"The Raven" wrote in message
...
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message
.. .

"The Raven" wrote in message
...
We all know that the X-35 won the JSF contest which is now in the
strategic
development phase as the F-35. At the time the competition winner was
announced (LM) I wondered why Boeing would scrap their whole concept
rather
than push forward with it.

I suspect some of their X-32 technology is making its way into their
UCAV
conceptual vehicle.

No doubt a lot of the technology will be used but the platform itself was
pretty impressive despite not winning the JSF contest.

Not really--that was why it lost to the LMCO bid. 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).




For various political reasons Boeing could have pushed forward with
the
X-32
into other non-JSF (and friendly) markets. Imagine the competition
that
potentially could be generated from an F32 vs F35 sale to foreign
nations?
Imagines LM's concern that potential partners may decide it could be
more
cost effective to go with an F32? Imagine the potential (albeit
unlikely)
of
F32 going up against F35? Imagine the possibility of a second JSF-like
aircraft capability for the US to tap into if need be?

Imagine the cost of development. No company has the resources required
to
develop a first-line combat aircraft today independent of governmental
financing.

Hence look for governments outside the US that are willing to do it. I'm
not
suggesting the F32 would end up with the exact same capability and fitout
as
planned but it could be built with the commitment of several governments.

All of which would be much happier just piggybacking on the massive R&D
funding that the USG is placing in the winning F-35 program. Note that a lot
of other nations HAVE ponied up R&D money to participate in this program,
and none of them have come forth saying, "Hey, can we buy into that Boeing
dog instead?" That said, the US is footing the majority of the bill. Note
that the consortium of major European nations developing the Eurofighter
have had their hands full funding that program (and now have the added
challenge of funding the A-400); given that situation, how likely is it that
you could find any group of "other" friendly nations that would be willing
to come up with the many billions of dollars required to make the X-32
viable? Not very, IMO.


When that governmental financing goes down, pace of development
also takes a nosedive--take the Rafale as an example.

Sure.



For Boeing, excluding any political over-rides, they could have had a
market
for their aircraft that competed directly against the F35 and/or
eroded
some
of it's competitors market. Additionally, it could upset the supposed
superiority of the F35 by offering something (possibly) similar in
capability to the F35 than anything else.

Ain't gonna happen without governmental R&D support.

There are more governments in the world than the US government.

And outside of Europe how many (in the "friendly to the US category") are in
a financial position to fork over the $30 billion or more required to make
the X-32 a real F-32? Japan springs to mind...but they are already fully
committed to their own F-2 project. 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. In comparison, the F-35 has so
far undergone relatively little external change from the X-35 article (some
increased dimensions, i.e., a slightly larger cross section of the fuselage
behind the cockpit IIRC) during the period before the design outline was
frozen a year or more ago.




So the question is, could there have economically been a market for
the
F32
outside the US and would the US government have allowed Boeing to
produce
such an aircraft?

No and yes (but a meaningless yes as it just was not a possible
outcome).

Why not possible. Not all aircraft developments hinge on funding from
Uncle
Sam.

Look, get the "anything said has to relate to some kind of superiority
complex regarding the US" chip off your shoulder, OK? The fact of the matter
is that (a) the X-35 was the better platform, by most accounts; (b) the X-32
had some significant design flaws requiring major redesign before it was
ready to move into the fighter realm; and (c) the plain fact of the matter
is that there are not any nations out there that both have the available
capital to manage such an expensive proposition and are not ALREADY
committed to other major development projects, and who fall into that vital
"friendly to the US" category. All of that adds up to this being a
completely unworkable proposition.




My initial assumption is that the US government wouldn't allow Boeing
to
do
such for reasons including: protecting LM's interests, ensuring that
other
nations didn't end up with similar capabilities, and to protect US
"security".

Then that would be an incorrect assumption. The fact is that the
development
costs for such advanced aircraft are extremely expensive, and the US
could
only afford to back one horse, just as it could only afford to field one
of
those horses itself.

To the spec they had set, probably. Without those constraints it *may* be
possible to bring the X-32 into production but obviously in a somewhat
different form (which may be at a lesser cost than the proposed F-32).

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. Even doing all of the expensive
redesign to make the F-32 a reality would still leave you with an aircraft
that is inferior to the LMCO product, and you'd have dumped beaucoup bucks
into making *that* a reality. Not a good way of doing business, even at the
governmental level.


There's obviously a market for this type of aircraft or the competition
wouldn't have taken place.

No, the competition took place because we wanted to select the best
competitor for further development. The fact that two companies competed to
the point that they did had nothing to do with the size of the market--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).

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, (b) are not already committed to other expensive
R&D efforts, and (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
(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) and is a less capable
platform than the F-35 is to boot. If you find any, let me know; I can get
them some prime beachfront property in Nevada for a small finders fee, and
if they are gullible enough to support this proposal they will surely find
that real estate very attractive.

Brooks


--
The Raven