The Raven wrote:
"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
hlink.net...
The Raven wrote:
"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
How do you figure it would be at a lower cost when Boeing would be
footing the entire developement bill *and* they'd be sold in fewer
numbers than the F-35?

I'm speculating that it could be cheaper once you drop certain JSF
requirements that aren't in high demand by other global military
forces. VTOL is one, sure people may desire it but few can justify
it on cost and practicality.

Let's imagine you could drive the development costs down for a
non-VSTOL single-configuration design. You're still talking about
system complexity comaprable to Eurofighter, which is costing tens
of billions of dollars to develop. Even the cheapest modern combat
aircraft program, Gripen, is costing around $5-8 billion for
development. And that's a very basic deasign comapred to this F-32.

OK

Given the very limited potential export market, Boeing could not
possibly justify this cost.

OK

The simple fact is that overseas buyers are seldom
interested in aircraft types not adopted by the US military.

Sorry, I dispute that on the fact that there are plenty of military
aircraft in use around the world which weren't adopted by the US
military. Yes, the US military may be the largest buyer and thus have
an influence on other buyers etc but to claim that people seldom buy
equipment not adopted by the US military is false.

I left out a word here, so let me clarify. There is a lot of reluctance to
buy warplanes not in service with the builder's own national miliary. No
one wants to buy a *US-built* fighter not in service with the US military.
Nor do they want a European plane not flying with a European air force
first. And so forth.

For examples,
see the F-20 and F-18L.

OK, that's two.

Well, for a counterexample, find me any example of a successful export of a
fighter aircraft post WW2 where some version of the same aircraft was not in
service with the building country's own armed forces. AFAIK, the only one
that even comes close is the F-5, which was never an operational fighter for
the USAF. But it was designed in an era when front-line US hardware was not
available to many buyers.

This is a real problem area. Boeing cannot freely market stealth
technology.
[snip]
Ahh, an this was alluded to in my original posts but no-one responded
to it. The US government would not allow Boeing to go ahead,
assuming they wanted to, so as to retain control of technology and
resulting capabilities that could affect US interests.

Well of course. Strictly speaking, the government can't prevent Boeing from
proceeding, it can just prohibit Boenig from using certain technologies on
the export control list. It's a lot of technologies, though.

Buying F-35 is not a requirement for industrial involvement,
which.the JSF Teams have said repeatedly. Being a partner, however;
is a requirement for consideration in industrial involvement. So, as
long as you're a partner nation the doors are open for industrial
involvement. Once industrial involvement is contractually underway it
would be stupid for the JSF team to yank the rug merely because a
partner nation chose not to continue beyond the SDD phase.

Would you like to bet on those contracts being renewed/extended if the RAAF
does not buy some F-35s? I suspect they would not be, since there will be
plenty of actual F-35 buyers looking for offsets and industrial
participation themselves.

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)