Here's Why the Pentagon Didn't Pick the X-32 

I'm curious, what is it about the Navy that leads to these issues?

Navy is notorious for changes. I believe it's because the Navy does so many things they aren't just boats, they also have a aircraft. They are trying to get so many thing packed into a single plane with only so much space on a carrier. If they could get a single jet that could complete 90% of their missions it would be a game changer.

@@jrodstech That makes a lot of sense. Notwithstanding the changes made by the Navy, the extra weight to make the F-35C landing gear carrier capable drastically increased the development cost.

This statement is corroborated in "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich. The man who followed Kelly Johnson as the head of that division. "Never deal with the NAVY" and his experience was designing the first stealth fighter/bomber. They also designed stealth submarines, destroyers, and fleet defense missile platforms. The navy said no to everything. Because (apparently) there is no prestige to stoke the ego for an Admiral of a fleet you cant detect, or even know about.

@@jrodstech wasn’t the F-14 Tomcat a dogfighter, interceptor, bomber, attack aircraft, long range air-to-air fighter, and a heavy weapons platform? If they just followed through with ST-22 (Super Tomcat 22) we wouldn’t have this problem.

Funny - I have a similar story. My dad worked on radar for the X-32 with Raytheon and he passed down a jacket to me that has X-32 patches. ;)

@@ISpinUWin Y’all need to go arm wrestle at a bar, loser fronts a beer contract with the winner. Bring the jackets of course

@@finnmacdiarmid3250 😂

In my opinion and I’m from England. The skunkworks produced the greatest and most iconic aircraft of all time. The F14 Tomcat. I wish that the Ministry of Defence had purchased F14’s The British Navy and The R.A.F. We have purchased the F35 lightning from U.S. but it’s nothing like the F22 Raptor. The F22 Raptor is way better than the SU-57.

100% agree!

The YF23 was clearly the better plane and Northrop engineers had future proofed it with the ability to add thrust vectoring and it being upgradable over time. Hopefully Japan picks it up to develop there plane.

@@mitchjames9350 Japans making the Tempest alongside Italy and Britain.

@@georgethompson1460 are you sure as there is talks of them working with the UK and US government.

@@mitchjames9350 how was the YF-23 "clearly the better plane"? It lost in a head to head competition judged by the worlds foremost expert pilots, commanders, and tacticians. All of whom possed information about the capabilities of these two jets that you will never in your lifetime have similar access to. No, it was clearly not the better aircraft. The YF-22 was faster, climbed better, was more maneuverable, had better transonic maneuvering ability, better avionics, better systems integration, better everything except slightly larger RCS from certain undisclosed angles.

This happened because Boeing was chintzy and didn't start with a clean sheet design. As such they were forced to recycling old tech. In other words, it feels like they half-assed it.

I believe they had to remove the gear doors also.

I recall that -- a photo of the X-32 with a lot of the forward end missing, clearly in a hover and with the world paying close attention! I was just re-enlisting, after being out for 16 years, and thought that sort of event was for all the marbles -- how in the hell could anyone believe that they'd be taken seriously, especially for a national defense contract of that scope!? Kelly Johnson and the Skunk Works folks would have been stunned, but delighted, at seeing such presumptive arrogance from Boeing.

You are correct

Didn't the X-32 have a pop stall in it's testing like the Harriers and that add to the final decision?

I understand that the requirements where changed 3 times during the development of the aircraft. Another factor was the new project management software, which did not work as well as expected, plus the huge hack by the Chinese. All in all factors that slowed everything down a lot.

Boeing is terrible at software. Like appallingly bad.

¹0

pO@!

one the sake of hour he's gonna reveal tic tac sh1t dude so this channel could ve been taken down play save gets bail 😂

yodaisgod2 Yep. I've heard many inside people say that it was more M-D taking over Boeing. Boeing execs just sat back and let them have their way.

Chicago School of Economics rationalism wrecks everything that depends on technical creativity and imagination in order to thrive.

@@terryboyer1342 I've heard that most of the original Boeing engineers went to the military side, while the MD guys stayed commercial. I don't know how true that statement is, but it does seem somewhat plausible.

@@dougrobinson8602 Could be. Boeing sure seems to have gone downhill since then the merger.

@@Veldtian1 This sounds like an interesting and believable take on economics theory. I'm certainly no expert though I'd say I fall in more with the Chicago School than the Keynesians, whose ideas were tenable only at a time when the economy was pregnant with so many technological possibilities that great public spending actually could produce good results. Perhaps the Chicago School stubbornly overestimates its ability to measure things much as the behaviorist school of psychologists did. If you know of any links to articles that explore this idea, I'd love to see them.

Yeah, that's the thing, now everyone sees the delays with F35 and many think in hindsight X32 would have been better, but I seriously doubt it would have been any different. Boeing is probably even more notorious than LM when it comes to delays and stuff like that.

Keep in mind that Boeing went on to perfect that technology and it flies today in the civilian world as the 787 Dreamliner. Boeing was pushing the envelope at the time, but they got their shit together And eventually made it work. Meanwhile Lockheed has failed to deliver their far more complex, complicated fighter on time or budget. The JSF Program was intended for a world where the F22 filled the role of air superiority fighter, and the JSF was envisioned in a dedicated air to ground role. Lockheed made the F35 way more maneuverable than it ever actually had to be, trying to sell the Pentagon a flashy cut down F22. Boeing was trying to sell them a cheap, reliable missile bus. Lockheed impressed the Pentagon with the added capability of their design….But it’s a bit like going to the mayor and the city Council and talking about how your super flashy $90,000 Cadillac Escalade can haul the kids to hockey practice in the dead of winter with 18 inches of snow on the ground look how fantastic it is…it’s amazing!! ….And then the rep from Kia points out that their Sedona minivan Does the exact same job reliably for only $40,000, who cares about being able to traverse 18 inches of snow, this is a city street and the city is already paying for a fleet of $290,000 plow trucks to keep the roads clear.

@@Matt-yg8ub I said I can vouch for both because I've worked for both. I actually worked at Boeing and specifically was with the 787 program. I'm one of the few who had access to the massive autoclaves. It's a good point, they did do it but it's still different. I believe I specifically stated what the defect risks were. Between Lockheed and Boeing, since I've seen both for both programs (even F-35, I work at LM now), there are MASSIVE differences in what goes into the military application vs the civilian one. The civilian application uses composites yes but nothing close to what the F-35s uses. The F-35s composite material is classified for a reason. That material is integral to not just structural kinetic performance but also stealth performance. Boeing itself still has problems with the kinematics variables as they removed the copper mesh material years ago before we had the ok from the FAA, the same layer that would Faraday Cage any lightning hits. We had issues with the extra metal materials adding weight to the aircraft, primarily on the wing. The F-35 doesn't even come close skipping such steps with it's material. In fact it does a lot more, but again the F-35 parts are far smaller and easier to cure than the giant ass single piece wing section Boeing tried with the X-32. Yes, with the 87, we cured entire whole sections of fuselage, but these were relatively simple parts and are primarily just 'skin', not load baring bulkheads. Edit; I'll add due to the statement of what was expected of the JSF program and what was delivered - it's a good analogy yes but again, the companies have different cultures. As I mentioned above Boeing straight up went against the FAA on removing the metal insulators we have in the first layers of composites and the fastener caps when I was there, not just because it was negating performance that was hurting sales (restricting promised performance metrics due to overweight) but it also was expensive. We were using pure copper meshes and straps. Shit ain't cheap. So Boeing showed it's true face by finding ways to cost cut without the market having knowledge. That's what they do. Lockheed is notorious for overspending but at least you get what you paid for. The F-35 wasn't ever required to be super maneuverable, but it is. It had no requirement for super cruise, but it can (at M 1.2 for about 100 miles I believe). It had no requirement for the DAS or EOTS integrated sensor systems, but it has them. It had no requirement to have a 'drone mode' where a ship can be upgraded to a 'loyal wingman' flight AI, but it can fly itself. The X-32 was the Mustang vs the F-35 being a C-8 Corvette. Yeah the need for speed was settled with the Mustang but the Vette got the luxury and ability topped with it, so it's value will last longer. Which is precisely what's happening. The F-22 is now being phased out early. Why? F-35 is literally that good. It's good enough on it's own to fulfill the role while the NGAD is on it's way. If we need missile busses? We got F-15EXs we can buy - which again... we are. Lol. I believe we have on order 82 of those - mostly because it overhauls the airframe which of current, the C models are WELL over McD&D/Boeing recommended flight hours per ship but hey... no one wanted to take the CCP threat serious until recently and now the Air Force is panicking. Maybe if congress took economics 101 and had actually kept the order for at least 700 22s instead 186? We wouldn't be in this predictable crisis. But hey, I'm just a scrub who works in Defense Aerospace. Wtf do I know...

@@Nurhaal Spoken like someone who works for Lockheed. You typed up a wall of text to obscure the fact that you’re arguing for the quality difference between a civilian application and a military application and you’re repeating over and over and over again how superior the military quality is. Yeah we get that, everybody here knows that. You don’t have to pretend that we’re all idiots or that we’re too stupid to see through what you’re trying to say. The civilian side of Boeing is making use of technology that the military side pioneered 25 years ago….but OBVIOUSLY It’s not exactly the same thing because the military grade technology is still classified. Something else you’re also conveniently ignoring is that the JSF was winner take all. Lockheed won, and got to walk away with most of the technology that Boeing submitted for the program.

@@Nurhaal well said.

Hello sir, was is PC . ?

@@davidalexander8649 Plane Captain

Nice to hear first-hand that Mr Yates is an officer and a gentleman. I have met many aircrew who think of themselves as steely-eyed killers and anyone who isn't in their club isn't worthy of their time.

@@mickf9258 Mr Yates was always approachable and professional. 👍

He wasn’t in the squadron when I was there.

He he he he he he he

Fascinating!

Might have been something else. Look up Red Flag exercises from 2004 and see what foreign units were attending. Typhoons and Rafales have been to RF quite often.

the military is finally learning that huge lists of requirements are bad for innovation. Like with the latest NGSW program, to replace the ar-15 family of rifles in the military, the only requirement was based on the ammunition I believe. As such we've seen 3 radically different weapons that innovate in their own way. Even when these projects fail the competition, they often provide useful technology

If you are talking about the same ~2 hour interview an air force guy did on RU-vid, I think that was the YF-22 and 23, not the 32 and 35, still provides some context to how this program may have been run though.

@@ashleyhamman ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_MUK241uZHM.html

That was ATF, not JSF.

@@moonasha What they're learning to do is keep politics out of the design process so they can actually get what they asked for in the first place instead of politicians using the process to cancel the project for their competitor.

One thing that prevented the X-32 from being awarded in the competition with the X-35 was, there was NO vertical take-off variant. This meant the USMC would have no version of the JSF. The X-32 only had two variants not three as the Pentagon originally requested.

@@sebastien3351 they were asking short take-off vertical landing, not a vertical take-off. the fact that x32 can land vertically, it has the capability to take off vertically too.

I stand corrected!

Good comments Rick! I guess I am a legend in my own mine...since I help Kaiser AND L3 secure the Cockpit PWSC panoramic cockpit display contracts.

@@jojoGarBerry Joe, the mover and shaker who put L3 over the goal line was John B. who wouldn't consider changing technologies. Anyway all in the rear view mirror. Hope all is well on your end.

It is plain that Lockeed came ito the competition much better prepared. That, and the X-32 was just butt ugly head on.

Thank you, Cameron!

Have you ever heard why the USAF picked the YF-16 over the YF-17? Both were hot rods flown by both test pilot groups, who actually switched over once they got a certain number of hours on the first. They used that to try to eliminate any bias. Once they got basic flight safety, handling, and performance ironed-out at Edwards, they conducted a series of tactical exploitation exercises against MiG-21s out over the Nevada Test & Training Ranges. Before that, everything on paper looked like the YF-17 Cobra was the favorite. It didn't have all the heavy systems of the later navalized F/A-18, so it had superb climb rate, acceleration, and the low speed nose authority that the YF-16 didn't. Once they did the MiG-21 exploit, everything changed. It was extremely difficult to see the YF-16, and in defensive set-up with MiG-21 in perch, the YF-16's radical roll rate facilitated better reversals. Then the logistics angle of sharing the same motor with the new F-15 pretty much sealed the deal. They couldn't talk about the decision factors for obvious reasons, so it was kinda left in the dark as to why USAF chose YF-16 over the Cobra.

@@LRRPFco52 thanks for the info but I cant answer as to why the choice.

One important factor in the F-16 win was what they now call “sustainment”, ie, maintenance. The F-4 was a maintenance nightmare. There were over 1000 different types of fasteners in in F-4 airframe. That made parts supply and inventory just insane, esp wrenching half way around the world. The F-16 design team made a huge effort to kill that number - they got it down below 20 for almost anything you wanted to try fixing. They also focussed on MTTR - like an engine swap in a few hours instead of a few days. The estimated reduction in maintenance costs were astounding. It also significantly improved the readiness percentage dramatically. These issues were significant contributions to the F-16 success as an export product. Buyers didn’t need to get 2 or 3 to have one ready on the flight line. The F-16 has been upgraded aggressively and it is still highly regarded, enough so that trying to sell the F-35 as a replacement for several F-16s is not easy. New sales of F-16s are curtailed but existing satisfied customers are insisting they be allowed to buy upgrades, lest they reconsider their sourcing options if forced to consider fleet replacement. Ouch.

@@n4nln They took the tool head and fastener type approach to the F-16 and whittled it down even more for JSF. JSF has a fraction of the fastener types and an incredibly-low number of tools heads used on the production line. I think it was only 13 tools heads for JSF, and hundreds for F-16. Former F-16 maintainers who now “wrench” the F-35A in USAF complain about not being able to get their hands dirty, the jet maintained itself, I want to go back to the F-16 where I could dig into the plane and trace wire, etc. That’s how it is in operational squadrons at least. F-35A exceeded F-16C and A-10 readiness levels in 2020, and those 2 airframes have been the gold standard in maintainability/readiness/FMC/M rates. F-16C and F-15E FMC/MC rates have been kinda manipulated though, since ECM, HARM, and LITENING FLIR pods on F-16 and FLIR/LANTIRN on F-15E aren’t included in the reports for the aircraft, but are tracked as separate systems that don’t contribute to the official rates. Even with that, where F-35 can’t hide any of its EW, FLIR, etc., it surpassed them all. Block 3 birds are ridiculously-easy to maintain and often just come back from sorties with 0% break-rate, gas-and-go.

@@LRRPFco52 Thanks for the debrief with real info. Given the track record of Skunkie’s lads I never doubted that the engineering issues would get sorted. Issues of “wrong requirements” and flawed CONOPS isn’t Lockheed’s fault. The only problem with Skunkie delivering miracles are the price tags.

Not mentioned but I seem to recall was that the Navy changed the requirements along the way. They wanted to bring back to the ship unused ordinance. Maybe they were thinking because of the cost of smart bombs and limited supplies on the carrier at sea, I am not sure. That requirement killed the tailless delta and Boeing needed to add a tail to provide pitch control authority with the new over weight requirement. This is shown in the National Geographic video.

Discussed here Battle of the X planes ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J-9ZfpjSyeM.html

I don't know if that's entirely true - the payload bays are the same on all of them, and we're lucky it happened as it will be able to carry some really cool upcoming weapons which are being miniaturized rapidly these days. Also the wing on the F-35C is hardly "massive" (with wingtips folded, it's span is nearly a foot *shorter* than the F-18 E/F Super Hornet actually). Plus, if you recall, Boeing was forced to perform a COMPLETE re-design of their entire wing/aircraft AFTER design freeze and risked there not even being an X-32 to test by the deadline. I think that decision (or lack of foresight in choosing the wrong wing in the first place) set them back so far, that the ensuing heavy aircraft was just never going to happen - certainly not in STOVL or carrier config. The Lockheed design was better for ALL three requirements, hands-down. Even the F-35A's internal GAU-22/A 25mm cannon was better than the proposed 20mm or 27mm Mauser (with the GAU-22 having THREE TIMES the rate of fire) which would have been on the F-32. I think they got better performance, better internal payload, and (likely, though we may never know) dramatically better stealth performance out of the Lockheed design.

I also believe the Navy wanted internal carriage of the AGM-154 JSOW.

The price of trying to do it all with one basic design.

at the end of the program, the announcer gave the impression that Boeing was the dominant contractor in the UAV arena. it didn't seem that they were all that broken up by losing.

Easy to predict KSLOC from function points. But they probably had no idea how many function points.

List of fighters that made first flights without GPS........all of them. That said, there were a lot of mistakes made with initial production of the overweight early developmental F-35A/B/C off the line in Fort Worth, and they brought in retired F-22 program managers to fix it. One of the things that delayed the initial development was L-M being denied the opportunity to use Carbon Fiber structures more extensively, since Pentagon was dictating arbitrary strategic materials percentages based on legacy models. Part of the eventual fix that delayed the program 18 months was going back to more use of CF structures in the tail booms and tail planes, which also reduced the RCS considerably, cut the weight, and increased the airframe service life. If you step back from some of the minutiae that we all experience in day-to-day struggles of well-funded programs with lots of great ideas with everyone trying to prove how smart and valuable they are, you can look at safety with JSF and see that the numbers can’t be argued with. Contrast with F-16’s first 10 years from 1977-1987: 143 airframes total loss, 71 fatalities. All 3 JSF variants from 2006-present (OCT2021): 2 F-35B crashes, 2 F-35A crashes, 3 write-offs on the ground with early Block 2 birds from fires. 1 fatality in Japanese Self Defense Forces from Controlled Flight into Terrain, 60˚ dive into the ocean from pretty high altitude, pilot unresponsive. It took over 17 years from X-35 to the first F-35B crash, which is a phenomenal job. I would be very proud of having worked on such a program.

I think it looks awesome, like a weird spaceship or something. Definitely wouldn't have scared people though.

You just can't go around bombing people with a big smile on your face... 😉

"Maybe the real tactical advantage was the friends we made along the way..." Pixar presents: Planes Taking off Spring '22

Comrade it's the "Military Industrial Complex " that empowers you to make inane comments, drive your Prius to the Starbucks to have your cream topped cappuccino while you read Moa's Little Red Book 🇨🇳.

@@zigbeegooblesnort125 Oh look, another paranoid "red under the bed" comment. How you managed to extrapolate a communist from a humourous comment is anybody's guess.🤔

:D

It kind of has that ugly duckling vibe that the A10 gives off.

The report into the loss of a base model F-35A at Elgin last year revealed a unit cost of $176m. It’s in the report.

@@thethirdman225 There's something going on there then - because they're down into the ~80m range now for an A model.

We also have to remember inflation - hell back in 1998 $40m was equal to $67m today. Boeing is PROJECTING a unit cost of $90m for the 4th gen F-15EX, and F-35A's are around ~$80m (some are thinking into the 70s now). As far as a wartime asset is concerned, the F-15EX is nearly worthless in a contested battle space; not so much aircraft but advanced SAMs, it simply wouldn't be usable and the USAF wouldn't deploy them. That alone makes the cost of an F-35A pretty much pointless anyways, as it's a USABLE first-strike and defensive platform - EX's will be waiting on the ramp for F-35's to clear the path, potentially for days if there are significant airborne threats popping up as well.

@@alexmathis8505 Source?

@@thethirdman225 I don't have any source to add but I sure as shit wouldn't want to send up an F-15, no matter how upgraded, up against pristine air defenses and stealthy aircraft. It's just a target at that point. I'm sure it's still good for harassment and getting some extra radars out there at very long range, but that implies you're basically using them to draw fire for the F-35...

"Honey, we're going to live at Pax River for a year." "What can you do there?" "Get stuck in the miserable traffic."

@@Hammerli280 lol

Listened to Chuck Yeager speak with friends at the Desert Inn the night before the 50th anniversary of his first supersonic flight.

@@parkburrets4054 awesome. Wished I’d met him

What's there to do in Lancaster? Watch fighters, bombers, recon, maritime patrol aircraft flying around with no concern for noise ordinances or sonic booms! 4-wheeling and shooting in the desert. At least in the 1970s and 80s.

Didn’t he say it wasn’t a fly off?

Thank you!

I am a ex AF jet MEC, I also wondered why the A-7 corsair II all 3 branches AF MC NAVY did not have Augmenters /Afterburners. Why would some engineer and some brass not want that extra thrust when its needed ??? There are aerial refueling tankers. That's like them saying guns was not needed on the F-4 Phantom II in the late 50s.

@@leonswan6733 LTV eventually made a prototype YA-7F with a burner but that was at the time the YF-17 was also proposed. The YF-17 was selected and became the FA-18. There was some controversy and lawsuits at the time about which was truly better. I don't know many particulars. Range was better with the YA-7F I believe and air to ground effectiveness was a wash. At least that was the rumor. Not sure about the air to air mission. Perhaps someone else might have more specific info about that. Typically F4s or F14s would accompany A7s/A6's on a strike as fighter cover. Tankers would be part of a mission plan too depending on target range. F4 was particularly needy in the fuel department.

@@planebill1 Thanks for commenting. I remember following the A-7F proposals at the time and never could figure out what it wasn’t funded. YA-7F for the USAF was an upgrade over the A-7D. Would have established a more common fleet propulsion logistics chain and given the A-7 more self-protection capability not too far from an F-16 in-practice. A-7’s superb combat radius hasn’t been re-realized until JSF-A and JSF-C brought it back. JSF-B has an impressive radius like an F-16 with 2 tanks, but F-35B doesn’t need EFTs. The program that seems to have screwed over the A-7D was the A-10, which is basically useless for all but 2 or 3 limited mission profiles: Armed escort for US Army rotary wing aviation (fulfilled by AH-64 since 1984), CAS, and Armed Recon ahead of the FLOT. A-7D smoked the A-10 for the Fulda Gap mission profile hands-down, which the A-10 was never built for. A-10 stole hundreds of seats that would have been better in a multirole platform, if not the A-7D. A better force mix would have been either the A-7F, F-16CJ, F-15E, and F-15C, or F-16XL, F-16C, F-15E, and F-15C, with a smaller contingent of A-10s or OV-10s primarily tasked to support expeditionary Army units and SOCOM. There really should have never been an A-10 built to 716 airframes, it at all. It wasn’t until many years and production blocks later that USAF got the A-7D’s superb bombing and NAV capabilities into the F-16C. A-7D was way ahead of its time with the HUD, bombing computer/radar, FLIR, and moving map display. It would have done really well in Desert Storm I believe. There were 2 lone USN A-7E squadrons who participated and did a lot of work in ODS, with 0 losses. They had far greater mission radius/range than the F/A-18 Hornet. Cool thing about the A-7E was being able to employ pretty much all of the A2G munitions in inventory, including the AGM-88 HARM for D-SEAD mission profiles. They fired 152 HARMs in ODS. A-7E missions included D-SEAD, deep interdiction/strike against Iraqi airfields immediately after F-117A sorties on night one. They configured with 3x AGM-88 HARMs and one External Fuel Tank for some, Rockeyes and Mk.82s on others. The A-7 was one of the only aircraft I’m aware of that could configure EFTs asymmetrically like that and it not be an issue. It was a great workhorse that got retired early in-favor of multirole fighters like the F/A-18 and F-16, with direct replacement in active USAF Squadrons with the A-10A. The fly-off between the YA-7F and YA-10A in the early 1970s was rigged, where A-7 pilots were told not to use the bombing computer, and limit themselves to flying a visual re-attack profile on ground targets in a simulated CAS setting, which the A-7 was never designed for. USAF had already been directed from the Pentagon that they were getting A-X, so the A-7’s days were already numbered and the fly-off was a formality. USAF didn’t complain too much because they were getting major funding for LWF, which hadn’t yet flown-off between YF-16 and YF-17.

I worked on the design teams of the YF-23, the F-35, and others, and could not agree more about the appearance of the X-32 being a huge negative. Even the F-35 is on the homely side when compared to jets like the F-14 and F-15, but the X-32 was way too far gone.

I was at Edwards in the early 1990s when two A-7s (YA-7F) were tested with F100-PW-220s. I recall an ANG pilot flying one of the planes for an evaluation. On his debrief report under "problems noted" he wrote, "ashtray doesn't work" and "can't remove smile from pilot's face."

@@RedRoosterParty ANG's always hit what they aimed at

I dare say it wasn't the gear doors, but the fact they had to remove the diverterless supersonic inlet as well-- probably as insurance against choked flow or inlet collapse when trying to hover.

@@BogeyTheBear Agreed to your point. End of the day, as described in the clip, Boeing went with an off the shelf design and Harrier type rotating ducts.

I think those are things that would have been fixed during development. Don’t know if it would have made a difference though

Or a fish lol

Like a toothless space shark

@@MrAndy9572ac X-32 also looks like the Great White Pelican bird.

RAH-66 Comanche program left a $6.9 Billion dollar hole. It was cancelled before it became way, way worse.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce the Navy's latest addition to the bleeding edge of fiscal irresponsibility, the U.S.S. Ford. If it ever becomes operational, the F-35 is the perfect complement.

@@ivortheenginedriver4264. I heard the Ford class can’t yet handle the F-35C.

@@donalddowning4108 Nothing but the Carl Vinson can handle the F-35C without major refits (and that's because the Carl Vinson was first in line for such a refit). The Ford class will gain that ability starting with the new Enterprise from what I've seen.

@@yodaisgod2 And then there is the F22 program- some say justly got cancelled. OTOH, the per unit cost would have looked far better if they had been continued. What the F22 could do remains unequalled by anything else we have, and very likely anything else anyone has. Bottom line- get Congress involved and wastelful destruction is the most likely outcome.

Love the A7 and I see what you mean, but the X-32 is just goofy.

Yeah I think the final F-32 would have been better looking but the X-32 just looks wrong.

Wow that's crazy, did you know at the time that there were also performance concerns for the STOVL variant, or was it just a looks thing at the time?

It was a Nova episode on PBS.

@@kidsafe Yes! thank you!

NOVA: Battle of the X-Planes ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-J-9ZfpjSyeM.html