How 'bout a thread on the F-22 with no mud slinging, no axe grinding, no emotional diatribes, and just some clear, objective discussion?

That's what I said. Boeing was a co- on B-2 and a partner with
Lockheed on F-22. Gosh, you think maybe some secrets leak across
programs?....nah, never happen. I wasn't implying that Lockheed was a
partner in B-2.

Sorry Ed. I misread and your statement went right past me.

Gee, if you had come to me first I could have picked up the phone and called my
buddies next door in the F-117 program at Wright-Patt :).

Speaking of sharing stealth data, DoD has has a $3 Billon lawsuit against it
for 6 years or so from GD/McAir, cum Boeing, over the cancellation of the Navy
A-12 program by Cheney,the then SecDef. Their claim is that the program was
terminated at the convenience of the government and that the reason for the
cost/schedule overruns was that the government chose not to share stealth
secrets across F-117 and B-2 programs with A-12 developers contrary to
contractural arrangements. Also that the program was cancelled by Cheney who
was not a warranted contracting officer. The government's position was that it
was cancelled for cause, ie, GD/McAir were concealing the delays and not
performing.

The incident was triggered by a phoney show and tell to Cheney at GD. He had
told the USN program director that he wanted to see proof of program progress
after warning the contractor and USN several times to get their act together .
So they set up a hangar with some A-12 looking parts from their scrap pile and
had some people look like they were fabricating and assembling them to "show"
Cheney.. Cheney learned of the scam and cancelled the program.

The USN program manager retired and fled to England to avoid prosecution.

At least from the AF side there was no issue we were aware of preventing us
from sharing stealth information with the A-12. The decision and subsequent
appeals have gone on for years and at this point Boeing is the loser but as
usual it is on appeal. The case required that the F-117 and B-2 programs
catalog and store over a million pages of classified information. I guess the
makers of the suit hoped to prove there was information that the A-12 program
needed but to my knowledge, none has ever been discovered. Instead, the
complaint and appeals are now based more on "alleged" procedural errors than
anything else.

Wonder how much this plays in Washington in theBoeing KC-767 miniseries drama
still unfolding.

On Tue, 06 Jan 2004 19:21:38 GMT, Scott Ferrin
wrote:


Cost overruns by Northrop on B-2 as well as some scandal on parts
ordering on missile guidance systems for the Electronics Division
certainly muddied the political waters and may have cost Northrop some
points.

Would that be on the Peasekeeper's guidance system? ISTR hearing
about that back then.

Yep. The supply system was incredibly convoluted. For example, I had
one of two Mac II computers in the training section. I wanted some
off-the-shelf software (arcane stuff like MS Word). It took a purchase
order that required NINE signatures and more than six weeks.

Over in Electronics Div. they were up against production deadlines.
Some creative problem solver garnered petty cash and went open market
to buy the necessary materials. Production deliveries on time. When
the supply system deliveries came six weeks later, the excess material
got back-doored to the dumpster. Result was an investigation for
misuse of government....blah...blah...blah.

Had to swear to always use the most inefficient methods under penalty
of law for all future deliveries.



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

As I understand it, the Lockheed proposal that won couldn't fly!
So yeah... I guess they did need a "redesign".

Kevin
F-117A: The Black Jet Website
www.f-117a.com

Scott Ferrin wrote in message . ..
Also Lockeed did an extensive redesign
between selection and prototype flight whereas Northrop didn't take
advantage of the opportunity.

F-117A Webmaster wrote:
As I understand it, the Lockheed proposal that won couldn't fly!
So yeah... I guess they did need a "redesign".

The two YF-22 prototypes made over 110 test flights (more than 70 before
contract award). I have no idea how you could square that with the claim
that the design "couldn't fly."

--
Tom Schoene Replace "invalid" with "net" to e-mail
"If brave men and women never died, there would be nothing
special about bravery." -- Andy Rooney (attributed)

Ed Rasimus wrote:

Over in Electronics Div. they were up against production deadlines.
Some creative problem solver garnered petty cash and went open market
to buy the necessary materials. Production deliveries on time. When
the supply system deliveries came six weeks later, the excess material
got back-doored to the dumpster. Result was an investigation for
misuse of government....blah...blah...blah.

Had to swear to always use the most inefficient methods under penalty
of law for all future deliveries.

Ah, government supply chain...

Back in the early 1980s, I was working the flight line on F-4Es. We had
a nice little supply room, with all of the little hardware you'd
normally need. One of the pieces was a small rivet. Little bitty
aluminum rivets, less than 1/4" wide and maybe 3/8" long. I needed a
few one day, and got the chance to open a new bag (they were about 1000
per bag).

Those little rivets were about a buck each, according to the price
listed on the inventory sheet on the bag. Just under $1000 per bag of
1000 rivets, delivered to the base through the USAF supply chain.

That seemed like, well, a *lot*, so I checked up on it. In town, in a
hardware store, you could buy the same rivets (same manufacturer, same
serial number on the bag, same everything) for about $10 per bag of 1000.

I called the manufacturer. The difference, I was told, was because the
company had several full time employees who did nothing at all but
monitor their military sales (they were a sole-source supplier for that
bit, and didn't sell much else to the government). They were very
unhappy about it, too, since they would rather have just sold the things
for a decent price.

Some months later, I noticed the price on the bags in the bin had gone
down to only $50 or so per bag... I wonder who got the bonus for "cost
cutting" on that one?

--
cirby at cfl.rr.com

Remember: Objects in rearview mirror may be hallucinations.
Slam on brakes accordingly.

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:40:37 -0800, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

Conversely, Northrop was partnered with MacAir who had a good
management record and production reputation for F-4, F-15 and F-18.
Lockheed was linked with Boeing and GD.

Northrop's B-2 managment had shot themselves in the foot comming back
from
lunch drunk. That caused a bias against Northrop's managment by the
government.

B-2 was released into production in 1988. It was built, designed, and
managed at Pico Rivera in what was logically named the "B-2 Division".
The ATF/YF-23 program was run from the Aircraft Division in Hawthorne.
Two distinctly different places. ATF fly-off decision came in 1990, so
it doesn't track that several thousand people at Pico Rivera would
have been caught drunk several years before program decision on a
different aircraft built at a different plant by a different division
of the company. We might also note that the B-2 co-production company
was the F-22 partner of Lockheed.

I am writng about Palmdale, but I suppose you can make up a different story,
if it makes you feel better, Ed.

I will agree, however, that Northrop management was not the most
competent. During Spring of '88, the chairman of MacAir came to
Hawthorne and held a "come to Jesus" meeting in which he expressed his
displeasure at Northrop senior management. At that time, the decision
was made to move avionics development to St. Louis.

Yes, Lt Col Couch was very unimpressed with the five tube airliner EFIS
Northrop had bought from Hughes. After first flight he hald a debrief for
reserve officers and discussed the issue with me afterwatrds. Basicly, if
you list one operator, the mission was over.

There was also a critical issue with the pilots liking the displays, as
Lt
Col Couch had rejected the B-2's display system on first flight. The
pilots
liked the YF-22 displays best.

Fusion of data and presentation was a critical design issue. It
wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if there were customer issues
with the two company proposals. But, that would have been primarily
software driven at the time of contract award.

The issue was one of emotion and what pilots "liked" not the quality of the
fusion, as what Lockheed demonstrated was a fused navigation system, tabbed
to commercial aircraft. (FMS) So far, there has been no successful
demonstration of a working fused weapon's sensor system, that I know of.

Additionally, the YF-23 program resisted the DARPA subsidy for using Ada
in
critical systems, while Lockheed pledged compliance. Lockmart had also
been
more co-operative in delivering a prototype of what the contract asked
for,
while Northrop tried to deliver what the government wanted now.

Can't agree with that. In late '80s/early '90s the mandate was Ada.
Northrop had no choice and was certainly compliant. The RFP set
requirements and each competitor interpreted how best to meet them.

Lockheed followed the letter of the RFP and Northrop ignored it. Nearly
identical to the YF-17, where Northrop delivered a conventional aircraft, in
place of the FBW required.

So, in the three politically sensitive issues for the selection, the
YF-22
held the best hand.

You've mentioned program management, cockpit displays and language for
software. I don't think any of those could be called "politically
sensitive" issues. The major political sensitivity would be production
location and at the time of contract award, which was pre-merger for
both contenders, the apparent production would take place in the LA
area.

Sure.

And Newt was never Speaker ...

Cost overruns by Northrop on B-2 as well as some scandal on parts
ordering on missile guidance systems for the Electronics Division
certainly muddied the political waters and may have cost Northrop some
points.

The missile guidence systems issues had to do with falsified enviromental
test data. A case of Northrop being caught lying. We had an individual at
Dryden who falsified flight test results from the X-29 and he spent the last
15 years of his career blackballed by the system, so I have seen how
displeased the USAF can be with a cheat.

That's what I said :-)

OOPS...Sorry.I guess if I read your post CAREFULLY I'd not have thought you
meant it the other way around!

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
. com...
Ed Rasimus wrote:

Over in Electronics Div. they were up against production deadlines.
Some creative problem solver garnered petty cash and went open market
to buy the necessary materials. Production deliveries on time. When
the supply system deliveries came six weeks later, the excess material
got back-doored to the dumpster. Result was an investigation for
misuse of government....blah...blah...blah.

Had to swear to always use the most inefficient methods under penalty
of law for all future deliveries.

Ah, government supply chain...

Nope, Northrop got caught delivering non-compliant guidance systems with
falsified records.

On Wed, 07 Jan 2004 00:30:46 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

F-117A Webmaster wrote:
As I understand it, the Lockheed proposal that won couldn't fly!
So yeah... I guess they did need a "redesign".

The two YF-22 prototypes made over 110 test flights (more than 70 before
contract award). I have no idea how you could square that with the claim
that the design "couldn't fly."


When the manufacturers submitted their designs for the ATF the order
chosen was:

1. Lockheed
2. Northrop
3. General Dynamics
4. Boeing
5. McDonnell Douglas
(Grumman and Rockewell were the next two but I don't know which
order.)

Anyway of those seven designs they chose 1 and 2 to build prototypes,
which would become the YF-22 and YF-23. The design *as presented* by
Lockheed at that time was the one that couldn't fly. After they
teamed with General Dynamics GD told them essentially "look, your
design won't even be able to fly". Needless to say THAT went over
real well with Lockheed but GD was right. If you look and the
original LM & GD designs and compare them with the YF-22, the YF-22
resembles the GD proposal almost as much as it does LM's. The
production F-22 is even more so.

"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
...
Anyway of those seven designs they chose 1 and 2 to build prototypes,
which would become the YF-22 and YF-23. The design *as presented* by
Lockheed at that time was the one that couldn't fly. After they
teamed with General Dynamics GD told them essentially "look, your
design won't even be able to fly". Needless to say THAT went over
real well with Lockheed but GD was right. If you look and the
original LM & GD designs and compare them with the YF-22, the YF-22
resembles the GD proposal almost as much as it does LM's. The
production F-22 is even more so.

Can you point me to sketches of the Lockheed proposal?
And what was General Dynamic's objection to its air-
worthiness?