Sponsored by REGGIANI S.p.A. Illuminazione - Milano, Italia
AMX of "Buscaglia" Wing during refuelling. (184Kb)
It's not matter of face lifting, but of evolution driven by real operators requirements, particularly of Air Force Staff.
Thus arises the proposal to develop a specific AMX version able to fly with Tornado and AMX attack groups and protect them. Such a role requires of course a biplace, and the choice has been AMX-T airframe, already in service.
Why use AMX instead of Tornado? More than technical considerations, a philosophy has been followed: being AMX a practically national program, more flexibility is allowed with respect to Tornado, where workshare terms imply the necessity to distribute abroad most of work, besides other conditions due to differences or lack of national requirements.
AMX-E is not a competitor of EA-6B Prowler or EF-111E Raven, both nearing retirement: it will not be an aircraft equivalent to the costly US types, because disturbance capacity of its devices will be obviously lower. Role of the aircraft will be that of "escort jamming".
nearing the target , AMX-E will leave the bombers to loiter jamming enemy radars and launching, if necessary, HARM missiles. Flying closer would be dangerous and unuseful, because no airborne system coul jam effectively over short distances.
Windtunnel experiments showed the advantages of a big ventral conformal pod, some 5m long, hosting all search and jamming devices, whose resistence is comparable with that of Twin Store Carrier with two bombs or Orpheus reconnaissance pod.
Electronic mock-up of two possible configurations for AMX-E. (66Kb)
AMX-E will be equipped with flight refuelling systems, particularly important since two-seats AMX has lower fuel capacity. Furthermore, because of energy demand of on-board electronic systems, existing power generators will be improved and eventually an auxiliary generator added, powered by a ram-air turbine or modified APU (Fiat Argo).
Weapons will include, in addition to two Sidewinder missiles for air-to-air self defence, to HARM missiles on outboard wing pilons and, for short-distance missions, two more MARM on inboard ones, normally loaded with auxiliary fuel tanks. Cannon will be desembarked to give place to electronic systems.
Windtunnel tests demonstrated that AMX-E could maintain a low-level speed of 500Kts (928Km/h) or above over whole mission profile, similar to Tornado with full weapons load.
At the very beginning, AMX envisaged a system to be mounted in a starboard fuselage bay, developed by Brazilian industry and finally qualified but never adopted by Italian AF. Now a high-definition TV system, with special optics, is foreseen: thanks to magnetic recording, images will be available immediately after landing or even before via datalink.
Two AMX flying in formation over the Alps. (44Kb)
A reasonable hypothesis could be to select an unreheated version of EFA-2000's EJ-200: some 20% more thrust could be available, useful more to give agility to the plane than to get more peak performance.
Installation of the engine in the large airframe should not be a problem but for accessory gearbox, which on Spey is mounted directly on the engine while on EJ-200 is directly fixed on airframe.
But the real problem is the economic one: there is no similar variant of EJ-200 on the market yet, and its realization should require large investments, justified only with respect to a significant production backlog.
Back to AeroWEB Home Page
This server is powered by LINUX, the first
free UNIX &trade Operating System for INTEL 80x86 Processors (and beyond!).
AeroWEB © 02/21/1997