RAI Sho'al

The RAI Sho'al was a single engined fourth generation multirole jet fighter developed by Ramavi Aviation Industries during the 1980s. The Sho'al was a revolutionary fighter for Ramav, introducing an unstable fly by wire flight control system for agility, as well as off boresight air to air missiles and a helmet mounted display to allow for easier target acquisition. The aircraft is currently the most numerous in Ramavi service.

Development
In the late 1970s, the Ramavi MoD issued a tender for a aircraft capable of delivering heavy loads of ordnance long distances to strategic locations located within Al Rakhban and it's proxies at high speeds while still being low enough in cost to order in large numbers. Despite the ground attack mission being its primary purpose, the plane was also intended to perform various other roles, especially helping with gaining air superiority. The aircraft responding to the tender were therefore designed to possess both the flight performance and capabilities to perform as an effective supplement to the existing fighter fleet in carrying out aerial combat missions.

Loai Tzedef, the project chief at RAI, elected to embark on an entirely new design, in contrast to his competitors at Stachar who chose to instead base their design off the then in service Chetz. A delta canard layout was selected since the proposed delta wing arrangement would be relatively light while still providing space for a considerable amount of fuel, as well as good low altitude characteristics and very good directional stability while at high angles of attack. The canard generated extra lift and positive control when at high angles off attack. While this configuration would give the aircraft then almost unmatched maneuverability, it also exhibited natural instability during flight. This necessitated the creation of a digital fly-by-wire system which allowed the aircraft to take advantage of the instability while negating most of the shortcomings.

In early 1983, the first prototype took off on its maiden flight. The flight lasted about half an hour, with the intention of monitoring the engine and controls. The aircraft was highly praised for its handling. About three months later, a second prototype took to the air. It featured improvements and additional features over the first, with a belly-mounted fuel tank, an air to air refuelling probe and several new avionic systems. Both were tandem two seaters, with the rear cockpit occupied by test equipment. It wasn't until 1984 that the first single seater took flight, about half a year before the final flyoff between the Sho'al and its competitor, the Stachar Romach. The Sho'al would come out on top, its huge performance advantages over the Romach overruling the issues of program cost. The following two years would be put into various improvements, until the first production models were delivered in 1986.

Design
The Sho'al is a single seat single engine multirole fighter aircraft designed primarily to conduct high speed penetration and bombing missions while maintaining a high level of manoeuvrability and survivability. An inverse S-duct is used in the intake for two reasons. The first was to reduce foreign object damage to the engine, allowing takeoffs from quickly prepared strips. The second was to reduce the frontal infrared and radar signatures.

It was envisioned that the Sho'al's lifecycle costs would be lower than any frontline aircraft then in service with Ramav, however efforts were also made to achieve a lower procurement cost as well in order to draw in export orders.

Engine
The Sho'al is powered by a single RAI Shavit turbofan engine, capable of generating 92 kN of thrust and enabling the aircraft to reach a maximum speed of Mach 1.6, although this would be higher if not for the intake design that was selected.

Avionics
From the point of view of its manufacturers, the Sho'al's main area of advancement over its competitors was the level of integration of avionics and onboard electronics. Advertisements commonly claimed that the aircraft was "the most computerised system in the world". A key innovation was the use of a quadruplex-redundant digital fly-by-wire flight control system.

The avionics suite employed a modular design capable of adding upgrades via the Avamo MAS-82 mission computer. Avamo also held responsibility for the electronic warfare self-protection systems. These are capable of rapid threat identification and automated response, incorporating a suite of active and passive countermeasures, such as power-managed noise and deception jamming systems, in order to take stress off the pilot. Both internal and external EW systems were to be used. Avamo also developed the MAE-84 Doppler multimode radar for the Sho'al, which was capable of various air to air and air to ground modes, including high-resolution mapping, terrain avoidance and look down/shoot down functionality.

Operators

 * Ramav flag 1.png Ramav
 * Ramavi Airforce

Specifications
Role: Multirole fighter

Weight: 7,031kg unloaded, 19,277kg max takeoff.

Crew: 1 or 2

Powerplant: 1 x RAI Shavit Mk.III afterburning turbofan, 61 kN thrust, 92 kN with afterburner.

Max Speed: 2223km/h at 12,000m (mach 1.8), 1431km/h at sea level (mach 1.2).

Armament: 2 x 25mm Yaran ARC-53 revolver cannon, 11 hardpoints (7 fuselage, 4 wing) for up to 7250kg of ordinance.