F-32 vs F-35

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...

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


Such as?

Construction techniques and various aspects of it's stealth design.



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?

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.





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?

Explained previously. Obviously unit price could drop.

Hell if Boeing had won
with the X-32, LM could have upgraded and sold F-16s until the cows
came home.

But as another poster already pointed out, nothing comes close to the JSF
requirements. Thus the F-16 still wouldn't be in the same league.

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.

Can it be made as stealthy?

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.

Then they should do it, assuming a market with enough bucks to buy them.


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.

Exactly, and thus the whole argument about governmental funding becomes
weaker. If they can perform full R&D on very expensive relatively low
production aircraft they would be in a better position than most to fund
further R&D on a platform that has already been funded into existence.

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

And being one of the largest manufacturers of commerical aircraft would thus
would be in a better position than any other commercial manufacturer to step
into military aircraft production. Note that Boeing already plays a major
part in maintaining various military aircraft.

It's definitely a big and expensive step but if anyone could do it, it would
have to be Boeing.



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.

$5B is unsupportable? I think that amount, while large, to be possible.

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.

167 wouldn't be that hard to sell when individual potential customers are
already looking at buying 100.

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

Most defence contracts do not have the "reasonable profit" that commercial
industry expects.

and the number of aircraft you
have to sell to make it viable climbs dramatically.

I don't think it would be that hard to sell a budget orientated stealth
fighter, noting statements currently produced comes close to JSF
requirements.

If we assume the initial partner orders were in the vicinity of 400 units @
30M there would be enough margin to cover manufacturing and profit.

How much profit is their in a military aircraft with a unit price of $30M
anyway? Not much, it's generated in the through life operational costs.

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.

Totally agree, the money must be upfront for development. Anyone joining
into this sort of scheme would have to be fully committed.

Interestingly, being a SDD partner to JSF doesn't tie you into buying
aircraft. Many partners have joined to hedge their bets on final purchase
whilst simultaneously getting access to some of the technology and contracts
to be awarded.

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*.

As is Australia now but, they are holding off as long as possible. There are
also a number of lesser nations in the area who could do with a handful of
new aircraft. The same might apply for smaller European nations.

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.

Actually only a few nations are buying Flankers and those they are getting
are having some teething problems.

So they won't have any money for F-32s.

Any idea on the price of the Flankers?

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?

Quite a few working with tight budgets and tighter contracts.

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.

Only if you ignore the fact that Boeing is one of the largest and most
successful manufacturers of aircraft in the world. If anyone other than a
pure defence contractor could produce a platform for military use, it would
have to be them.

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".

Guess who's keeping the F-111's flying? Sure, that's not manufacturing but
Boeing isn't a newbie to the defence industry either.


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.

That may be true and perhaps it should have gone on to become something else
for another customer. It seems a shame that so many promising designs are
scrapped soley because they didn't finish first in a competition designed to
meet the requirements of a couple of specific customers.

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?

Based on the previously mentioned $5B and, the non-JSF partners are implying
they want F-35s, we can come back to Japan, Israel, possibly Taiwan, and
perhaps Singapore as possible buyers. Throw in some existing JSF partners
who haven't committed to F35 and you may be getting close, Australia needs
75-100 aircraft for example.

Now whether these countries could spring for both development and purchase
is the issue. Perhaps not, but if a few smaller nations opted in you may a
higher number of small sales which might get to a more economic number of
aircraft at a nominal $30M each.

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 prouction model was that they were both ugly suggest
that there were significant design flaws.

Ugly seemed to be related to that chin intake. From every other angle but
head and side on it didn't look that bad.

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.

Most of the heat problems were related to the VTOL requirement, if you
remove that hurdle the whole thing becomes a lot simpler.


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.

Defence Marketing 101

The buyers specification never matches their expectation.
The contractors initial marketing never quite matches the final item.

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.

Because it's the only option for that general capability. Perhaps if there
was a competitor it would be different.

I wouldn't
be at all suprised if no more Typhoons or Rafales were sold after
that.

Australia's AIR6000 project were consider both, amongst others.

Maybe some Gripens if the price is right. Lots of last
generation aircraft will still be sold IMO

Always will be.

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.

A shame isn't it? However I doubt the F-23 would have met the stealth
requirements. BTW what's the projected range for the F-23?



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.

But none of those have the reported levels of stealth the JSF contenders
had.


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.

Lessons learnt, perhaps they should apply them to what they have now so they
can be better prepared for next time (other buyers).




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.

I believe one of the biggest failings was STOVL. It was a key requirement
for those planning to replace Harriers, beyond that not many forces would
put such a high value on the VTOL element.


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?

We can't say it will be more expensive but if you drop the expensive and
technological difficult VTOL capability the costs are likely to be less.

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.

What is the price difference between the three F-35 variants? Quoted figures
never made the distinction on model type.




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,

No, they have only signed up for the SDD phase. There is nothing more than a
vague committment to buy, nothing in writing yet.

Israel is buying more F-15s and
F-16s and Taiwan isn't in the market at the moment IRC.

Israel may be buying F-15 and F-16s but they've indicated a desire for F-35s
and a preference to get in early on the production...

Japan is rumoured to be looking at JSF to go on their proposed aircraft
carriers (which they prefer to call destroyers with helo decks). OK, if that
was the case then they'd want STOVL and I'm implying Boeing could drop
that....

NZ could do with a few, even a token number to keep some pilots/expertise,
considering they have nothing really left.



(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.

Surely an equal amount to what has already been spent to get to this point.
That's nothing to sneeze at, even if it does leave a big amount still to be
spent.

Boeing's final design was completely
different than the X-32, and the engine would need more developement.

A more conventional engine may be practical if that STOVL is dropped.

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".

OK, but I think they learnt a bit more than that :-)



(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".

Yes, my oops.

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.

Hence the need to go direct to potential buyers rather than ask the US
Government for R&D.

And what
aircraft have been developed that weren't funded by a major country?

What's your definition of 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.

Australia did seriously consider it several decades back but took the easier
option of buying Mirages.

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?

Depends on how much risk you're willing to face for the chance of having the
edge over potential enemies. Some might consider that a viable option.

Yes, I see that the idea of turning the X-32 into a production aircraft
isn't a walk in the park. There are some serious economic issues to be
considered. However, to consign it to the dustbin seems a huge waste of tax
payer funded R&D. I still believe there is sufficient market for this type
of aircraft even if it isn't up to the formal JSF competition spec. If any
commercial aircraft company could do it, it would have to be Boeing.

--
The Raven
http://www.80scartoons.co.uk/batfinkquote.mp3
** President of the ozemail.* and uunet.* NG's
** since August 15th 2000.