Originally Posted by
Commando Cody
Picking a nit: What's in a name?
The name "Boeing Vertol" technically is no longer current…..Endorsing SplineDrive's note, Boeing-whatever has never put a helicopter of its own……As might be inferred, I have a significantly different take on the A-12 than CTR (with whom I often agree). For example, the head of Lockheed's Skunk Works, said that the ATA specs and contract were so much trouble that Lockheed wanted no part of it and never attempted to get involved. When the much better A-X…..
Actually CC, I fully agree with all of your comments. As far as the Boeing Vertol name, I use that name out of homage more than anything else. I also continually call the Boeing St Louis facility, McBoeing for a similar reason.
Lockheed’s perspective of the ATA program is also spot on, from the Lockheed perspective. The Lockheed skunk works is used to writing their own contracts with the USAF. The NAVAIR ATA contract demanded an impossibility compressed development schedule, plus a max weight requirement based on customer furnished values for LO materials.
The ATA development schedule was impossibly compressed due to the need to race with existing USAF for rapidly shrinking DOD funds. The Soviet Union was rapidly falling apart, and many in the US government saw this as a opportunity for major reductions in DOD funding. Because of course, we would never need to worry about Russia as an adversary ever again.
To leverage existing LO material development funded by the DOD by Northrop and Lockheed, NAVAIR committed to providing this technology for ATA development to the winner. After The ATA contract was awarded, Both Lockheed and Northrop under a wink-wink from the USAF held up delivery of the technology to NAVAIR.
Bringing this back around to Helicopter’s. Why would a major prime enter into contract with impossible to meet requirements? Because that’s the way the game was played 40 years ago. Based on the US Army recently admitting that the FARA requirements are impossible to meet, nothing has changed.
Interestingly enough, I had the opportunity to briefly work on the AX program as a supplier to Grumman. A much smaller aircraft, with more reasonable specifications requirements, except for schedule. The AX program never went beyond the proposal stage, and the F-18 Super Hornet, now known as the E/F was developed as a low cost and risk alternative.