ALR Piranha

Piranha
Role	Fighter aircraft
National origin	Switzerland
Designer	ETH Zürich& ALR
Number built	0

The ALR Piranha was a project in the late 1970s involving a lightweight multi-role combat aircraft with canard wings. It was a project of the Swiss Working Group for Aerospace (ALR), which is the maintenance and entertainment unit of the Swiss Air Force. The manager of the project was Georges Bridel, an engineer at ETH Zurich.^[1]

History

Size comparison "ALR PIRANHA" with the SEPECAT Jaguar and McDonnell Douglas F-15

After the Swiss government had cancelled the FFA N-20 and the order of 100 FFA P-16s, the Swiss aviation industry and the ETH Zurich made a last attempt for their own Swiss fighter aircraft. It should be a small fighter plane - similar in class to the F-5E which the Swiss Air Force later ordered.

Studies conducted in the 1960s and 1970s required modern aircraft equipment that was too expensive for small states to afford. The increase in the cost of flight material and weapons shrank the fleet sizes and their performance in combat. The projected design would also require common parts that could be built to support different missions - the aircraft would be used for air and ground attack, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and operational training. ^[2] This presented a small fighter plane, with respect to the F-5E, with significantly reduced size (20% smaller surface). ^[3]

The Piranha design was of close-coupled canard arrangement, with a shoulder-mounted, low aspect ratio main wing of near-delta plan.^[4] Seven hard-points for weapons were planned, with four under-wing pylons and one on the aircraft center line rated at 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) and rails on the aircraft's wingtips for air-to-air missiles such as the AIM-9 Sidewinder or the R.550 Magic. A single cannon, either the heavy, powerful 30 mm Oerlikon KCA or the lighter Mauser BK-27, would be mounted on the aircraft's center line, with the nose wheel slightly offset as a result.

The ALR would have been equipped with avionics, radar, armament and engines from abroad. In front of the cockpit would be placed a Laser seeker sensor.^[5] Air brakes are applied to the sides of the rear hull in the single engine version. In the twin-engine version of the two air brake flaps are placed on the upper fuselage near the vertical tail.

The ALR would be in a single engine version, powered by RB199, EJ200 or M88 or offered in a twin-engine version (with two Larzac). Only the rear part of the twin engine to the single engined version would be different in the size, the arrangement of the parachute container, and the air brakes.

The Swiss government was not interested in the project. There was wind tunnel testing and flight testing in Emmen with remote-controlled model airplanes. Also, a real-size mock cockpit was created. A new concept for aircraft bunker with a rotating floordisc in the bottom for a simple handling of the aircraft in the aircraft bunker was designed. But no prototype nor aircraft bunker was built.

Variants

External images

ALR Piranha

ALR Piranha Model

ALR Piranha 1 Engine

ALR Piranha plan 2engine

ALR Piranha plan 1engine

ALR Piranha 1engine

ALR Piranha 2engine

Piranha 1

Subsonic variants.

Piranha 2C

Transonic ground attack version, powered by a single Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Adour Mk 811 (RT172-58) engine with 24.6–37.4 kN (5,530–8,408 lbf) thrust (with or without afterburner), no radar and small 13.5 m² (145.3 sq ft) wings.

Piranha 2D (1)

Version for attack and air superiority fighter, a 29.2–44.9 kN (6,564–10,094 lbf) thrust Adour (RT172-63), full avionics and small 13.5 m² (145.3 sq ft) wings.

Piranha 2D (2)

Like as (1) but with a large wing 16 m² (172.2 sq ft).

Piranha 4

2x SNECMA Turbomeca Larzac M-74/05 turbofan engines (15% more thrust at supersonic speed than RT172-63), shorter and wider fuselage.

Piranha 5

2x 18.4–30.2 kN (4,136–6,789 lbf) Garrett/TFE 1042-7 turbofan engines.

Piranha 6

1x 40.5–73 kN (9,105–16,411 lbf) Turbo-Union RB.199 Mk.104 turbofan engine.

Specifications

• Armament: 1 x Cannon (KCA 30mm, 27mm Mauser, General Electric GE-430 30mm) Piranha 6/4 Piranha / Piranha 2D (2) / Piranha 2D (1)
• Length: 11.57 m / 10.50 m / 10.7 m / 10.7 m
• Wingspan: 7.62m / 6.49m / 6.49m / 6m
• Height: 4.25 m / 4.12 m
• Wing area: 22 m² / 16 m² / 16 m² / 13.5 sq m
• Empty weight: 4340 kg / 3800kg
• Max Fuel: 2160 kg +
• External memory max: 3.500 kg
• Normal TOW: 7040 kg / 5900kg
• Max TOW: 10.000 kg
• Maximum speed: Mach 1.8 / Mach 1.6
• Max rate of climb: 18,000 m / minute /
• Ceiling: 16,800 m
• Off distance: 300m / 450m
• Combat radius, lo-lo-lo, 2000 kg weapons load, 20 min cruise, 5 min Combat Mission: 400km 300km
• Avionics:
  • Ferranti FIN 1020nav / attack, Type 105D Laser Distance Meters, HUD Smith, Thomson-CSF Agave radar.
  • INS FINAS FerrantiFINAS INS 2000 Ferranti 4510 HUD, Type 105D Laser Distance Meters, Emerson APG-69, APG-67 or General Electric Blue Vixen radar.

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Janes all the world's aircraft supplement (18), in Flugrevue, Juni 1980, S. 55 f.
• Jane's all the world's aircraft, Verlag McGraw-Hill, 1985, S. 205
• Leichtkampfflugzeug Piranha. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung: Wochenschrift für Architektur, Ingenieurwesen, Maschinentechnik, Band 96, 1978, S. 636
• P-16 et autres jets suisses. Le Temps, 1. Dezember 2011
• "The Light Fighter Market...and a European proposal". Air International. Vol. 18 (No. 2): pp. 77–81. February 1980. 
• Walters, Brian (November 1992). "Jäger Light: A project a decade too early". Air International. Vol. 43 (No. 5): pp. 257–259. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to ALR Piranha.

• ALR Documentation about the Piranha