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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
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