YF-17A.jpg

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[CWO4 Dave Mann]

Love the way the driver is leaning forward to see over the statue of St
Christopher on the dashboard.

Cheers,

Dave

[Scubabix]

I saw this aircraft fly a demonstration at the Miramar airshow in 77. Damn,
that's a long time ago.
Rob

[Andrew Chaplin]

"CWO4 Dave Mann" > wrote in message
...
> Love the way the driver is leaning forward to see over the statue of St
> Christopher on the dashboard.

It's a statue of Magnetic Mary, surely? Saint Christopher was taken off flight
ops as a result of the Second Lateran Council.
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

[adelsonsl]

GREAT SHOT
> wrote in message
...

[Ron Monroe]

And, I worked on the flight test program, and I keep remembering how long
ago it was too. To bad I missed the picture. Incidently, it was never
YF-17A, it was just YF-17. The A would have been applied to the production
airplane.
Ron

"Scubabix" > wrote in message
...
>I saw this aircraft fly a demonstration at the Miramar airshow in 77.
>Damn, that's a long time ago.
> Rob
>

[Herman]

"john smith" > schreef in bericht
...
> Ron Monroe wrote:
>> And, I worked on the flight test program, and I keep remembering how long
>> ago it was too. To bad I missed the picture. Incidently, it was never
>> YF-17A, it was just YF-17. The A would have been applied to the
>> production airplane.
>
> Ron, what was the reason/logic for giving the contract to MDD?
> I thought the Northrup project won the flyoff?

Briefly:
The YF-17 lost to the YF-16 in the fly-off for the LWF contract (Light
Weight Fighter) for the USAF.
The US Navy was interested though, mainly because they don't like single
engined aircraft and because the YF-17 was not exactly a pile of junk.
McDonnell came in because they had tons of experience in designing naval
aircraft, which Northrop did not have. In navalised form it became the F-18,
later the F/A-18. Immediately obvious (externally) is the completely
redesigned undercarriage (compare YF-17 and F-18).

Regards,
Herman

[Ron Monroe]

Like was said, the YF-16 won the competition. There were several reasons for
this, not all technical. and some people are sensitive to comments, so...

The F-16 had better acceleration. The USAF claimed it was because the YF-17
was draggy, however, in later conferences, Northrop explained that the
YJ-101 was down on thrust in the areas where the acceleration was measured.

The YF-16 was better in turning. Part of this is due to thrust, and part of
it was due to The horizontals on the YF-17 not being stiff enough. They
tended to twist to decrease the airloads, rather than push the aircraft in
the right direction. so, the YF-16 was deemed, more maneuverable.

The speedbrake was not effective. Different actuators and brake sizes were
tried, but, there was no big difference. It wasn't very good on the F-18s,
either, and they got rid of them on the E and Fs. I don't know if it had any
influence on the competition, but it was a problem.

The usual reason was given that, the YF-16 was closer to a production
standard than theYF-17. Maybe, I don't know, I wasn't privy to the final
propsal, however, the YF-17 through it's sister, the P530 Cobra, was in
development for several years before the LWF program. Northrop thought the
LWF program was a way to prove the concept was good, so that they could sell
it to the European governments that had already bought F-5s.

The government sold the LWF program as a technology demonstrator, not meant
for production. So, there was supposed to be an unlimited period of
development where features could be explored, and maybe applied to a new
design, so, nothing had to be production oriented. Still, Northrop designed
the airplane to production standards with a typical structural safety factor
of 1.5. This required Northrop to build into the No. 2 aircraft, strain
gages that would measure the structural loads. Tests would have to be flown
to make sure no limits would be exceeded, before the flight envelope could
be opened up. GD avoided that problem by designing the structure to be
stronger than would be needed so that no structural tests would be needed.
It would therefore be a stronger and heavier structure than a production
design would be. And flight testing could be more aggressive.

6 months after the YF-16 had flown, and before the YF-17 had flown, there
was an edict, that it was now a competition, the winner getting a production
contract at the beginning of the next year. So the YF-16 had a full year to
fly, whereas the YF-17 had 6 months. And the winner would now have a better
chance of winning the European consortium plan to buy a new fighter, the
same one that Northrop was pushing for, before the LWF began. Who knows how
the extra 6 months could have helped Northrop with perfecting their design?

The YF-17 was larger, and therefore more expensive than the YF-16, however,
I think it also was a little more flexible, from an operational standpoint.
But, costs were a large factor in the decision.

There was another reason why the F-16 was chosen, however, it isn't talked
about very often. If you look back at the Aviation Weeks from the 1974/75
time period, you will see this mentioned.

The YJ-101 was a new engine which would have to be developed further, for
production. Although the testing was unique, in that it was both, a new
engine, and a new airplane, it was extremely successful. There were only 6
engines for the two aircraft, and neither engine or airplane were lost
during the program. from what I remember, there were no flameoutrs or engine
stalls.

It became apparent that, the USAF wanted to find a way to save the F-100
engine that was currently being used in the F-15. The engine was having
severe problems and the cost-overruns were threatening it's cancelation. The
word came down that by increasing the number of units sold, they could
decrease the unit costs, and make the cost overruns bearable. the easiest
way to increase production, was to use int in another vehicle. Like the
F-16.

There was a version of the YF-17 that was designed with the F-100 engine, I
think it was called the P-610. it also had the lower ventral inlet, but,
this one wrapped around the lower fuselage. I'm not sure if the USAF
influenced Northrop into building the YF-17(P-600) twin, or whether it was
the cheif designer, Walt Fellers, who hated single engine jets. But, the
Y-17 may have been a "strawman" to pit against the YF-16. The YF-17 may not
have had a chance to win, anyways. But, that would be hard to prove either
way.

Incidently, Northrop had a navalized YF-17 in the works before McDonnell
ever entered the picture, the P-630, featuring the stronger landing gear and
structure required for carrier operations. However, the Navy didn't want to
play with people that didn't have design experience with carrier aircraft.
Northrop selected McDonnell to partner with, and GD selected LTV to partner
with. Early on. the Navy was given instructions that their new fighter would
be a derivative of the LWF, which some people thought meant that it would
have to be a variation of the F-16, but later, it changed to be that some
common systems were to be used. The Navy decided that the YF-17 concept had
more to offer than the YF-16 concept. I don't think there were any major
common systems used. Certainly, not the radar or engines. But, it was
different enough from the YF-17, that they chose to redesignate it. I also
think that they probably just didn't want to face the fact that they were
getting a derivative of a USAF design.

Now, there is talk that the USAF may actually buy an F-18 variant, the
EA-18G Growler. That would be a little ironic.
Ron

"john smith" > wrote in message
...
> Ron Monroe wrote:
>> And, I worked on the flight test program, and I keep remembering how long
>> ago it was too. To bad I missed the picture. Incidently, it was never
>> YF-17A, it was just YF-17. The A would have been applied to the
>> production airplane.
>
> Ron, what was the reason/logic for giving the contract to MDD?
> I thought the Northrup project won the flyoff?

[Herman]

"Ron Monroe" > schreef in bericht
...
> Like was said, the YF-16 won the competition. There were several reasons
> for this, not all technical. and some people are sensitive to comments,
> so...
>

<SNIP> to save space

>
> Now, there is talk that the USAF may actually buy an F-18 variant, the
> EA-18G Growler. That would be a little ironic.
> Ron
>

It's been done before.
F- Phantom, A-7 Corsair II and in Great Britain the Buccaneer.

As they are fond of saying in Britain: "Fly Navy"

Regards,
Herman

[Wayne Paul]

"Herman" > wrote in message
b.home.nl...
>
> "Ron Monroe" > schreef in bericht
> ...
>> Like was said, the YF-16 won the competition. There were several reasons
>> for this, not all technical. and some people are sensitive to comments,
>> so...
>>
>
> <SNIP> to save space
>
>>
>> Now, there is talk that the USAF may actually buy an F-18 variant, the
>> EA-18G Growler. That would be a little ironic.
>> Ron
>>
>
> It's been done before.
> F- Phantom, A-7 Corsair II and in Great Britain the Buccaneer.
>
> As they are fond of saying in Britain: "Fly Navy"
>
> Regards,
> Herman
>
You can add the A-1 Skyraider to that list.

Wayne
http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder

[Ron Monroe]

My point was, they rejected the YF-17, and the USAF variant of the F-18 that
Northrop proposed, the F-18L. Now, they may still may buy a version, more
than 30 years later. Those other aircraft mentioned, were designed for the
Navy, not the USAF. So, the pill wasn't as hard to swallow.
Ron

"Wayne Paul" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Herman" > wrote in message
> b.home.nl...
>>
>> "Ron Monroe" > schreef in bericht
>> ...
>>> Like was said, the YF-16 won the competition. There were several reasons
>>> for this, not all technical. and some people are sensitive to comments,
>>> so...
>>>
>>
>> <SNIP> to save space
>>
>>>
>>> Now, there is talk that the USAF may actually buy an F-18 variant, the
>>> EA-18G Growler. That would be a little ironic.
>>> Ron
>>>
>>
>> It's been done before.
>> F- Phantom, A-7 Corsair II and in Great Britain the Buccaneer.
>>
>> As they are fond of saying in Britain: "Fly Navy"
>>
>> Regards,
>> Herman
>>
> You can add the A-1 Skyraider to that list.
>
> Wayne
> http://www.soaridaho.com/Schreder
>
>
>