Fighter Aircraft Alternates?

Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?
F15?
F16?
A10?
F117?
(have I missed any?)

and any pix?

Cheers,
Richard

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...


Nope, to the YF-16.

The YF-17 design was scaled up somewhat for the F/A-18.


Ron
PA-31T Cheyenne II
Maharashtra Weather Modification Program
Pune, India

Ron wrote:

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...


Nope, to the YF-16.

The YF-17 design was scaled up somewhat for the F/A-18.

Yeah?
Every time I look up this stuff I always get the YF17 vs YF18 pictures...
and they're pretty similar looking jets too...

Cheers,
Richard

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 15:53:51 +1000, Richard Stewart
wrote:

Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?
F15?
F16?
A10?
F117?
(have I missed any?)

and any pix?

Cheers,
Richard

F-15:
Boeing, Fairchild Republic, General Dynamics, Grumman, Lockheed, LTV,
McDonnell Douglas and North American / Rockwell all submitted
proposals for the F-X competition, but only the winning entry
(McDonnell Douglas) was built, as the F-15 Eagle.

A-10:
Boeing, Cessna, Fairchild Republic, General Dynamics, Lockheed and
Northrop submitted proposals for the A-X competition. Fairchild
Republic and Northrop were selected to build competing prototypes, as
the YA-10 and YA-9, respectively.

See:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/resea...k/a6/a6-10.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/resea...k/a6/a6-11.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/resea...k/a6/a6-12.htm

F-16:
Boeing (Model 908-909), General Dynamics (Model 401-16B), LTV
(V-1100), Lockheed (CL-1200 and CL-1600) and Northrop (P-600)
submitted proposals for the LWF competition (LightWeight Fighter).
General Dynamics and Northrop were selected to build competing
prototypes, as the YF-16 and YF-17, respectively. The YF-16 was chosen
as the winner. Northrop further developed, with McDonnell Douglas, the
YF-17 into the F-18, which was selected by the USN (over a navalized
F-16).

See:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/resea...ghter/f16a.htm

http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/fighter/f17.htm

F-117:
Northrop and Lockheed submitted proposals for the XST program
(eXperimental Survivable Testbed). Only the Lockheed entry was
selected to build two prototypes, which were developed into the F-117.

See:
http://www.f-117a.com/XST.html


I don't have much data right at hand about F-14 development. No other
competing designs were built, though. As for others: F-15E vs F-16XL,
A-16 vs YA-7F, YF-22 vs YF-23, X-32 vs X-35 are the only recent ones
that come to mind

Richard Stewart wrote in message ...
Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?
F15?
F16?
A10?
F117?
(have I missed any?)

and any pix?

F-14... was there any competition? Features from the F-15 alternate
designs showed up on the Tomcat.
F-15... McDonnell-Douglas, Rockwell, and others submittted competitive
designs
F-16... YF-17 Cobra (which influenced the F/A-18 Hornet)
F-20 Tigershark... private venture, no one wanted to buy it
Piper Enforcer and ARES Mudfighter... no interest in COIN aircraft
A-10... Northrop A-9
F-117... Northrop XST (and unknown to the USAF... Germany... the MBB
Lampyridae)

Oh, and for the B-52 fans... the Convair YB-60:
http://www.air-and-space.com/YB-60.htm

Rob
Cheers,
Richard

Richard Stewart wrote in message ...
Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?
F15?
F16?
A10?
F117?
(have I missed any?)

and any pix?


The F-14 & F-15 had several paper competitors from LTV,
Fairchild, & the like. There are pics out there. ISTR some older ARCO
books on the F-14 & F-15 with artist concepts of some competitors.
I've also seen some artist concepts in old back issues of Aviation
Week & Space Technology. See if your library has them or can get them
& go back to the late '60s - early '70s. I think you can find a pic
eventually of an F-15 in SEA camo! World Airpower Journal issues in
the last few years have also had some pics of I know the F-14's
competition, even some mock-ups. Maybe even the F-15. The A-10's
competition was Northrop's YA-9. Do a search for it. There are pics &
even a couple of model kits out there. ISTR seeing a pic in an early
'70s issue of Air International/Air Enthusiast of the A-10 &/or YA-9
designs in SEA camo. I don't think the F-117 had a competitor, but
Northrop did have some sort of stealth a/c similar to the F-117 so it
could've been its classified concept competitor. The YF-17 lost out to
the YF-16. The F-18 was developed from the YF-17 by McD/D.

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 15:53:51 +1000, Richard Stewart
wrote:

Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

The YF-17 lost to the YF-16.

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?

No fly off

F15?

No fly off.

F16?

YF-16 over the YF-17

A10?

YF-10 won against the YF-9.

F117?

No fly off.

(have I missed any?)

F-15E over the F-16XL, although I don't know how formal the fly off
was.

F-18L lost to the F/A-18 but the former was paper and the latter was
flying.

YC-14 and YC-15, but both lost.

C-5 beat the Boeing version which became the 747 but that was in the
paper stage, not prototypes

and any pix?

You can see the YF-17 and F-18, F-14, F-15, F-16, and F-16XL in the
gallery at www.dfrc.nasa.gov

Cheers,
Richard

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

F-14... was there any competition? Features from the F-15 alternate
designs showed up on the Tomcat.
There was, the F-14 was selected when the F-111B failed to meet
expectations.
Whether they were in direct competition at any point I don't know, but on
paper they must have been.

F-15... McDonnell-Douglas, Rockwell, and others submittted competitive
designs
F-16... YF-17 Cobra (which influenced the F/A-18 Hornet)
And later lost out to the F/A-18 in the Navy competition (a navalised F-16
was proposed but rejected despite being pushed heavily by the white house)

F-20 Tigershark... private venture, no one wanted to buy it
Piper Enforcer and ARES Mudfighter... no interest in COIN aircraft
Never competed against the F-16 or each other. ARES was a technology
concept, Enforcer was aimed at the 3rd world market, in part for use in US
military aid projects. Those were pretty much stopped before it could enter
production

Both the Tigershark and Enforcer were meant as replacements for the F-5A
series, potential customers bought the USAF choice instead...

A-10... Northrop A-9
F-117... Northrop XST (and unknown to the USAF... Germany... the MBB
Lampyridae)

Lampyridae was never in competition to the F-117. It was a separate
development of which only a few photos of a single model exist.

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 16:28:36 +1000, Richard Stewart
wrote:

Ron wrote:

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...


Nope, to the YF-16.

The YF-17 design was scaled up somewhat for the F/A-18.

Yeah?
Every time I look up this stuff I always get the YF17 vs YF18 pictures...
and they're pretty similar looking jets too...

Cheers,
Richard


There's a reason for that. They're before/after photos. That's why
they are so similar. Any article on the YF-17 will tell you so.

On Wed, 07 Jul 2004 15:53:51 +1000, Richard Stewart
wrote:

Hi Guys,
Just wondering what the alternate (losing) choices were for the main US
older fighter aircraft?

eg. I know the YF17 lost out to the F18...

But what were the competitors to the rest (you don't need to go back too
far) - that's if they actually HAD competitors...

F14?
F15?
F16?
A10?
F117?
(have I missed any?)



The AH-64 (Apache) won over the AH-63 for the AAH program which itself
was formed after the AH-56 Cheyenne was deemed to ambitious (ie $$$).

The YF-107 lost to the F-105 and the XF8U-3 lost out to the F-4.
Neither of these were formal competitions AFAIK but they were being
developed at the same time and the services decided they could only
afford one so it ended up being that way.

The B-52 won over the YB-60

The B-47 won over the XB-46 and XB-48

The Blackbird won over the Convair KingFisher

The F-111 won over the Boeing and Republic for the TFX. Pretty much
everybody felt the Boeing design was the best but good old MacNamara
thought he was an aircraft designer and had a different agenda to boot
so they got the GD entry. Personally I thought the Republic design
looked the coolest.