The Scorpion is a clean-sheet, all-composite design with a tandem cockpit, retractable sensor mounts, an internal weapons bay and wing-mounted hard points for external stores. It is powered by twin turbofans producing 8,000 pounds of thrust. Among specifications the companies list are a mtow of 21,250 pounds, maximum speed of 450 ktas and 45,000-foot service ceiling.
The goal is to field an aircraft capable of operating for less than $3,000 per flying hour; the company declined to cite a target unit cost. By contrast, the Pentagon in June cited the cost per flying hour of the F-16, which currently performs many of these missions, as $24,899.
Assuming Scorpion makes good on its operating-cost target, the system could have saved the Pentagon $1 billion a year in fuel alone, says F. Whitten Peters, Air Force secretary from 1999-2001.
-------------------- It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so. Posts: 6949 | Registered: Apr 2004
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