It was less capable but the platform was impressive in several technological
areas.


Such as?


It was a dog. And it was
danged ugly, with a capital U, to boot--danged thing looked like a
pregnant
cow with wings strapped on its back. Hell, it made the old EE Lightning
look
like a true beauty, and that is saying something (not knocking the
Lightning, which was a capable and fine aircraft for its day, but it was
not
looking to win any beauty contests).

I didn't know that the main criteria for selecting any piece of military
hardware was that it had to look good.


Not especially but the saying "if it looks good it'll fly good" didn't
come about for nothing.




The Boeing platform wasn't a "dog" otherwise it would never have gotten as
far as it did into the competition.

Two things. 1. Boeing didn't deliver what it promised. That's part
of the reason they lost. In hindsight they might have chosen the
McDonnel/Northrop design to go forward had they known the trouble
Boeing was going to have. 2. There are dogs that get to the
prototype stage. And actually it was emphasized that these *weren't*
prototypes (even though nobody was fooled by that). The A-9 comes to
mind as a dog. The Cutlass and the Demon are up there too and they
actually made it into service. Then there's the jet/turboprop
Thunder-something. Those two turboprop tailsitters. And so on and
so forth.





The reason no-one has considered the X32 is simply because Boeing hasn't
proceded with it, for whatever reasons. Had Boeing said "We're going ahead
anyway with a revised design that we believe will offer similar capabilities
for a lower cost" then some may have expressed interest in finding out what
this may be.

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?




That said, the US is footing the majority of the bill.

As major buyer, who also has a vested interest in LM selling heaps, you'd
expect that.

Why? Why would it care if LM sells heaps? Hell if Boeing had won
with the X-32, LM could have upgraded and sold F-16s until the cows
came home. There's a ton more that could be done to the F-16 to make
it competitive and even better than the X-32 albeit in the Air Force
role only. Take an F-16XL with a 36k engine with a 3D nozzle,
conformal tanks, a low RCS inlet like they tested on one F-16, and all
the electronic goodies and you'd be just about there at a lower cost
than the F-32 would be.



Naturally Boeing would have to offer something very attractive in the form
of capability and cost to garner enough financial interest to go ahead. Who
funds Boeings development of any commercial aircraft today?

Boeing. And let's not forget they have a LOT of experience building
commercial aircraft.




a financial position to fork over the $30 billion or more required to make
the X-32 a real F-32?

Is it really 30B or is that the forecast for the F35?

$30 billion is quite a bit too much but even if it was only five
billion it would still be unsupportable. Take manufacturing aside and
consider that each F-32 would be 100% profit. At five billion you'd
have to sell 167 aircraft just to break even. That's if they cost $0
to build and if it was only $5 billion more to develope it and Boeing
making $0 dollars in the end. Factor in cost of materials and
manufacturing and a reasonable profit and the number of aircraft you
have to sell to make it viable climbs dramatically. And those are
sales in concrete before you even start. You can't just do all the
work and gamble that someone will want some. Northrop did that with
the F-20 and it was basically an upgraded F-5 and they *still* took it
in the shorts.




Japan springs to mind...but they are already fully
committed to their own F-2 project.

There are lots of asian nations looking for replacements, most friendly.
However, it would obviously need some careful thought and serious
committment.


Take China, South Korea, and Japan out of the equation and who does
that leave you? Singapore? They're already in the market for a new
fighter *now*. Many of those asian countries you are thinking of are
already buying Flankers because that's all they can afford and they
aren't buying many of those. So they won't have any money for F-32s.
South America is out because all they can afford are last generation
hand-me-downs or the occasional newly built old aircraft. And as far
as serious commitment goes, as I pointed out Boeing would have to
essentially say "give us the money up front and we'll build you
something". They couldn't take the chance that the country(s) would
say "uh, we changed our mind" which EVERY country does. Who in the
last twenty years has EVER bought as many as they thought they were?





Recall that one of the reasons Boeing
came up short in this competition was that their X-32 was apparently quite
a
bit further from being a workable fighter than the competing LMCO X-35
was;
Boeing had already had to admit that some *major* redesign would be
required
based upon flight test results of the X-32.

Has Boeing has ever produced a fighter aircraft?


Boeing? Nope. Which *definitely* doesn't inspire confidence. Sure
they have McDonnel Douglas that they incorporated but I'd be willing
to bet most of those employees were saying "hell no we didn't design
that POS".




Fair enough, the X35 is superior to the X32 but I wouldn't rule out that the
X32 could not be developed into something very capable.


Lots of aircraft could. The F-14 was going to be an ASS kicking
machine before they threw it to the dogs. The F-14D was just the
beginning.


The crux of the X32
development is, who would fund it and whether enough could be built to make
it viable. I think it's a shame to see the X32 be discontinued merely
because it didn't meet a specific specification yet shows promise.


Look at the F-23 and it *did* meet spec. and had a hell of a lot more
promise.



Sorry, I don't have a chip on my shoulder about the US. I was responding to
your use of the word "government" implying the US government. I took it that
you ruled out all other governments as a possible source of funding.


Who could fund it? What combination of likely countries could fund
it?



I don't know if there were significant design flaws but I appreciate that a
prototype is a prototype and not expected to be perfect.

Well the fact that the only thing the prototype had in common with
their proposed production model was that they were both ugly suggest
that there were significant design flaws. They went from a swept
forward intake to a swept back. They went from a delta wing to a
conventional tailed aircraft. After they did those they later found
out "uh wait, things are going to get too hot" so they added another
significant vent on each side of the cockpit. Who knows what else
they'd have tripped over on their way to a production aircraft.



Obviously, the X32
didn't perform as well as teh X35. Some redesign may be necessary but I
don't think the aircraft is inherently bad. If it was so bad, it would never
have made it into the competition or remained there until the end.

What made it that far was what Boeing promised. What they delivered
was something else.





I not so certain it's completely unworkable. Difficult yes, viable maybe.
Certainly it would be better than someone embarking on another all new
aircraft design.

You mean like the Rafale, Typhoon and Gripen? Once the F-35 enters
production it's very likely going to clean up the market. I wouldn't
be at all suprised if no more Typhoons or Rafales were sold after
that. Maybe some Gripens if the price is right. Lots of last
generation aircraft will still be sold IMO but the F-35 will be the
one to have for new designs. Mind you, I'm not saying it's BETTER
than the Typhoon but that the difference in capability isn't worth the
difference in cost.



Hardly. You keep forgetting that the X-32 was a lot further from being an
F-32 than the X-35 was from being the F-35.

I agree it's less mature but that doesn't mean it's so bad it should be
scrapped.

The F-23 was far better than the X-32 and one of those prototypes is
in a friggin CLASSROOM and the other is in a dirt lot out in back of a
hanger somewhere.


I'm not suggesting that the X32 be developed into a direct competitor with a
100% match in capability to the F35. The suggestion is that the X32
development not be wasted and that it could be developed into something
viable. Not everyone wants the full JSF capability or can afford it. The X32
has the potentional to fill that market.

That market is already being filled by late model F-16s, F-15s,
Flankers, Gripens, Rafales, Typhoons, Super Hornets and so on.



No, the competition took place because we wanted to select the best
competitor for further development.

Which was decided by the government and their end users who had specific
requirements in mind. These requirements do not necessarily reflect those of
everyone else but, they may come close.

So do a lot of aircraft that are already on the market.





The fact that two companies competed to
the point that they did had nothing to do with the size of the market

Obviously it did. No use bidding to produce and aircraft which has such a
limited market the customer won't be able to afford it and you wont be able
to sell it elsewhere.


YF-22 & YF-23. 'nuff said.




--it
could have just as well been handled on the basis of selecting the best
proposal from one of the firms without having developed flight-capable
demonstrators, but that would not have been wise given that the basic
aircraft is asked to do quite a lot more than any other current or planned
fighter project under development anywhere in the world (demanding the
same
basic aircraft design be capable of conventional land based use, CTOL
carrier use, and STOVL was quite a tall order).

Several points here.

Why would anyone go to this effort if there was no return in it for them? If
you knew you had no chance of winning you'd save your R&D budget and bow out
of the competition.

Boeing thought they did have a chance although by the looks on their
faces they clearly didn't think it was much of one as the competition
progressed and the X-35 showed it's stuff.



You state that the basic aircraft was set requirements that no other
aircraft currently has. If those requirements are so valuable then there is
potentially a market for more than one offering.

But the X-32 failed to meet those requirements.



ure, the market may be
limited in size but buyers will always prefer two options over one. Hence,
an F32 could provide an alternative even allowing that it may be less capabl
e than an F35.

Why would they want something that was less capable and more
expensive?



f course, to do this an F32 would need to be attractive in
some other way (eg. affordability, trading off expensive capabilities not
required by most customers - VTOL).

It wouldnt' be cheaper and if they wanted to trade off VTOL they'd buy
the F-35A instead of B.



Who's to say there isn't other markets than the
current JSF partner nations? I'm sure others would like something
similar
and, combined together, could probably generate sufficient funds to see
the
X32 developed into something.

OK, so you come up with a list of these economically able nations who (a)
are on our good guys list,

I suggested a few but there would be others.

(b) are not already committed to other expensive
R&D efforts, and

Australia, Israel, Taiwan (?) for starters.

Austraila is signed up on the F-35, Israel is buying more F-15s and
F-16s and Taiwan isn't in the market at the moment IRC.





(c) are willing to dump insane amounts of capital towards
the fielding of an aircraft that is going to in the end undoubtedly cost
more per unit (when all of that additional R&D is factored in) than the
F-35

You forget to factor in the existing R&D has already been paid for, which
reduces the cost somewhat.

Not as much as you'd think. Boeing's final design was completely
different than the X-32, and the engine would need more developement.
Basically all Boeing got out of the experience was "I think our code
works sort of, a plastic wing doesn't, and the engine might be good if
it was more powerful and our plane was lighter".



(which not only required less redesign but also enjoys the largesse of
Uncle
Sugar handling the majority of the R&D funding, and enjoys a large base
order from the US which drives the unit cost down)

Yes, it's not going to be easy to generate the funding but that doesn't mean
it's as impossible as you suggest. Aircraft have been designed before with
the US funding it and I don't dispute that the benefit of a large base
order.

I assume you meant to say "without the US funding it". If Boeing
decided to continue with the X-32 it's very unlikely they'd even get
the time of day from the government let alone any money. And what
aircraft have been developed that weren't funded by a major country?
Taiwan came up with one. I think it's South Korea that's doing the
one with Lockheed and I think that's about it. Sweden is sortof in
there with the Gripen but IIRC they have more money to spend that any
of the third string asian nations that might be in the market for an
F-32.




and is a less capable
platform than the F-35 is to boot.

Less capable than the F35 means nothing if you don't want all the
capabilities of an F35.

There are a plethora of alternatives already out there. If I was a
potential buyer would I want to fork out a bunch of money for an
aircraft that lost and whos "final" configuration has never flown? Or
would I want a nice shiny Block 60 F-16 or F-15K for less money?