American Panavia Tornadoes?

Defense cuts-that must mean late '70s, in the Carter years? The engine shouldn't have been a show-stopper: if the AF was serious, something from P&W or GE could have been substituted.

I'm not sure if it would work, but the GE F404 is only about seven inches wider across than the Turbo-Union RB199 that the Tornado used, so that may have worked right there.
 
The F404 would've been a logical alternative in this case. Again, if the AF was serious enough about a buy in that time frame. The issue didn't come up, AFIK, when the Wild Weasel variant was being pitched to the AF in the late '80s.
 
Matt, don't you ever get embarrassed about just making stuff up and/or not looking up things? Defense spending was never cut under Carter.

Cuts occurred under Nixon in the 1970s but defense spending went up all four years of the Carter administration.

From the website http://www.usgovernmentspending.com
70 94.7 bn
71 92.8
72 94.7
73 92.8
74 98.2
75 116.2
76 114.5
77 121.6
78 130.9
79 143.7
80 167.9


Defense cuts-that must mean late '70s, in the Carter years?
 
Matt, don't you ever get embarrassed about just making stuff up? Defense spending was never cut under Carter.

Cuts occurred under Nixon in the 1970s but defense spending went up all four years of the Carter administration.

From the website http://www.usgovernmentspending.com
70 94.7 bn
71 92.8
72 94.7
73 92.8
74 98.2
75 116.2
76 114.5
77 121.6
78 130.9
79 143.7
80 167.9

How much of that was accounted for by inflation? That was a rather big problem in the latter half of the 1970s.
 
Look up the CPI. Overall, the increases exceeded inflation under Carter. The big defense cuts occurred under Nixon. Hell, all the useful stuff for military was initiated and pushed by Carter. He, after all, was an Annapolis grad.

Reagan just gave the defense a blank check and the US got such winners as the Sgt. York.
How much of that was accounted for by inflation? That was a rather big problem in the latter half of the 1970s.
 

Archibald

Banned
Just screw the F-111 circa 1970 - that should makes the trick. That machine was never very popular with USAF.
 
McDonnel Douglas also licence built the BAe Hawk trainer for the USNavy. With the Harrier and (Gos)Hawk in common and the JSF it makes you wonder if some sort of strategic alliance similar to the Sikorsky-Westland relationship (I recognise that that one is one way in the other direction) might have evolved, although it would require a 1970's POD.

So with the McDD/Bae Harrier II under development perhaps the F18 (Hornet FGR 1 and Sea Hornet FGR2 :)) is adopted by the UK manufactured by BAe under licence. The UK Harrier II could use the same basic radar as the Hornet and the US Harrier. This would maybe make a McDD version of the Tornado IDS less unlikely :cool:.

P.S. UK F18s are a pet fantasy of mine. A USAF Tornado is just the frosting on the doughnut.

www.reverbnation.com/billypryce
 
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Yes, I did mean the ADV.

The US does have a strong `Not Invented Here` culture, a list of foreign gear looks impressive enough when put together but they are only niche slots in a vast sea of US gear.
 
How much of that was accounted for by inflation? That was a rather big problem in the latter half of the 1970s.


I'd say a lot. Despite being an Annapolis grad (the only one so far to make it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave), he wasn't all that military-friendly. Case in point: he vetoed the FY 80 defense budget twice because it included CVN-71. Congress overrode him, hence U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt. Or, as the crew calls her "The Big Stick." Not to mention units short of spares and not being ready to deploy, personnel quality issues, etc. That was the era of the "hollow force."
 
Oh yes, they are indeed. Iranian F-16Cs, Russian Tomcats, American Tornado IDSs and ADVs, Australian Flankers and Vulcans, Filipino F-16Es....

The Iranian F-16 isn't that far fetched, Iran was one of the original customers before the revolution and there's a photo, one of those of a plane with all the country flags on it, with the Iranian flag in the strip.

Artists Impression from F16.net
 
The Iranian F-16 isn't that far fetched, Iran was one of the original customers before the revolution and there's a photo, one of those of a plane with all the country flags on it, with the Iranian flag in the strip.

Artists Impression from F16.net

It wouldn't seem like Filipino F-16s would be either, they did look at them in the early '90s. Now, the F-16E specifically would be difficult, but a few C/Ds wouldn't be impossible to arrange.

Some of them it's hard to tell aren't real, though. Mostly the ones with WWII-era Allied aircraft in the hands of generally allied-aligned nations, like Sweden, Portugal, Venezuela, etc.
 
I had fun trying to figure out ATLs for each of those illustrations. For example, Willie Messerschmitt emigrating to the US or WW2 being avoided but the British withdrawing from India and so on. Having fun wasting time. The only ones I couldn't think of an explanation for where the very modern ones like USNavy Su27s etc.

So when would the US Tornado have entered service? I suppose in reality the F15E is so clearly the superior warplane that it wouldn't have stood much chance in any fly off.
 

NothingNow

Banned
So when would the US Tornado have entered service? I suppose in reality the F15E is so clearly the superior warplane that it wouldn't have stood much chance in any fly off.

For the US version of the ECR? probably 1990 or so, and the IDS, probably the early 1980s, as an off the shelf sort of thing, before the F-15E was properly conceived of.
 
The Follow-On Wild Weasel competition was set for Fall '90, with Initial Operational Capability (IOC) set for FY 94.

Imperial Iran ordered 300 F-16A/Bs before the Revolution. Of those, 160 were actually paid for in advance to General Dynamics. Both Egypt and Israel's first orders for the aircraft were all taken from the Iranian production run, moving up both countries' initial delivery from 1982 to 1980. (and enabling the IAF to pull off the Baghdad Reactor Strike in 1981)
 
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