No political consideration at al? Consider if the X-32, then Boeing would practically have monopoly on building military aircraft in the US. LM would’t have any product to build. US is to big to have ‘only’ one military aircraft builder.

You better believe there would have been more than 187 Raptors purchased if that were the case. Also you’d see a big push from the Texas congress delegation for an advanced F-16 derivative as a gap filler.

And is getting rid of Fort Worth REALLY all that bad considering it has produced nothing but inferior engineering solutions brought into fruition by Iron Traingle poly-ticks for the last 6 decades?

They haven’t sold a single F-35 for export yet.

Yeah, I figure everyone’s just going to toss away their buy in money.

It wasn’t about the capability, it wasn’t even about the price, it was about which company was going to be the primary Naval contractor for the years following the end of the Cold War.

McDonnell Douglas had been the prime supplier of Naval fighters since the F-4, had shown that they had a firm grasp on low observable technology, and overall had a much healthier and broader diversification of products (helicopters, naval/marine/air force fighters, missiles, air liners, trainers, military transports). Grumman was top loaded with over half their revenue coming from systems integration, had decaying primary manufacturer expertise as it sputtered out 1960s airframes at low rate production, and was ranked dead last out of the major US contractors in low observability expertise. McDonnell Douglas was in the stronger position to produce advanced designs down the road. Add on top of this the inducement fraud and cancellation of convenience the Navy/DoD had done in the A-12 program, the Navy felt they owed it to give McDonnell Douglas the program. A textbook case of “Industrial Welfare” or “Industrial Statesmenship”, call it what you will.

Fast forward 18 years and where are we? St. Louis, under Boeing’s flag now, is still the primary producer of tactical airframes for the Navy. Northrop Grumman is pumping out more geriatric E-2 airframes and doing systems integration for the EA-18G. Not much has changed, but either the F-35C or X-47 will break this rut.

Does this count as “full frontal”?

This is going to be even worse than the CSAR-X fiasco which after nearly two years still hasn’t had the contract re-awarded.

A lot of variables in this equation.

-Military draw down and cuts starting in ’09 when Obama wins and the Dems wipe the floor with the Repubs in congressional elections. How will this effect the funding of naval aviation which is already procuring “budget minded” solutions like the Super Hornet and E-2D? The Navy has been losing credibility on the Hill with the cost overruns on its next generation surface fleet and NAVAIR might reap the ripple effect.

-How committed to the F-35 is the Navy? While nominally supportive they’ve been looking into cutting back their numbers in these budget crunching times and need new airframes now to fill the spots of the old and tired legacy bugs, which only the F-18E/F can only fill at this moment. They also aren’t a fan (pun intended) of the F-35B, and the possibility of SVTOL aircraft on their decks. The Navy actually stands to benefit in some ways if the JSF is cancelled. By pulling their order they could shoot up the production price a la the TFX and severly maim USAF manned tactical aviation (A-12 payback) and possibly even sink independent Marine aviation.

-How well will the X-47 fair in trials? If it successfully demonstrates carrier handling and landing qualities it could reinvigorate naval deep strike. Even if it successfully complete the trials will it overcome the manned aviation bias? Can the Navy sell the aircraft to Congress, where it might find many politicians trying to prop up the JSF for their district and interservice slander from the Air Force/Marines?

-What of the fate of the old McDonnell Douglas production line in St. Louis that has been churning out Navy jets for nearly 5 decades? Its entirely possible that the F-35C will be passed over for budgetary reasons and more Super Hornets (block III) purchased. Also if the F-35 runs into budgetary problems who would be suprised if Boeing offers up their mysterious quote 6th generation unquote jet, which is fully naval capable. It could be more tailored to the naval role and “cheaper” because it would use a lot of the systems the JSF had to bite the R&D bullet for (APG-81, HMDS, EOTS, F-135/F-136).

Here in the US the History Channel on Cable is going to have a new episode of “DOGFIGHTS”. Which, is to include future fighters! (i.e. F-22, F-35, J-10, etc.) Should be interesting………:D

Saturday Night @8:00PM (History Channel)

Repeats at 12:00am (Mid-Night)

So far B-1Rs missile trucking and F-22s going WVR… blasphemy!

The FADF mission was always real. Keep in mind that USN was trying to figure out how to deal with the high speed strike aircraft and cruise missiles long before they became a consideration to others, as far back the late ’50s. The F-111B was an outgrowth of the mission originally proposed for the F6D Missileer, namely a plane with a big radar that would have a long loiter time and would lob long range missiles at enemy aircraft and missiles. There was no reason for to to be supersonic except that was one of the thing shoehorned in when McNamara combined USN’s FADF mission with USAF’s tactical low level strike mission.

The Fleet Defense Mission had changed a good deal in the 10 years between the cancellation of the F6D and the first flight of the F-14. No longer was the threat a few straggling Bears but Mach 1++ Blinders and soon Backfires with nuclear tipped supersonic long range Kitchens. The fleet is going to depend on how well those late 50s-early 60s Westinghouse radar and Bendix missiles are going to work. If the defender didn’t go out and meet the threat before it got a shot off it was all over even if the bomber was downed, there was no carrier to go back to. Here supersonic sprint and altitude could help if the aircraft is parked far enough out in orbit with a whale. While the F-111 had decent top end speed but it took a while to get there, aside from aerodynamics improvements the F-14 tried to rectify this with its sophisticated VG intake ramps. I’ve heard conflicting reports about cancellation the F6D, McNamara axed it, Navy suits killed it, congress wouldn’t fund it etc. Which is a shame because it could have made a decent Tanking, ASW or EW platform in addition.

Back to the F-14 being designed as a fighter first and fleet defender second, its a little conspicuous that the mock up of the 303E was armed with Sparrows and not AIM-54s. I’ve seen three view drawings also show it armed with 4 AIM-7s while C, D and F were with 6 AIM-54s, but I can’t recall if these were official Grumman sketches or done later. The E was the most “fighter-like” of all the Grumman 303 proposals save for the 303G which was smaller, AWG-10 equipped and had no hope of carrying in the Phoenix. However, after the contract was signed the alterations to the 303 made the production aircraft more suitable towards FADF mission and away from the fighter role.

And as a side note here’s a Grumman promotional video from 1977 about the efforts taken to integrate the F-14 into the IIAF called “The Grumman Challenge”.

Part 1: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ch5Xsi2xU-A
Part 2: http://youtube.com/watch?v=a2mzXvug-PY
Part 3: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pnNMB_kVN8I
Part 4: http://youtube.com/watch?v=LrAJispev-w