On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 08:50:52 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 13 Apr 2004 17:20:09 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .
On 13 Apr 2004 11:48:15 -0700, (WaltBJ) wrote:

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.

There was no FSD, only Prototype and Production.


Sometimes they do that. They did it with the Tomcat and they did it
with the F-16. The F-15 and -18 had FSD aircraft with different paint
jobs but that was about the only difference; that and maybe some
electronics stuff. The original F-15 had a few differences from the
following aircraft but that's really no different than what they do in
any flight test program. The chief difference with the F-22 is all
the time they're taking to do it.