On Wed, 14 Apr 2004 16:45:16 -0700, "Tarver Engineering"
wrote:


"Scott Ferrin" wrote in message
.. .

The thing that makes a decison/system/whatver "pork barrel"
is when it's built mainly because the politicians want it to be so
they keep those jobs and get those votes.

All aviation is politics.

Because you say so?

Aviation is too much money to be anything but politics.


If that were the case the military would never issue requirements
(because it wouldn't matter) and there would be no competitions
(because they wouldn't matter).

That would seem to be the nature of Lockheed unflyable entry in the
competition to build a prototype ATF, none of it mattered.


The best explanation I've heard is that the USAF chose the F-22
because it was the more manueverable of the two (no idea how they
decided that since Northrop apparently never flew their's to the edge)
and that they had more faith that Lockheed could deliver what they
promised albeit in PC jargon. If that were the case why have them
build prototypes at all? They could have saved everybody a lot of
time and money and just looked the proposals over and picked the one
they wanted to give the contract to. For all I know it could have
been something as simple as "whoa, that F-23 looks a little too
radical for us. Let's stick with a tried and proven configuration"
but they could hardly say *that*.