IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?
IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?
So the USAF was willing to sacrifice conventional air to air combat performance for stealth etc. This might mean that the F-35 would be required to make up the difference. The F-35 putting a bigger emphasis on being a dogfighter would change that design in various ways, and if the F-23 is cheaper it might also be more numerous, the USAF originally wanted 750, then said 450 would be adequate.
They now have less than half that.
So a cheaper and more numerous high end stealth fighter, matched with a low end stealth fighter with poorer stealth but better conventional fighter performance. That might have resulted in the all stealth airforce that was originally the point of the exercise.
And a better F-35 for the forces -including the USN & USMC - that won't be getting the high end fighter. A LOT of airforces are getting just the F-35 and expecting it to be their high end fighter after all, so changing it has a major international effect.
Might the X-32 then win the JSF comp? As the safer choice.
AFAIK the X-35 was more mature, for example the X-35B could go straight from VTOL to supersonic, while the X-32B could not, to go supersonic it had to remove the VTOL system, plus the X-32 needed a major redesign of the tail to meet maneuverability goals. So likely the F-32 would have a longer, more troubled development history than the OTL F-35Might the X-32 then win the JSF comp? As the safer choice.
IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?
Basically what happened was that Boeing designed a really good, cheap, stealthy conventional strike fighter as the conceptual successor to the A-7, which is what the JSF CTOL and CV versions are. They then tried to figure out how to shoehorn in STOVL capability, which is where it really fell down. The Boeing STOVL solution had a lot of shortcomings, and heavily compromised their aircraft - it actually wound up with a more powerful engine than the X-35 but less vertical lift capacity.The X-32 does not look very stealthy to me but apparently it is. Honestly looks like a corsair 2. I wonder how they did that?
What I read it seems they have fixed those stuff but was too late for the comp. the mock up of the production has the tail etc.AFAIK the X-35 was more mature, for example the X-35B could go straight from VTOL to supersonic, while the X-32B could not, to go supersonic it had to remove the VTOL system, plus the X-32 needed a major redesign of the tail to meet maneuverability goals. So likely the F-32 would have a longer, more troubled development history than the OTL F-35