BEST FIGHTER FOR CANADA

The familiar Boeing 707 A comment on my last post got me thinking...  "Just what constitutes an 'all new' aircraft design?" When it comes down to it, an aircraft's purpose dictates its shape.  Passenger airliners are all designed with efficiency in mind.  This leads to the almost identical shape of a long tube for carrying passengers in pressurized comfort, swept wings to provide a quick cruising speed, and engines mounted in nacelles for easy maintenance.  This general shape originated on the first really successful airliner, the Boeing 707, first flown almost 60 years ago. Different sizes, but familiar design.  Airbus A380 (top) and Embraer E-170 While over 50 years of development has brought us new construction techniques, new engine technology, and new materials, modern airliners still resemble the classic 707.  They might be of a different size, with fewer engines, but the layout is still pretty much the same, whether it's a massive 5...

Textron Scorpion Textron, parent company to Cessna, the well known civil aviation manufacturer, unveiled an interesting concept recently named the Scorpion. It's a two-seat, twin turbofan design meant to be used as a light strike aircraft, ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) platform, or a trainer.  Wing pylons are capable of mounting external fuel, weapons, or sensors.  A modular design allows easy customization for potential customers. The Scorpion's stingers. While it certainly appears sleek, with a tail quite reminiscent of the F-14 Tomcat, the Scorpion is certainly no dogfighter.  It's incapable of supersonic flight and those long, straight wings are designed with loiter time in mind, not high speed performance.  Still, the promise of an affordable ($3,000 per flight hour) light attack and ISR platform seems to have a lot of potential in the days of military budget cutbacks and uber-expensive stealth fighters. But is there a market?...