fully ten percent of all NATO kills of the war.

 

The heavy use of composites in the Stingray also made it a very resilient aircraft; Canis returned to base with an entire wingtip missing, while Matthew White, another Polar ace, collided with a flagpole on a strafing mission and managed to return home despite a huge rent in the lower fuselage.

 

The Stingray proved wildly popular, and by the end of the war, four squadrons were equipped with them. It was thought that as many as twenty squadrons might be reequipped with Stingrays, but postwar cuts and the F-31A’s shortcomings proved to limit their numbers. While the Stingray had proven to be arguably the best fighter of the Third World War, it was nonetheless hampered by a lack of range and lack of multirole capability.

 

F-31As were committed to Operation Desert Shield/Storm, using oversize ferry tanks to improve their range. Once more, put into an environment where they excelled, the Stingray reigned supreme, scoring 32 kills, nearly half of all Coalition aerial victories of the war.

 

Though outnumbered by F-15s and F-16s in FIRAF service, the F-31C Stingray remains an important part of the FIRAF and a much-sought after assignment. 72 Stingrays are in service with the FIRAF. These aircraft are slated to be replaced beginning in 2015, possibly by F-32A Mantas or F-35A Lightnings.

 

Completely made-up history aside, I got the idea of equipping my literary characters and fantasy air force with FSW fighters from my childhood, when one of my favorite toys was the GI Joe X-30 Conquest. Dad and I collaborated on the F-31 design, with Dad using the 1/48 scale Hasegawa X-29 kit. He used F-18 tails for the twin tails of the Stingray design, moved the canards to the top of the intakes, added the guns to the nose, and some assorted bumps and such for ECM. (There is a TCS taken from a F-14B kit, but it can't be seen from this angle.) Then hardpoints were added under the wings and on the wingtips, with two drop tanks, two AIM-120 AMRAAMs, and two AIM-9L Sidewinders. Most decals were taken from a F-16 sheet, with JASDF hinomarus used for the "Free Intelani Air Force" roundels; a F-15 sheet supplied both the bear and the blue/white starburst for the tail logo (the bear is from a JASDF F-15 unit, while the starburst is from the 318th FIS from McChord AFB, WA). The whole thing was painted in F-16 style camouflage.

 

The end result was a great looking kitbash, and it was our favorite collaboration. I ran the design by some aviation designers, and they said it was a viable design--though the tails should be moved down to the ends of the RLEXs, as the split tail doesn't offer any benefits to aerodynamics as placed. I was interested to see that the Iranian F-5 Shahegh variant uses a similar tail configuration...

 

Done