AM-X --- Files of ATFX Aerodynamic and FighterJets - http://atfx.org

Translated by BabelFish

AM-X

AMX The engineers do not undergo any more pressure on behalf of the users to design aircraft able to fly also quickly but possible. The fact is that, when it penetrates in an airspace hostile good defended while evolving/moving at very low altitude, a fighter cannot fly at very high speeds, unless being above the sea or of a ground absolutely punt. In the contrary case, it is preferable that its speed borders 900 km/h. What wants to say that the plane in question can be simpler and be much less expensive than an apparatus of the class Mach 2. This philosophy led engineers to carry out A-7, which constituted in 1977 the starting point of the AMX. Conceived to take the changing of G-91 and the F-104G within the Italian air force, the AMX is a modern plane able to carry out missions of brought closer support, prohibition and recognition which should have returned in Tornado, a more expensive aircraft and larger range operating.

The first diagrams of the apparatus were outlined by the Italian aircraft industry on the designation of Aeritalia/Macchi Experimental. The first of these companies worked then in co-operation with EMBRAER, a Brazilian firm, on the project CENTER, intended to take the changing of the MB-326GB. In 1980, the Brazilian government decided to join to the program CENTER, which was distributed between AERITALIA for 46 % (centre section of the fuselage, radome, drift, rudder, elevators, shutters, ailerons and spoilers), Aermacchi for 24 % (before fuselage, integration gun-avionics, cone of tail and canopy) and EMBRAER for 30 % (wings, nozzles of leading edge, stabilizers horizontal, pylons of carrying of load and fuel tanks). The engine, selected in October 1978 because of its good adaptation to the missions planned for the AMX and of its interesting consumption while carburizing, is licensed product by Esparto-Romeo and Piaggio. The assembly of the machines of series proceeds in Turin-Caselle (AERITALIA) and São back Campos (EMBRAER).

AMX Before the second world war, the production of a new fighter in Italy or in Brazil would have appeared completely normal. Nowadays, such a process, even if it is led within the framework of an operation, represents a very heavy load and considerable financial commitments. Aligning already of F-104 able to carry out missions of interception any time with air-to-air missiles to guidance radar and average carried Sparrow or Aspide, the Italian air force knew to resist temptation to order a plane of the class Mach 2 and was satisfied with an apparatus likely to be engaged in offensive exits at short distance. In the past, such a task returned to obsolete hunters, and, at first sight, the AMX could be compared with planes whose notoriety is established, like the Migone, F-84, F-100 and Hunter. It of it is nothing. It is to them, indeed, superior in the fields of aerodynamics, the structure, materials, the systems and, over all, the avionics.

On many aspects, the AMX can be regarded as a conventional plane. Its engine, which does not have any system of increase in the push, is low-size and comprises only air intake with fixed geometry. The profile of these elements is however in conformity with the law of the surfaces, and they have enough long channels to avoid problems such as in knew F-111. The engine can be changed by a simple removal of the back of the fuselage, and the fuel is stored in tanks of fuselage and aerofoil. Although none of the two countries concerned with the program has flying cistern, the AMX can be equipped with a pole of in-flight refueling.

AMX The cell is mainly machined, out of conventional alloys, but the drift, the elevators and other elements of the apparatus are out of composite materials. The aerofoil is éfilée and shows a light arrow, its ends being occupied by rails missile launcher. Powerful high-lift devices including/understanding nozzles of leading edge and shutters with double slit were adapted there. With the gross weight maximum, the takeoff run does not exceed 950 m, and the majority of the missions proceed with half of the aforementioned mass. The roll control is ensured by small ailerons external and four spoilers interior which, directed in a synchronized way, act like air-brakes or, with the landing, like destructors of bearing pressure. The ailerons are hydraulically-operated but can be actuated manually in the event of urgency. As for the spoilers, they are with electric drive. The shutters and the nozzles of leading edge make it possible to increase maneuverability in combat at speeds about Mach 0,6 with a heavy offensive load.

The current vertical stabilizer was increased considerably compared to that of origin following the tests carried out out of blower. A calculator GEC Avionics-AERITALIA ensures the control of the orders of flight, and the rudder is actuated by electric drives. If the electric drives or hydraulic had suddenly known failure, the rudder would be locked with the neutral. The horizontal stabilizers with variable incidence are driven by hydraulic controls and comprise small elevators out of carbon fibre which make it possible to the pilot to manually actuate the whole of these control surfaces in the event of problem.

AMX Like all the planes of its generation, the AMX was designed in order to post an optimal availability ratio when it operates since summarily arranged aerodromes. Almost all the equipment is modular and immediately accessible thanks to the many trap doors which cover the greatest part of the fuselage. If the basic systems are common to the apparatuses which are useful in the air forces Italian and Brazilian, those decided in favour of a different avionics and an armament. The team which designed the AMX knew to reconcile with wonder certain divergent points of view of the future users of the plane without increasing her cost and her size. In addition, the work of development was carried out in a way so intelligent that the apparatus can be equipped today with under systems and equipment which did not exist at the time when it was defined.

The Italian air force chose a platform of inertial navigation Litton Italia, but the Brazilian soldiers preferred to stick to a VOR/ILS. The first of this equipment, whose operation rests on the recourse to stations on the ground, having certain limitations at the time of the missions carried out far inside the enemy territory, the Brazilian air staff got busy to make it improve. Two aviations decided to acquire the AMX with a simple telemetric radar built by firm FIAR is derived from Elta EL/M-2001B of Kfir. However, this equipment, if it is appropriate for the exits of day per good weather, is not adapted to the operations any time. It would be desirable that it was replaced by a radar multimode or shouldered by a video installation FLIR and laser. The air data computer due to Microtecnica is reproduced on all the versions, just like the fire-control computer Litton, the cathodic collimator high head, the system of management of the offensive load multifunction OMI/Selenia and a cathode ray tube screen.

AMX The two air forces users insisted that the aircraft was equipped with a gun. The export of chosen, the M61A-1 of 20 mm American, having been prohibited with Brazil, this one decided in favour of two DEFA-553 of 30 mm supplied at a rate of 125 shells each one (the M61A-1 of the Italian AMX has 350 shells). Only one pilône of carrying of load was placed under the fuselage between the three elements of the three-wheeled landing gear, with which the legs are equipped with shock absorbers. These elements, manufactured by the Italian companies ERAM and Magnaghi, were designed in France by Messier-Hispano-Bugatti. The plane comprises a stick of braking, but it does not have a brake chute nor system of intervention of the push. The pylons of the fuselage and interior of aerofoil can receive a load of 907 kg, while the external points of fastener have a limit of 454 kg. The total offensive load is established to 3500 kg.

One of the important decisions made by the originators of the AMX was to envisage the possibility of installing a compartment on the right side of the fuselage, in front of the leg of the principal train.

For the air forces Italian and Brazilian, the AMX is a useful plane. The loss of the prototype first in an accident which has occurred in June 1984 of did not slow down anything the continuation of the program. If this apparatus had been designed a few years later, it would have doubtless integrated certain elements of Stealth technology. The Italian air force ordered 186 specimens of this apparatus, and the Brazilian air force 79.

Afterwards many adventures, the industrial phase of the program of the AMX began in November 1987, with the ordering of a first batch made up of 30 specimens.