No More New Fighter Aircraft Types?

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 18:20:42 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 17:00:05 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Apr 2004 16:18:30 -0600, Scott Ferrin
wrote:

At that point in the competition (two designs chosen of seven paper
designs) unless the USAF did a lot of inhouse simulation/studies/ etc.
about the only thing they have to go on is the data the manufacturers
submit with their proposals.

Excuse me, but this must be some sort of a time warp that I didn't
live through.


It's probably that age thing kicking in ;-) We're talking about the
decision process the LED to the building of the YF-22 and YF-23.

You might understand my confusion then. I thought we were talking
about the contract award choice for F-22. To have stated that the AF
bought an unflyable design would require a linkage between paper
proposal and final decision point at the end of the fly-off.

If we're talking about funding of Dem/Val, certainly there was a
decision made to narrow the field (must have been around '84) and
combine capabilities into the two teams. The purpose of Dem/Val (by
definition) is Demonstration/Validation of the proposed concepts. That
meant building the whole proposal package ranging from airframe to
man/machine interface to aerodynamic modeling to training (both
operator and maintainer training were required in the proposal).

By late '87, metal was being bent and configuration was well
established. Simulations were very far along. By late '88 prototypes
were rolled out and flew successfully. After a year of flying both -22
and -23, a selection was announced. Don't see how that equates with
your statement that AF bought an unflyable paper design.

It was at this point that Lockheed and Northrop were chosen to proceed
to building prototypes. Lockheed teamed with GD and Boeing and at
this point GD said "uh, we got some bad news about your design."

During Dem/Val a lot of things get tried in simulation and
wind-tunnels. Typically if you get inside the big black hangar you
will find a display of failed tunnel models that were developed along
the way.

In short, I don't think you've announced any sort of "smoking gun."


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