Yes, Lockheed is a damn fine airplane company, but the SR-71 and U-2 were Skunk Works projects, not "mainline" Lockheed stuff. They were also products of their times - and well ahead of their time.
The JSF is now at the early stage of post-prototype development, manifesting all the usual problems as various experts get in on the act with "let's make it capable of doing this" and "why can't we make it do that" ideas. It's bound to get fat and heavy and ugly. Reason? Because it isn't an F-22. It's the alternative, the also-ran that has to be jack-of-all-trades and will therefore be master of none. It's a "wannabee".
Right now, I'll bet the Skunk Works is busy with a lot more high-priority projects than a JSF which is getting "portly". What's more, I'll bet there are so many high-priced Pentagon reputations at stake that the JSF will never be given a Skunk Works re-work. To do so would be to admit failure or incompetence - or both.
Basically, whatever the JSF ends up becoming, that's what we will buy. It may turn out to be the aerial equivalent of the Collins-class submarine, or it may turn out to be a very cost-effective aerial weapons platform...and hell may freeze over the day we take delivery of the first one. I don't know what will happen.
But I do recall the history of a couple of defence equipment acquisiton projects where we bought "off the plan":-
i) The protracted delays on the F-111 purchase, and
ii) the ongoing systems integration and readiness-for-service problems resulting from the decision to build a Swedish submarine designed for Baltic-style operations in an Australian shipyard that had never built as much as a tugboat before, by a company that had never built a submarine before and using sensors and weapons systems never before mated to a computer-driven threat analysis system that is so hugely complex it will probably never work, right up until the day in 30 years or so when we scrap those hulls and set off on our next defence acquisition blunder.
I'd like to be optimistic about our planned acquisition of the F-35 or whatever the JSF ends up being designated, but given our propensity for buying a system designed for one American service and then operating it with the other Australian service (F/A-18 - designed for US Navy, operated by RAAF, Orion the same) I wouldn't be at all surprised if, by the time we actually get an F-35, the only armed service we have left is the Army, and they get to operate it...but only for field exercises because they'll be just too expensive to actually place in harm's way!
Of course costs will blow out. I wouldn't be surprised if they do to the the extent we can afford just 20 units, but only 6 will be combat-ready. The rest will be mothballed because they are too expensive to maintain - and spare parts from the Americans cost so much.
Why is it every time we re-invent the wheel we have to have huge research projects lasting two dedades or more to decide which colour it should be anyway?
Last edited by criticalmass; 29th Apr 2004 at 12:15.