On 13 Apr 2004 11:48:15 -0700, (WaltBJ) wrote:

(phil hunt) wrote in message ...
On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 13:55:05 +0200, Emmanuel Gustin wrote:

What is needed, clearly, is a revised approach to aircraft
development. SNIP:

No mierda, Dick Tracy.
One of Kelly's aids to success was that no one stuck their fingers in
his pies. He knew where he was going, herded his troops in the right
direction, overrode (mostly) the impediments (Viz. A11 security) and
got the job done in an outstanding manner. Now every swinging SOB
sticks his nose in the tent and stirs the pot - it's a wonder anything
gets done, and all the while Congress is both slowing things down with
investigations and continuing pressures to build something/anything
'in my district' and meanwhile the overhead keeps piling up day after
day, year after year, and it's all added to the cost of the airplane.
The 22 should have been in service test in 1990.
Walt BJ

While what you say is esssentially correct, the 1990 date is a bit
excessive. I left ATF at Northrop in mid-'88 and at that time
metal-bending was just commencing for FSD. The only real full-scale
mock-up was plywood. Gotta assume that F-22 wasn't that different than
-23.

Was probably pretty good that airframes were airborne in '90, but
avionics were still mostly conceptual. Will definitely agree that the
decade of the '90s really showed a slow-down in development.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8