eclam@maytag.waterloo.edu (Edmund C. Lam) (05/13/89)
From: "Edmund C. Lam" <eclam@maytag.waterloo.edu> I have always wanted to know the reasons why the U.S. arms procurment passed over the F-20? From what I know of it, it seems to be a very cost effective machine.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (05/15/89)
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) >I have always wanted to know the reasons why the U.S. arms procurment >passed over the F-20? From what I know of it, it seems to be a very >cost effective machine. I read it as having been a combination of things. The US historically did not buy the F-5 series for its own use, and the F-20 started out as the F-5G. It had a slightly involved development history, notably a late decision that it needed a bigger wing (which it did). And there were competitors, notably the F-16, that were already well entrenched in strong positions within the USAF. It came close once or twice. Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
gt0818a%prism@gatech.edu (Paul E. Robichaux) (05/15/89)
From: gt0818a%prism@gatech.edu (Paul E. Robichaux) The F-20 died as a result of USAF disinterest. Their original plan was to buy all F-16s for the air superiority mission, but Northrop made some exceptionally attractive price concessions (including, I think, a fixed-price spare parts contract) which drew Congressional attention. Congress mandated an F-16/F-20 flyoff, which (since it was conducted by the program board that wanted F-16s in the first place) the F-20 lost. Seeing the refusal of DoD to buy the F-20, foreign governments stayed away from it like it was another C-5A. I am not aware of any in service with foreign nations at this time. From what I understand, it is a very capable, easy-to- maintain aircraft (as is the F-16). Northrop was hailed for taking initiative and spending their own R&D money to develop it, and then took a bath when no one wanted it. I'd buy one. -- Paul E. Robichaux, Undergrad Peon | Internet: gt0818a@prism.gatech.edu Georgia Institute of Technology | BITNET: gt0818a@GITNVE2 GT PO Box 30818; Atlanta, GA 30332 |============================================
nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) (05/16/89)
From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) In article <6547@cbnews.ATT.COM> eclam@maytag.waterloo.edu (Edmund C. Lam) writes: > > >From: "Edmund C. Lam" <eclam@maytag.waterloo.edu> >I have always wanted to know the reasons why the U.S. arms procurment >passed over the F-20? From what I know of it, it seems to be a very >cost effective machine. > To effectively describe why it was passed over requires a description of how the US military buys planes. Normally, the way it's done is for the defense contractor to ask the Government for development money to build the prototypes of the planes. The military gets to specify what they want the plane to do, and they oversee the prototypes so that they can evaluate them. From there, if the military likes the prototypes, they put out a production contract. The virtue of this system is that private enterprise doesn't get hurt if the fickle government decides not to buy. This has some interesting effects. The offices that develop the prototypes become the contractors' friends in the military. Folks in Systems Command of USAF (the folks who buy planes) like to keep their job. So the progarm office for the prototype will almost always be very favorable towards a production contract - they get to keep their jobs. It beats a transfer elsewhere or possible unemployment. So how does that make a difference to F-20? Then President Carter, not noted as the biggest friend to the military to ever hold that office, wanted the USAF to get a cheap fighter. THe idea was that the contractors would pay for prototypes, and the USAF would pick the one they liked. This would foster competition and cost sensitivity. The contract would FIX the prices paid, and would include maintenance and spares and warrantees. USAF would get pick of the litter and not have to pay for the runts. Only [insert the name of the company that built the F-20 here, I knew it a paragraph ago] bit. They came out with the F-20. Wht happened? The F-20 had no friends, since it had no program office, and no history of spending money. No one in the military HAD to have it. The F-20 had 90-95% of the flight capabilities of the F-16 at about half the per plane cost, and it included spares. So the military said, "Why should I buy another plane that does less, when I'm already paying for these two fine planes (F15 & F16)?" So they rejected the plane on performance. They said "Make this our export fighter." But even though it made good sense, it would be a smack to the other nation's national pride to take a 'second best' fighter that 'was less taxing to maintain and service'. After all, it would imply that the other nation didn't have what it took to keep a really neato front-line fighter in the air. So it didn't sell. > > [ a few articles later somebody talks about maint costs of F16 and > F20.] > The costs are widely different. The F15 and 16 are both very expensive to work on and to keep in the air. The F20, at least under the proposed contracts, would have been much cheaper to keep flying. One of the design criteria was to keep it cheap to fly. This is probably why it lacks some of the capabilities of the F16. I'm surprised that it didn't destroy F5 sales, myself. It had great price/performance. If I were running a third world nation, I'd have bought lots of them. Train your pilots well, and if you lose a few planes in training, the planes were cheap. In war, you would have near parity in per-plane capability, and more planes. Neil Kirby ...cbsck!nak
tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) (05/19/89)
From: tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) I worked on the F-20 in the Avionic Integration Laboratory (1983 - 86). It was an incredible plane. The interesting part was that it was completely funded by the Northrop Corp. (no gov't $$$s). They spent close to a billion dollars of their own money developing and building it. If my memory serves me right, the program was started at the request of the gov't (then President Carter). Its primary/first customer was supposed to be Taiwan. Due to a new treaty with China, during the Reagan era, the U.S. promised not to sell arms to Taiwan - the F-20's #1 customer just got axed. The Air Force didn't want it because they had the F-16 and General Dynamics was lobbying like crazy to keep the F-20 out of their market. When it came to foreign sales, the US had started exporting the F-15, and though the F-20 was a great plane, who wants an F-20 when they can get a F-15? For the countries that could not get the F-15, they were skeptical about buying a plane that wasn't in the US inventory. At the same time, General Dynamics slashed the price for the F-16 by ~30%. This caused a uproar in Congress about being overcharged for all the planes aready purchased, but the uproar died down and nothing came of it - GD later raised the price back up. During this period, the pressure was very intense on the Air Force to buy the F-20. They decided to have a fly-off between the F-20 and the F-16 to settle the matter once and for all. The Air Force (i.e. General Dynamics) was sure the F-16 was a better plane. Well, the Air Force conducted their fly-off, and guess what they did- you guessed it, they decided to make the results classified! I don't recall for sure, but I believe no official results were ever released. I think the failure to sell the F-20 was a very sad point in the history of defense procurement. No company in history went so far out on a limb ($1 billion), investing its own money to build a DOD product. It would have been nice to see a new trend start, where companies invested some of their own money in starting up and developing products. You can bet no company will ever make the same mistake Northrop made. Lesson- only spend the gov'ts money, don't ever risk any of your own. On the positive side, I think the work done on the F-20 put the company in a good position to win other contracts. I could go on for days about all the "crap" that went down, but ... As another interesting side issue, does anyone have the full story on the demise of the flying wing (XB-35 or YB49) in the 50s? As I recall, it was another unfortunate altercation between Northrop and General Dynamics where Northrop lost - again. -- Tom Shaffer --
maniac%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George W. Herbert) (05/20/89)
From: maniac%garnet.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (George W. Herbert) In article <6593@cbnews.ATT.COM> nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) writes: > I'm surprised that it didn't destroy F5 sales, myself. It had great > price/performance. If I were running a third world nation, I'd have _What F-5 sales? The sales for the last few decades (1975 on?) have been all retread airframes, not new. It's been a long time since northrop build a new tiger II.
ricko@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Rick O'Brien) (05/20/89)
From: ricko@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (Rick O'Brien) In article <6707@cbnews.ATT.COM> tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) writes: > > >From: tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) > >[interesting stuff on F-20 deleted] No company in >history went so far out on a limb ($1 billion), investing >its own money to build a DOD product. It would have been >nice to see a new trend start, where companies invested some of >their own money in starting up and developing products. >You can bet no company will ever make the same mistake Northrop made. >Lesson- only spend the gov'ts money, don't ever risk any of your >own. > -- Tom Shaffer -- Just about every Request For Quote I have seen in the last few years asks for an "investment" on the part of the bidder. My company is only a subcontractor, not a prime, and we are still investing lots of bucks on programs we may or may not get. While we are not investing $1 billion the amounts are still substantial for a company of our size. Also, the new and improved :-{ govm'nt regs make it increasingly difficult to recover any "investment." We still do defense work, so we must make money on it, but it is not an easy way to make money. ( At one time our company decided to no-bid any more NASA contracts but eventually reconsidered, whether for more money or the 'prestige' of the space program I don't know.) Rick O'Brien
dlj@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (david.l.jacobowitz) (05/24/89)
From: dlj@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (david.l.jacobowitz) In article <6707@cbnews.ATT.COM>, tshaffer@ads.com (Tom Shaffer) writes: > I worked on the F-20 in the Avionic Integration > Laboratory (1983 - 86). It was an incredible plane. <text deleted> > out of their market. When it came to foreign sales, the US > had started exporting the F-15, and though the F-20 was a > great plane, who wants an F-20 when they can get a F-15? While the F-15 is an impressive performer, it is also BIG and EXPENMSIVE. It's wingspan is twice that of a Mig-21, and it's *tailspan* is actually larger than the *wingspan* of an F-5. While performance is important, in 4 out of 5 air-air kills, the target never saw their attacker. In only 1 out of 5 cases was the target downed in a "dogfight." Hence if you think about it, the small size of the F-20 more than makes up for any performance advantage of the F-15. I read that some people at Topgun (Navy Fighter Weapons School) wanted to buy the F-20 to simulate advanced Soviet dogfighters like the Mig-29 and Su-27, but because of political considerations they went for the F-16N instead. Oh well, maybe the Israelis will decide to buy some F-20s... --------------------------------------------------------- Dave J. usual disclaimer implied