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Originally Posted by Seahawk
My wife was on the source selection committee...the air frame and propulsion were workable, the avionics, helmet, etc. became a nightmare.
Still are.
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The special I saw on it a few years ago had a Boeing engineer saying that had to have "an invention a day" to keep the program on track. The large one piece carbon fiber wing going into the autoclave didn't exactly scream "mass production".
In the end an author paraphrased an old adage;
if it looks right it will fly right.
Meaning that the plane has got to look cool enough to recruit new pilots and get funding for.
As yet another example of "looks matter" I suspect some of the YF-22 and YF-23 selection process had to do with the YF-22 looking macho and the YF-23 looking effeminate.
No separate lift-fan on the Boeing X-32 was a pretty cool thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/37745n/boeing_x32/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-32
Quote:
The two X-32 aircraft featured a delta wing design. However, eight months into construction of the concept demonstrator aircraft, the JSF's maneuverability and payload requirements were refined at the request of the Navy and Boeing's delta wing design fell short of the new targets...............
The X-32B achieved STOVL flight in much the same way as the AV-8B Harrier II with thrust vectoring of the jet exhaust.
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Somebody moved the goal posts,
and that's the way to win the game folks.
https://forum.keypublishing.com/archive/index.php/t-47929.html
