Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou4b.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!hou4b!mat From: mat@hou4b.UUCP Newsgroups: net.aviation Subject: Re: Yet more on the B-1B and F-20 Message-ID: <1178@hou4b.UUCP> Date: Wed, 3-Oct-84 17:33:34 EDT Article-I.D.: hou4b.1178 Posted: Wed Oct 3 17:33:34 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 03:47:36 EDT References: <3209@rabbit.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 33 > As for the F-20 being such a great example of what the aerospace > industry can do when not hampered by government specs, then how come > they haven't sold a single one? Sorry, defense contractors are not > like other companies, struggling along despite government > interference, they're leeches selling death to the generals, with the > taxpayers footing the bill. Northrop can go down the tubes without > any sympathy from me. > Jan Wolitzky, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ My understanding was that the F20 was the ``FX'' -- James Earl Jimmy Carter's Fighter, Export. The FX was to be good enough for all our second-rate allies, cheap enough that they would be willing to buy them instead of the latest ``Air Superiority'' F15 or F14 or F18 ... and that it would be completely supported by the US, even to the extent that our Armed Forces would stock spares. This was going to keeps F15s out of the hands of tne next Iran. Our second-rate allies either can't afford ANY of our planes, or else they are pretro-powers that can call the shots and get what they want. Or else they are Isreal and can build Lavi s. No one is buying the F20 (FX) and Northrop has had to sweeten the deal repeatedly. Some of the stuff they have done IS very good ... Less than 80 seconds from startup to airborne, IF you don't move the aircraft (so that the Inertial Nav system doesn't have to be realigned ...). But nobody wants to buy a fighter that was designed to be defeatable by another fighter. -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape .. dig ) hou4b!mat ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*.