Actually took up the book. Pages 10-11. Anyone calling himself a plane person should have it but for those who don't, here's what Gunston says:
"At first glance the idea seems ludicrous: unable to manoeuvre, vulnerable in the extreme, astronomically expensive. But dare one ignore it?"
Actually the very first and the last pictures of the book are the same, captioned "Even in an F-15 you dare not stop eyeballing the sky around you." Actually the Mike Spick section begins with almost the same shot, admonishing to check 6. The point? With all due reverence and respect, Bill Gunston would become somehow odd once every month. But instead of howling at the moon he would have it in print that "anti-gravity" was out there, kept secret for some nefarious aim by the Americans. While that USAF windtunnel is obviousy collaborating with the scam, that's nothing of the sort. The Secret Projects Forum has a certain amount of conceit against What-iffers, but maybe we could call on Overscan to say this is not a Slip Wing a la Hurricane style for P-75(?) . Which was a Republic MiG-21/Thunderchief mongrel with twin engines.
Also ignore the silly ideas. How are you going to control it, with Vulcan Mind Meld? There's no Star Trek in 1962. Be simple, just drive two beams up from the bombbay of the '105F/G, hang two large tanks a la Lightning. (Yeees, that's a British invention!) Your loadout will be then, wingtip to wingtip, twin Sidewinder pylon, Standart ARM, 6 snakeyes(half with fuse extenders) Standart ARM, Shrike ARM. You can have a 3rd Standart under the fuselage, why do I care?
This is when the T-46 will tank and Republic/Fairchild will go down. They have added 3 or 4 different projects, a "kit-bash" I'll think you'll call it. There's no need for so many companies! Mach 4.5? Aren't those X-Wing engines? Lockmart would do Mach 45 with them... This is when America is doing the ATF! Why, yeeees, yeeees, America did the ATF.
The moral of the story? I don't what this Roper guy is trying to do. Everyone knows Lockmart will get the next fighter project, so integrated that the onboard pilot can watch Youtube and Netflix and have an ice cream while the AI downs 1000 Felons at once.
