"Fred J. McCall" wrote in message
...
"Arved Sandstrom" wrote:

:Just out of curiosity, why were they not able to design conformal
external
:fuel tanks that also are fairly stealthy? I find it difficult to believe
:that it could not be done.

Because the weapons carriage is internal. You can't launch weapons
through a conformal tank. It would also make the tank quite expensive
(rather than just steel). There is also the issue of changing the
shape of the airframe with conformal tanks (all those join lines),
which makes this a lot more difficult than you apparently think.

I know it's not easy. I do have a physics degree and some electrical
engineering under my belt. Yes, the tank would cost a few bucks - compared
to the price of the a/c itself I don't know how worried I'd be about that.
And I know a bit about antenna theory, so I am not oblivious to the fact
that it would have to be carefully done. But I suspect it would be less
difficult to do than you suggest.

All this means you might as well just design the volume into the
airframe in the first place (which is what they did).

Resulting in yet other compromises.

AHS