On Fri, 2 Jan 2004 00:13:55 +1100, "The Raven"
wrote:

"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.


Lockheed is pretty much the stealth expert. Boeing has very little
experience building an operational stealth anything. As far as
construction techiques go about the only significant thing they
learned was that plastic wings won't work. Anything else they learned
such as things to speed up manufacturing are hardly enough to cover
the cost of developement.


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.


If you drop those requirements that make the JSF unique then you have
a half dozen alternatives already available. Why would someone want
to pay a higher price for an inferior aircraft? Boeing would hardly
be allowed to export their best attempt at stealth so basically you'd
be stuck with an X-32 that the only thing special about it is the
large amount of internal fuel (that would actually be much smaller
with the new wing) and internal storage of weapons that it's unlikelt
the countries in question would have access to anyway. They'd be far
better off buying F-16s, F-15s, Typhoons, Rafales, or Flankers.



Why? Why would it care if LM sells heaps?

Explained previously. Obviously unit price could drop.

The X-32 if ever produced as a fighter would have negligable effect on
the F-35's production run.



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.

But you are saying to remove the items that make the JSF what it is in
the name of lower cost. Take away stealth and what do you have that
makes an F-32 special? AESA? Block 60 F-16s have it. Top of the
line avionics? F-16 has it. Manueverability? F-16 would likely
stomp the F-32 into the dirt. So if you remove stealth what would
make the F-32 the way to go over already available alternatives?
Specifically.



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?

Stealth would be a nonissue since Boeing wouldn't be allowed to export
it anyway. Also if you don't cut stealth from the F-32 what were you
going to cut that would significantly reduce the price?



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.


There isn't. That's why they don't.




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.

Who ever said the government would fund X-32 developement? I've been
saying all along that they wouldn't thus the financial burden would
fall totally on Boeing. And "relatively low" production run? How
many did you have in mind. Maybe we could take a stab at how much an
F-32 would cost.



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.

Whatever knowledge they have certainly didn't help them with the F-32.
And being a manufacturer of commercial aircraft means nothing as far
as fighter developement goes. And Northrop would be in a far better
position to develope a fighter. At least they have some expertise.



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

Which doesn't mean it's doable. I'd have a better chance at lifting a
million pounds than my nephew but that doesn't mean I'd have a chance
in hell of doing it.



$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.

So Boeing could afford to flush $5 Billion down the toilet?



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.


You can't have potential customers, you have to find customers willing
to pony up ALL the money before the first piece of metal was cut *and*
that's assuming design, manufacturing, and testing were FREE and
Boeing would be getting nothing out of the deal but would just be
doing it out of the goodness of their heart.




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.

They have to or there is no reason for them to be in the business.
You don't stay in business by not making money.


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.


Stealth wouldn't be in the equations and the F-32 even without it
would hardly qualify as a budget aircraft.



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.


First you have to find customers willing to give you the cash for four
hundred aircraft upfront. Then you have to make sure costs don't rise
at all else you'll have to eat the extra expenses. Then you have to
find the cash to develope the engine which isn't trivial. Add to the
fact that developement for the F-35 *is* closer to $30 billion than I
thought *and* that the F-32 would require MUCH more time and effort to
develope than the F-32 because the production model is so different
than the X-32 that it has effectively never flown.


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.

How do you know? There has to be enough to make it worth the company
to stay in business in the business.


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.

And who would do that? Which countries did you have in mind
specifically?


Anyone joining
into this sort of scheme would have to be fully committed.

Committed to an insane asylum maybe (sorry couldnt resist). Seriously
though, who has the money?



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.

No it doesn't oblicate them to buy aircraft but if they don't they
will in effect have donated the money to the cause becuase I doubt it
would be refunded if they decided not to buy.




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.


Who? Specifically. Most of the smaller European nations can't even
afford F-16s out of the boneyard.




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 imagine the trouble they'd have with an aircraft that has never
been in service.



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

Any idea on the price of the Flankers?

Nope but there's no way the F-32 would be cheaper. I've heard from
$10 million to $50 million for Flankers but my guess it would be in
the high twenties to low thirties.


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.

So why would they be able to buy F-32s? How would they be able to
justify the gamble on the F-32 rather than an excellent
already-in-production fighter. With those tight budgets they'll take
the best fighter with the lowest cost and least risk that they
possibly can.


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.

I'm having trouble remembering which fighter Boeing has designed and
produced. Maybe you could refresh my memory?



If anyone other than a
pure defence contractor could produce a platform for military use, it would
have to be them.

Which again doesn't mean it's doable.


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.

Supporting a 30 year old aircraft hardly qualifies as having the
expertise to design and build one.




Look at the F-23 and it *did* meet spec. and had a hell of a lot more
promise.

That may be true an 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.

The reason they don't is because nobody has the cash. The Crusader 3
would have been an excellent choice for lots of countries but nobody
wanted to fund it and it was much further along than the X-32.



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.

Singapore is in the middle of a competition now so they won't be in
the market anytime soo. As I pointed out Israel is already buying
F-16s and F-15s. Japan is going with the F-2 which leave Taiwan and
they definitely don't have the cash to do it themselves.


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.

What compelling reason would they have for chosing the F-32? IF they
decided against the F-35 there are many other fighters already on the
market that would fill the bill better. And I remind you that the $5
billion figure was far off the mark.



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.

Again, who would be willing to foot the bill? Who could afford it?





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 production 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.

I was using ugly to demonstrate something they had in common. Ugly
doesn't mean bad (see A-10, F-117 etc.). I'm saying that there was
very little in common between the X-32 and what would have been the
F-32. It would essentially have been an entirely new aircraft.


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.

Heat was a *small* problem. It was just one of many that the X-32
had.



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.


Sorry but the X-32 was a lot further off than "not quite".


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.


But by the time you stip the X-32 down enough to be affordible it
would no longer be competitive. Not even with what is already
available.



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.

They may be considering them but my money would bet that they don't go
with them.



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?


The F-23 was generally considerd to be more stealthy than the F-22.
It was also a much cleaner design (which was why it was faster than
the F-22) so it likely would have had greater range.


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.

Stealth would be out for the F-32. First for the export issues and
second because you wanted to strip downt he F-32 to make it cheaper.
Stealth would be the first thing to go.


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).

No smart buyer would bet their fighter budget on a maybe.



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.

The other failing was that the X-32 didn't meet MANY of the
requirements which was why they proposed a drastic redesign.


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.

Less than if they kept it but not less than a currenly availalbe
aircraft.




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.

ISTR it's about $10 million between the cheapest and the most
expensive.



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.

Okay so you'd have to concvince austrailia that their contribution was
wasted and get them to gamble on a far riskier venture.


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...

Which would indicate they'd be unwilling to wait far longer while the
F-32 was developed.


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....

Which would mean Japan wouldnt want them.





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

If they only wanted a token it would be because they can't afford more
in which case they'd go for a cheaper, already existing aircraft.



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.


All of which Boeing would have to scrounge up.




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.


Possibly. They'd still have to fund getting their vectoring nozzle
working with the F-35A's engine. That or modify the X-32 yet again
and do away with it's vecotring nozzle which would only serve to
reduce it's capability further still.


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 :-)


LOL. Not much :-) The picked up some not trivial manufacturing
techniques but as far as fighter design goes that remains open to
debate.



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.

Yep. And can you think of even one fighter in the past fifty years
that the US didn't buy but others did? There have been some excellent
losers out their and nobody wanted them.


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

What's your definition of a major country?

I guess I'd say anybody who has at least the cash that Sweden does.
Taiawan developed their little fighter (the name escapes me at the
moment) but it wasn't a whole lot more than a glorified trainer. Come
to think of it they probably could have sold some as trainers if the
US had let them.


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.

Yeah. So did Canada, Germany, and the UK. Turned out none of them
could justify the cost of going it alone.


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.

That's asumming the X-32 would have an advantage over the latest
versions of existing aircraft without having stealth. IMO it's very
unlikely.




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.


There are a lot of "what ifs" I'd always wished they'd take an
F-16XL, add a second F110 and stretch the width like a Tomcat, and put
ramp intakes like a Flanker beneath the huge delta wing. Maybe add
twin, outward canted vertical tails. It would look sweet if nothing
else :-)