Preliminary design of an ASTOVL strike-fighter

The paper presents the Imperial ASF-94A, an advanced short take-off, vertical landing (ASTOVL) strike-fighter design concept. This was originally developed by the author in September 1994, at Imperial College and then became the subject of an eight-month preliminary design study, by a large group of students in the department of Aeronautics. The aircraft was designed primarily for the air superiority role, but with also a good offensive support capability. It is a single-seat, single-engine design, featuring a low-observables configuration with an arrowwing and an all-moving close-coupled foreplane, V-tail, twin diamond intakes and internal weapon bays. Clean configuration aerodynamics and lightweight structural design together with thrust from a powerful, advanced, low bypass ratio, reheated turbofan with a limited single-axis thrust vectoring nozzle and a remote lift-fan, produced a highly effective and manoeuvrable combat with short take-off, vertical landing and high angle-of-attack capabilities. Low ground support, rapid turnaround and enhanced maintainability features where also incorporated in the ASF-94A, from the earliest stages of its design in order to develop a configuration with high overall operational effectiveness. This paper aims to provide a technical description of the ASF-94A and its operational performance and to discuss the design challenges encountered in the development of this innovative concept.