(trying to learn) Can I ask why the JSF was to be only a single platform to satisfy all the requirements instead of 3 distinctly different versions made by manufactures, one conventional, carrier and stovl? Why not award Lockheed one or two and Boeing the remaining (assuming they produced ac unto standard)
Are the costs of development, training, operational costs (predicted to be very high) and poor kinematic performance not outweighing the single origin design.
Would it have been smarter to actually produce a new LO F-16 type ac, the F-35a is getting there but still is very different, surely this would have had mega bucks sales potential instead of compromising everything into one type.
I.e Cheaper, more capable performance (non compromised design) that more importantly would actually meet the requirements of many of the EU nations, etc…
To cut development costs.
The only way that the Pentagon convinced Washington to fund a new platform was that this new “all dancing, all singing, very affordable” aircraft was going to replace almost every tatical combat jet in the inventory, while at the same time the development costs would be a lot lower than developing three new aircrafts.
In the end, they might have been right, we just have to look at the A/F-X and the massive beast that it was to imagine what it would cost to have the Navy, the USAF and the Marines to design three diferent programs with their own specifications. They would all be axed along the way…
Would it be possible to avoid this massive budget overrun and delayed deliveries in the JSF program?
Yes, but hindsight a decade and a half latter is all very well and nice but irrelevant.
Cheers
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