no aggression of any sorts is intented as well
In 1994, Northrop Aircraft bought Grumman Aerospace, which built the Apollo Lunar Module to create Northrop Grumman (NG).[citation needed] In 1996, the new company acquired Westinghouse Electronic Systems, a major manufacturer of radar systems,[citation needed] and Xetron Corporation. In 1997, the defense computer contractor Logicon was added, which had acquired Geodynamics Corporation in March 1996 and Syscon Corporation in February 1995.[citation needed]
In 1998, a merger between Northrop Grumman and competitor Lockheed Martin was considered but abandoned after resistance from the Department of Defense and Department of Justice.[24] That same year, it acquired Inter-National Research Institute Inc. In 1999, the company acquired Teledyne Ryan, developer of surveillance systems and unmanned aircraft, California Microwave, Inc., and the Data Procurement Corporation.
Archibald said:At least they got the B-2 contract ! ;D Must have brought them a boatload of money.
What I found most interesting is that the Cobra was being developed for Australia, or they at least were one of the primary drivers of the mission profile. IIRC West Germany was really interested in it as well.
marauder2048 said:Northrop was never able to shake its reputation in certain Air Force circles
for a being a glorified hobby shop.
That Northrop's final EMD proposal for ATF constituted an almost complete redesign over the YF-23
Dem/Val aircraft didn't help alter this perception.
LowObservable said:A common factor in the F/A-18L and F-20 stories was the reluctance of export customers to buy anything except what the US services had bought. That said, I wonder whether the 18L would have had the same problems (drag, handling, structures) as the P-530's other descendants, and while the F-20 could have been a fascinating niche player I doubt that it would have enjoyed the F-16's development and upgrade potential.
And as cool as the YF-23 was... would it have had the same kind of issues as the F-22? The real what-if in that story is the USAF's snap decision (1985-86) to accept the promise of all-aspect stealth for ATF.
Sundog said:marauder2048 said:Northrop was never able to shake its reputation in certain Air Force circles
for a being a glorified hobby shop.
That Northrop's final EMD proposal for ATF constituted an almost complete redesign over the YF-23
Dem/Val aircraft didn't help alter this perception.
Northrops design wasn't a complete redesign. In fact, it was Lockheed who had to completely redesign their prototype and the competition was even put on hold for them to do it.
There are always redesigns going from Prototype to EMD. The entire front of the Raptor from just in front of the weapons bay forward was completely redesigned, as were the wing and tail and all of the edges had to be redesigned to maintain edge alignment as a result. The main landing gear was also completely redesigned. In fact, considering the only things that didn't change in going from the YF-22 to the F-22 were the location of the weapons bays and engines, one could argue that there were greater changes to the Lockheed Martin proposal than the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas proposal. So your argument is largely specious.
LowObservable said:The point I was making was that both the ATF designs were all-aspect LO. That wasn't a requirement until Lockheed and Northrop assured the AF that it could be done, and done affordably.
Ogami musashi said:Sundog said:marauder2048 said:Northrop was never able to shake its reputation in certain Air Force circles
for a being a glorified hobby shop.
That Northrop's final EMD proposal for ATF constituted an almost complete redesign over the YF-23
Dem/Val aircraft didn't help alter this perception.
Northrops design wasn't a complete redesign. In fact, it was Lockheed who had to completely redesign their prototype and the competition was even put on hold for them to do it.
There are always redesigns going from Prototype to EMD. The entire front of the Raptor from just in front of the weapons bay forward was completely redesigned, as were the wing and tail and all of the edges had to be redesigned to maintain edge alignment as a result. The main landing gear was also completely redesigned. In fact, considering the only things that didn't change in going from the YF-22 to the F-22 were the location of the weapons bays and engines, one could argue that there were greater changes to the Lockheed Martin proposal than the Northrop-McDonnell Douglas proposal. So your argument is largely specious.
I think you confuse the EMD and Final production versions. The F-23EMD wasn't the final production version. Had northrop won the contract, there would have been a critical design review with a frozen design chosen around 1992. The same went with lockheed. Their EMD version wasn't the final production design since they did the critical design review in 92, one year after being awarded the contract. There were several different versions of F-23 being studied for after the EMD phase, but since northrop lost the ATF, the studies stopped (at least in the white world).
As for the F-23 being all aspect and the F-22 not, i don't think this is true. Secretary cheney made it clear during the award conference that both planes were very similar including stealth and that there were only nuances. He however made it pretty clear that the LM was the low bider and that they had better confidence in LM than Northrop.
LowObservable said:That wasn't a requirement until Lockheed and Northrop assured the AF that it could be done, and done affordably.
Sundog said:In fact, considering the only things that didn't change in going from the YF-22 to the F-22 were the location of the weapons bays and engines,
marauder2048 said:LowObservable said:That wasn't a requirement until Lockheed and Northrop assured the AF that it could be done, and done affordably.
Didn't that requirements change happen during the Dem/Val proposal phase when you still had
Boeing, GD, MacAir, Rockwell and Grumman?
McAir did a pretty bad job on the AV-8B with drag too. It may have been too much faith in calculating drag - put a fighter in a turn and modern CFD still can't work it out. Need proper tunnel tests and attention to detail design to this day. Reading across from the A or Y model may have been the problem.marauder2048 said:My own takeaway is that CFD was not sufficiently mature nor as widely used by the Northrop-McAir team which
would come back to haunt that same team with the AWS on the Super Hornet.
Sundog said:I understand that EMD isn't the same as the production design, but the fact remains that what Northrop was looking at didn't have as big of a configuration change as the production F-22 did when compared to the YF-22, which is something they, Lockheed Martin, knew would be required for their submission based on some of the feedback from the pilots flying the YF-22. For instance, it was known before their final submission that the inlets would have to be moved back and the cockpit forward for better visibility down to the side from the cockpit.
Ogami musashi said:My point is not that YF-23 to F-23 was more radical; My argument is that we don't know because:
1/ The F-23 was never selected so the critical design review never happened.
2/ During the dem/val efforts, configurations would change on a daily basis, thus the moment that radical configurations changes occurred may not have been the same for NG and LM. Yet, we don't know what was the EMD F-22 configuration.
What you quote about the flight testing affecting the design is equally true for the F-23, and based on that, the amount of changes was tremendous. The inlets were redesigned after flow distortion was discovered, similarly the weapon bay configuration was changed following concerns about structural integrity of the YF-23 like configuration. The length of the fuselage was changed too (DP 232 was just an interim iteration, even if GE was selected the design would have converged towards the DP 231 with shorter fuselage and three spike aft deck).
So, if we can't compare neither full scale production (because one never existed) or even EMD (because one is unknown), how can be say that F-22 was a more radical redesign than the F-23?
Sundog said:Ogami musashi said:My point is not that YF-23 to F-23 was more radical; My argument is that we don't know because:
1/ The F-23 was never selected so the critical design review never happened.
2/ During the dem/val efforts, configurations would change on a daily basis, thus the moment that radical configurations changes occurred may not have been the same for NG and LM. Yet, we don't know what was the EMD F-22 configuration.
What you quote about the flight testing affecting the design is equally true for the F-23, and based on that, the amount of changes was tremendous. The inlets were redesigned after flow distortion was discovered, similarly the weapon bay configuration was changed following concerns about structural integrity of the YF-23 like configuration. The length of the fuselage was changed too (DP 232 was just an interim iteration, even if GE was selected the design would have converged towards the DP 231 with shorter fuselage and three spike aft deck).
So, if we can't compare neither full scale production (because one never existed) or even EMD (because one is unknown), how can be say that F-22 was a more radical redesign than the F-23?
Because the F-23 didn't have a redesigned wing and tail, other than modifications with the boat tail of the aircraft, since the YF-23 was designed to have thrust reversers, which the production version didn't have to accommodate. The wings and tail on the F-22 were completely redesigned from the prototype to the production version.
Tehran also wanted a whopping 250 F-18s. The U.S. Navy at the time wanted 800 F-18s for its aircraft carriers. Iran proposed providing the Northrop Corporation $8 million to develop the land-based variant, referred to in the press at the time as the F-18L, which would have been lighter than the naval version (“Iran Offers F18 Aid”, UPI, October 28, 1976). This was quite unusual, since the Pentagon never permitted a foreign government to finance the creation of a warplane. The Shah ultimately proved no exception to this rule. While the U.S. Navy supported the development of the F-18L for Iran, believing that it would reduce the cost of production for its own F-18As, the Carter administration ruled out the sale. Carter did not want to promote foreign sales to lower the cost of equipment for the U.S. military, sought to prevent arms sales that did not contribute to U.S. security and outright forbid the “development or significant modification of advanced weapon systems solely for export.” (Charles W. Corddry, “US denies Iran’s bid for 250 jets”, Washington Bureau of The Sun, June 18, 1977). Furthermore, the Pentagon clearly never took the idea very seriously. “The Pentagon’s relaxed treatment of the matter is evident in its failure even to estimate the total price of 250 Northrop F-18Ls, including spare parts, ground-support equipment and crew training,” noted one news report. “Mr. Carter nevertheless stands to gain from this seeming early test of his new policy on foreign arms sales. And by informed accounts, the Shah of Iran probably is not miffed.” (Corddry, 1977).
I happen to come to this thread and thought to ask the very same question lolGents, if the Northrop F-18L had of been selected by a foreign air force, what would the forum's guess as to when it could have been manufactured?
Did Northrop give any such timeline once a substantial order was taken?
Regards
Pioneer
Just stumbled cross this interesting snippet of information re the F-18L (which if it's been posted elsewhere, I apologise!)
Tehran also wanted a whopping 250 F-18s. The U.S. Navy at the time wanted 800 F-18s for its aircraft carriers. Iran proposed providing the Northrop Corporation $8 million to develop the land-based variant, referred to in the press at the time as the F-18L, which would have been lighter than the naval version (“Iran Offers F18 Aid”, UPI, October 28, 1976). This was quite unusual, since the Pentagon never permitted a foreign government to finance the creation of a warplane. The Shah ultimately proved no exception to this rule. While the U.S. Navy supported the development of the F-18L for Iran, believing that it would reduce the cost of production for its own F-18As, the Carter administration ruled out the sale. Carter did not want to promote foreign sales to lower the cost of equipment for the U.S. military, sought to prevent arms sales that did not contribute to U.S. security and outright forbid the “development or significant modification of advanced weapon systems solely for export.” (Charles W. Corddry, “US denies Iran’s bid for 250 jets”, Washington Bureau of The Sun, June 18, 1977). Furthermore, the Pentagon clearly never took the idea very seriously. “The Pentagon’s relaxed treatment of the matter is evident in its failure even to estimate the total price of 250 Northrop F-18Ls, including spare parts, ground-support equipment and crew training,” noted one news report. “Mr. Carter nevertheless stands to gain from this seeming early test of his new policy on foreign arms sales. And by informed accounts, the Shah of Iran probably is not miffed.” (Corddry, 1977).
(Source: Paul Iddon, 2018.In the 1970s the Shah sought to make Iran a military superpower)
Regards
Pioneer
Well considering how it worked out probably just as well Iran didn’t have F-18Ls post-revolution.
And to be fair the Carter Administrations policies helped create the F-20; it was policy decisions by the following Regan administration that killed it.
Well considering how it worked out probably just as well Iran didn’t have F-18Ls post-revolution.
And to be fair the Carter Administrations policies helped create the F-20; it was policy decisions by the following Regan administration that killed it.
Given that the Shah simply signed a Letter of Intent for F-16s (October 1976) instead it is safe to assume that it would have made no difference to post revolution Iran whatsoever, other than it being 300 F-18Ls that the Iranian Air Force ended up not getting rather than the 300 F-16s that history otherwise records as casualties of said revolution.