royabulgaf said:
The problem with all the aircraft urban legends is why? Why do we use the problematic space shuttle or buy Soyuz tickets when we have all this neato stuff? If we have all those long-range high speed aircraft, why is NASA so thrilled when they get a surfboard sized UAV to fly mach 6 for two minutes?
Because there are "black" programs and "white" programs, and these are developed by separate entities within the company. The guys/gals who work on the "white" programs do not have the clearance to access the "black ones".
royabulgaf said:
Why are aerospace companies losing competitions when they presumably have stuff up their sleeves that could blow the doors off the competition?
Because most of the "black" programs are funded by the DoD and therefore the technology does not belong to the company per se. The line between white and black has been blurred these past few years, however, with Boeing communicating on some of its Phantom Works projects ahead of their flight programs (intentionally, presumably, as the visible tip of the iceberg).
What I wrote above shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Indeed, the military always used the new technologies first, and only later could the civilian applications thereof be found. It is not because a company knows how to do stuff that it is allowed to do it!
royabulgaf said:
Why have these same companies gone to their corporate graves when unveiling a tenth of these wonders would have allowed them to dominate the industry for decades to come?
Often because they got huge contracts from the military that were later cancelled. They had already spent millions developing the stuff, found no return on their investments and went bankrupt. Simple as that. In aircraft history the companies that lasted long were those which consistently had work under their sleeves, those that never counted on the military alone for survival, those who had a foot in the civilian market as well: Boeing is the best example of this. McDonnell Douglas and Fairchild were also in that position once, but harsh competition from Boeing for the former, and bad management for the latter put an end to that (plus the fact that Fairchild relied for a great part upon the A-10 and the T-46, which was cancelled). Companies like Vought, Grumman, General Dynamics or Martin, which relied mostly on military contracts, closed shop as prime contractors when they found themselves with no contract. Only companies like Northrop and Lockheed, which have dealt mostly in highly classified projects, were able to keep afloat because that position gave them an edge for a long time.
Today, out of the big three on the American market, namely Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, only the latter has the civilian market covered. It means it is the least likely to go out of business in my opinion. The others are dependant upon the whims of the politicians, the political climate, the state of the Middle East and what have you... Boeing, however, will always have airlines to sell aircraft to.
