LM to offer T-50A for USAF's T-X requirement...

[Rhino power]

Ungainly looking bugger, ain't it?
Lockheed Martin Nixes Clean-Sheet T-X Design, Will Offer T-50A (http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense-news/2016/02/11/lockheed-martin-nixes-clean-sheet-t-x-design-offer-t-50a/80236642/)

-RP

[MSOCS]

Looks like an amalgamation of designs (F-16, Alpha Jet etc). Not sure if I like the look.

Hopefully the important bit - forgiving handling, performance, missions systems that prepare modern pilots for 4/5th Gen cockpits etc - is good. That's vital.

[Runaway Gun]

They confidently state that an aircraft that they don't wish to bother designing, won't be any better than the aircraft they already have? Impressive!

[Just This Once...]

It looks a little last-minute.com rush-job by LM. Grab a rather sleek looking KAI T-50 and stuff all the new capabilities in an ungainly hump on its back and retire for coffee and donuts.

[Courtney Mil]

A question here. Will there be political pressure to issue the next contract to a someone other than LM? I can imagine a desire to spread the defence budget around a bit.

KenV, any insight into this?

MSOCS, you're right, but you missed out a bit of A-4 in the T-50A.

P.S. I was going to remark that LM should be putting all their effort into fixing the wonder jet rather than doodling new sketches, but decided not to. Maybe they need to dream up three versions, one with folding wings and more weight for the Navy and a jumping bean version for the Marines - never been done before so I might sell them my idea.

[Courtney Mil]

BAeS have stated that they intend to submit a clean-sheet design to meet the TX requirement. CEO, Mike Turner, stated, "To meet the exacting requirements we have decided to expand our thinking environment, eliminate legacy-based conceptual restraint and develop a revolutionary new design."



http://www.pprune.org/members/375756-courtney-mil-albums-aircraft-picture197-t-45af.jpg

[melmothtw]

Nice one Courtney, and great Photoshop skills...

[KenV]

Will there be political pressure to issue the next contract to a someone other than LM? I can imagine a desire to spread the defence budget around a bit. KenV, any insight into this?

It sure makes sense, but who really knows? With LM busy building and supporting F-35 for decades to come, it would make sense to find someone other than LM for this big trainer contract to keep the industrial base going. So it's not so much about "spreading around the defense dollars", as it is about keeping the industrial base healthy. Having LM as the only builder of tactical jets would in my opinion be unhealthy for the industrial base. And maybe that's why LM is not investing in a clean sheet design. Maybe they think that USAF will never select them. Maybe. And LM saying that a clean sheet design offers no performance advantages while incurring cost and schedule penalties is contradicted by the other primes who have withdrawn their modified existing designs in favor of clean sheet designs.

Northrup Grumman was tied in with Bae to offer a modified Hawk, but they pivoted to a clean sheet design due to concerns with the sustained G turn requirement. But neither Northrup nor Grumman have designed or built a tactical jet in decades, so it'll be interesting to see what they come up with, both in terms of design as well as the support package. And L-3 being a member of this team means they have a team member with a long history of providing military simulators (Link). The simulator training package is a very critical part of the overall proposal.

General Dynamics was tied in with Alenia to offer the T-100 based on the M-346, but they pulled out for the same sustained G reason. I've heard no announcements of GD starting over with a clean sheet design. Alenia is looking for another prime to team with. So far no takers. And they don't seem to have tied in with a proven provider of simulator training, a very important piece to be missing.

Saab is using their Gripen experience to come up with a clean sheet design, with Boeing as the prime. Saab is convinced they have a winning design, both in terms of performance and cost. But they're keeping their design under wraps, no public releases yet. I've seen early design sketches which look rather Gripenish, but that has reportedly changed as USAF released their requirements. I haven't seen the new stuff. And Boeing owns Flight Safety, so this team also has a proven contractor that provides military simulators. So with two contractors who have current tactical jet design, assembly and support experience, and extensive military simulator training experience, this team may be the one to beat. Assuming they win, I'll probably be retired from Boeing before this program goes into low rate production, never mind full rate production.

Textron thinks they can offer a modified Scorpion, but I personally don't see how that aircraft can hope to meet the sustained G requirement as well as all that 5th Gen cockpit stuff. And I don't see them having much military simulator training experience. They don't look like a serious contender to me.

[Courtney Mil]

Good answer, Ken. Thanks for the insight.

[a1bill]

I wonder if SAAB is still in the wings?
Boeing And Saab To Propose Gripen For T-X | Defense content from Aviation Week (http://aviationweek.com/defense/boeing-and-saab-propose-gripen-t-x)
Boeing and Saab will announce “in weeks rather than months” that they will team up to offer the JAS 39 Gripen for the U.S. Air Force’s T-X future trainer requirement, according to sources familiar with the deal. Saab is apparently confident that the two companies will be able to undercut the cost of the closest rival contender, the Lockheed Martin/Korea Aerospace Industries T-50.

Other details of the deal are being closely held. The T-X program, aimed at acquiring some 350 trainers to replace the Northrop Grumman T-38, has been on hold due to budget cuts but is expected to restart in the 2015 budget.

[Courtney Mil]

Something else must be eating up the defense (sic) budget.

[Lonewolf_50]

Courtney, the T-45C (which was the glass cockpit mod) is a good enough jet trainer ... but it's had a few bugs over the years. (Steering being one of them, IIRC nose wheel steering, I think that finally got resolved in the 00's. )


If the Navy is going to send Marines and Navy pilots to the F-35B from the T-45C, what is it about the "T-X" that is so compelling? Granted, the USN has had an eye on the T-X (45 replacement) for a while ...

[BEagle]

I'm intrigued to know what possible sustained G requirement couldn't be met by the Hawk - perhaps with more thrust?

When it first appeared at Valley, wasn't it routinely flown at +8G? Until BWoS told the RAF that "You're eating up fatigue - and why so much G when you didn't take the Gnat / Hunter to the same limit?"

"Because we can....."

In your triggernometry days, Courtney, what limit was used during ACM?

[Courtney Mil]

Clean, +8/-3.5 up to 500kts/M0.8. With stores, +7.2/-3.5 up to 500kts/M0.8.

[BEagle]

That's more than we routinely used at Chivenor - I think we aimed at +7G as the limit for those 'extend and pitch back' manoeuvres.

'Sustained +6.5-7.5G' in a steady level turn at altitude would be quite a demand, but what is the actual T-X requirement?

[Courtney Mil]

That would be because you often had pylons on, BEagle. Therefore +7.2/-3.5.

Or are you talking about the way we taught the studes? 7g, but the set ups were a limiting factor there too.

Sustained, was a different matter, of course. Keep it above 400kts and down at 5000' and you could do it nearly all day. Below 350 and you could bleed energy quite quickly. So it will depend how the sustain g requirements are written. Of course all that is for a T1/1A - bigger engines make happier pilots.

[Tarnished]

Actual requirements:

https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/usaf-reaffirms-ambitious-t-x-sustained-g-requirement-414531/

In a 10 July statement, the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) confirmed that the minimum T-X sustained g requirement of 6.5g and objective of 7.5g remains unchanged from the key performance parameter published in March, even though it would exclude a number of viable trainer options from the competition.

The requirement sets a high bar for manoeuvrability, requiring the T-X to sustain that load at a pressure altitude of 15,000ft for at least 140˚ of a full turn with minimal loss of energy and altitude.

“Initiated at or above 15,000ft pressure altitude, at or below Mach 0.9, and at or above 80% fuel weight, the aircraft’s flight path angle during this manoeuvre can be no lower than 15˚ nose low while losing no more than 2,000ft of vertical altitude and 10% of the initial airspeed,” the AETC says.

[Courtney Mil]

The bigger issue in the Q&A section of the link is the statement that, "The US Government has no concerns at this time regarding non-US contractors as primes. The Buy American Act will apply. " So unless you can buddy up with an American company, you might as well save your breath.

[TLB]

General Dynamics was tied in with Alenia to offer the T-100 based on the M-346, but they pulled out for the same sustained G reason. I've heard no announcements of GD starting over with a clean sheet design. Alenia is looking for another prime to team with. So far no takers. And they don't seem to have tied in with a proven provider of simulator training, a very important piece to be missing.

Raytheon is reported to be the prime for Alenia with CAE providing the simulation and training expertise.

[KiloB]

How does the sustained G requirement of the Trainer Spec measure up against the F35?
KB

[Tarnished]

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjxsovKjYHLAhVB8RQKHR4BCfgQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fforum.keypublishing.com%2Fshowthread.php%3F 135460-test-pilot-quot-F-35-can-t-dogfight-quot%2Fpage34&psig=AFQjCNGtmNlA3YBKKDYylsUWhDTj-81ADg&ust=1455877749803823

[Courtney Mil]

Tarnished,

I'm not sure if this was the intention, but that link redirects to a forum discussion about the infamous F-16 vs F-35 BFM fallacy. There's some quite good thinking going on there, but as always folks are trying to reverse engineer the F-35s performance tables from those of the F-16 and 18.

I think it's probably fair to say that we know the F-35 g-limits and we've seen the reduced sustained g figures and we are not talking anything particularly dazzling. It wold not be difficult to find a trainer that would match that performance. The new trainer won't just be there as a lead in to F-35 and I would expect the higher g requirements to come from other, higher performing platforms.

[KenV]

I agree with CM. The F-35's sustained G capability is not sterling and I'm confident that the trainer's sustained G requirement exceeds the F-35's capability. But the trainer will also be used as a lead in to F-22 and other jets with higher aeroperformance than the F-35. However, the trainer also needs to be able to simulate the functionality of the F-35's cockpit and avionics in order to teach those cockpit and systems management skills. So its an aggressively complex program.

And if the cockpit and systems are done properly, the intent is not only to use the trainer to teach those skills to lead-in pilots, but to offload training sorties from the actual aircraft and use the trainer instead of the actual aircraft to keep those skills polished in current pilots. It'll be interesting to see if they are successful in making that happen. Especially since the F-35 software and systems will (supposedly) be constantly upgraded. How will they make sure the trainer software/systems keep up with the evolving aircraft it's supposed to represent?

[Courtney Mil]

My thoughts exactly, Ken about sustained g, F-22 and higher performance legacy (and future?) aircraft.

I was involved in a study about off loading front line training to simpler, less expensive aircraft. A couple of interesting things came out of it - apart from the problems of replicating up to date front line software, displays and (in some cases) simulating sensors and systems.

First was a risk of negative training where the trainer did not exactly match the actual aircraft, mainly in terms of handling or performance. Whilst this was found to be less of a problem for more experienced aircrew, there was a risk of regression for newer pilots.

The other thing was from an engineering standpoint, whereby the entire logistics and maintenance empire became geared up (and established) for a lower flying rate, which was then overstretched to support the increased flying rate required for excercises and ops where the trainer could no longer substitute for the real thing.

When you need your trainer to emulate more than one type, of course, the complexity of the task becomes huge.

[Tarnished]

Courtney, You should know me better than that!. Nothing clever or deep in my thinking or posting. Only trying to help answer the question asked in the previous post by KiloB, googled and chose the neatest looking summary table. Any connection with F-16 vs F-35 thread purely accidental.

Now, about the supersonic requirements for a trainer.......

T

[TLB]

Raytheon Announces Bid for USAF T-X Trainer Competition
By Lara Seligman, Defense News
7:39 p.m. EST February 22, 2016

WASHINGTON — Raytheon on Monday officially announced it is teaming with Italian aerospace company Finmeccanica and CAE to offer the T-100 for the US Air Force T-X advanced trainer competition, a move first reported by Defense News last week.

Raytheon, one of the world’s leading companies for training and avionics, will be the prime contractor on the T-100 training solution, while Finmeccanica will provide the foundational aircraft platform, Alenia Aermacchi’s M-346, company officials said during the rollout event. CAE will design and manufacture simulation equipment, training systems and courseware for the T-100, and Honeywell Aerospace will provide twin F124 turbofan engines to power the aircraft.

“Raytheon is leading this effort because our pilots deserve a comprehensive training solution that provides the foundation for their combat readiness,” said Rick Yuse, president of Raytheon’s space and airborne systems. “They must be prepared to take full advantage of the advanced capabilities of fourth- and fifth-generation fighters. Our integrated T-100 training solution will do just that.”

If selected, the T-100 will be built, tested and fielded in the United States, Yuse stressed. Raytheon has not yet chosen a facility for the project, but is considering every option, including building a new site from scratch, said Roy Azevedo, company vice president of secured sensor solutions for space and airborne systems.

The winner of the T-X competition will provide the Air Force with 350 new aircraft to replace the aging T-38 fleet that currently trains the service’s pilots. But T-X is not just about a new airframe, Raytheon officials emphasized during the briefing. A crucial piece of the future training system will be the ground-based training a pilot receives before actually sitting in the cockpit, they said.

Raytheon looks at the T-X as a “total training solution,” Azevedo stressed. The company is uniquely suited to build T-X because of its word-class training, avionics and manufacturing capabilities, he argued.

“The airplane is just the beginning,” Azevedo said. “We are going to be offering a solution that goes from the classroom to the simulators to the aircraft; that includes live virtual construction to train the pilots and provide a comprehensive system that allows these pilots to get their wings and become combat ready.”


Another advantage is that the T-100 offering is low-risk and affordable because the aircraft is already operational, Raytheon and Finmeccanica officials stressed during the briefing. The M-346, the basis for the T-100, is currently training pilots around the world with the Israeli, Italian, Polish and Singapore air forces.
“This partnership aims to provide the US Air Force with the most advanced, effective and affordable solution for the next-generation military pilot training requirement,” said Filippo Bagnato, managing director of Finmeccanica Aircraft Division.

In joining the Finmeccanica and CAE team, Raytheon is replacing General Dynamics in the role of prime contractor. GD dropped off the program in March; since then, Finmeccanica and CAE have been without a prime for the offering.

Raytheon is entering a crowded field. In addition to the T-100 team, competitors include a pair of clean-sheet designs being put forth by a Boeing/Saab team and a Northrop Grumman-led coalition that includes BAE Systems and L-3; the Lockheed Martin-Korea Aerospace Industries T-50A; and a design from Textron AirLand, which may be loosely based on its Scorpion jet.

While the Boeing and Northrop teams have decided to move forward with clean-sheet designs, Raytheon believes using an existing airframe is a safer, more affordable option for the Air Force.

“I would say having a proven solution doing the job the Air Force needs today — I like our position a lot better than starting from a clean sheet of paper,” said Jim Hvizd, Raytheon vice president of business development for space and airborne systems.

Nabbing T-X will provide the winning company not only a contract for 350 aircraft, but also an inside track to any number of international customers who buy the F-35 around the globe. T-X, along with its advanced ground-based training system, is crucial to the Air Force's plan to train a new generation of pilots to transition from legacy fighter jets to the F-35 in future decades.

Industry expects the Air Force to release a request for proposals for T-X later this year, with a contract award in 2017. Initial operating capability is expected in 2024.

[LowObservable]

Back to a four-horse race, the winner being whoever meets (not exceeds) the requirements at lowest life-cycle cost with acceptable risk.

That is, "whoever other than LockMart" for industrial-base reasons, and also because the T-50 is damn nearly the size of an F-16B.

The M346 is a nice solid airplane. It has an operational and maturing LVC capability built-in (from Elbit) which Raytheon appears to be throwing away in favor of a domestic solution. Industrial base? Yep, just what the customer's looking for, a new military airplane production organization. :}

NorthGrum doubtless has an interesting design, but the customer wants it to focus on LRSB (and other spookier things).

If you want a low-LCC new airplane, nobody does that like Saab. And Boeing's been working very, very hard on the ground-based bit of TX for a few years, grounded on very extensive experience in selling training systems to customers (for helos, particularly). And it's certainly the spread-the-work winner.

Boeing's deal to lose, I think.

[Courtney Mil]

Courtney, You should know me better than that!. Nothing clever or deep in my thinking or posting. Only trying to help answer the question asked in the previous post by KiloB, googled and chose the neatest looking summary table. Any connection with F-16 vs F-35 thread purely accidental.


Sorry, buddy, didn't intend to imply anything, just pointing out where the link redirects to and was wondering if my simple brain had missed something.

[Fonsini]

My ill-informed 2 cents.

LM has the F-35 so the likelihood of them getting the contract is minimal as the government wants to maintain at least 2 major combat aircraft manufacturers, hence their half-hearted effort with the T-50A and minimal investment. The M-346 (T-100) would normally be a sure thing for Raytheon, except for the rather awkward fact that it's really a Russian aircraft in the form of the Yak-130 and we would have to sit and listen to the Russkies crowing about the USAF flying a "Russian" combat aircraft from here to eternity - that's never, ever going to happen.

The Hawk doesn't have the thrust and there's only so many times you can recycle the design no matter how much you like the basic aircraft, the Scorpion simply doesn't have the performance either, and what that leaves you with I'm not sure, but for me I would favor the T-50A with an upgraded engine probably the F414 - that would be a useful little jet, but someone else would have to make it.

Not wishing to be controversial here, just the way I see it.

[Courtney Mil]

Fons, I agree with all of that. And governments have had worse reasons for not awarding contracts. As for recycling the Hawk, see my post

http://www.pprune.org/9271609-post6.html

[LowObservable]

The big size-drivers for TX are a cockpit that can accommodate the 95th-percentile population, and a requirement to perform a specific maneuver, designed to evaluate and improve the student pilot’s performance at high g, in which 6.5 g or more is sustained through a 140-deg. turn.

The RFI states that the maneuver must start at or above 15,000 feet and end it no lower than 13,000 feet, while the aircraft loses no more than 10 per cent of its initial speed. The maneuver has to begin with at least 80% internal fuel, so that it can be performed at any time during a training sortie.

I believe, also, that the USAF wants the option to include a real radar for use when the aircraft is emulating threats, rather than a software-emulated radar that the Elbit system uses.

[Fonsini]

Courtney - that T-45 photo did make me chuckle.

[Ivan Rogov]

Could this be another Red Bird to cover a bloated and expensive program? :8

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OwWXV3eOiwYC&pg=PA114&lpg=PA114&dq=lwf+red+bird&source=bl&ots=D32bo40IcL&sig=W7TrbRyHM-1l89bO0ZpTQZ0tqSo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiG8tDK-Y7LAhXFChoKHRa1CmsQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=lwf%20red%20bird&f=false

[typerated]

Can someone enlighten me about the need for sustained maneuvering from a trainer?

The RFI states that the maneuver must start at or above 15,000 feet and end it no lower than 13,000 feet, while the aircraft loses no more than 10 per cent of its initial speed. The maneuver has to begin with at least 80% internal fuel, so that it can be performed at any time during a training sortie.


Why does it matter to a students training what energy state the aircraft has once completing the maneuver?

[KenV]

Why does it matter to a students training what energy state the aircraft has once completing the maneuver? It doesn't matter if it's just a single bird maneuver. It matters a lot if there are multiple birds in the air in a training fur ball. USAF wants to use the trainer to train pilots in high energy many-vs-many combat maneuvering. And in high energy defensive maneuvering. All that takes actual high performance, not make believe performance. And in this case, performance quite a bit beyond what the F-35 can do.

[KenV]

but for me I would favor the T-50A with an upgraded engine probably the F414 How about the clean sheet designs? Are they out of the question? And BTW, one of the "clean sheet designs" is from SAAB who has a mature small(ish) fighter equipped with the F414. I'm confident it could be the basis of a very nifty high performance trainer. And it already has an EASA radar, so if USAF wants a real radar and not a simulated one in some of their trainers, SAAB already has the ability to provide it. And the F414 already has a very well laid out growth path in the Super Hornet, with Boeing offering a version with something like 20% more thrust. So SAAB may be on to something.

[typerated]

Thanks Ken,

How many sorties would be flown with this requirement during initial training?

Or is this more aimed at continuation training for F-22/ F-35 pilots would you think?

Cheers

TR

[LowObservable]

KenV is not quite correct.

Note that the g requirement is not "sustained" in the normal US-standard sense in that height and speed may bleed off. So it's not about air-combat training but about assessing the student's response to elevated g (and rapid onset, since the maneuver starts in straight and level flight).

http://www.avia-it.com/act/areariservata/Segnalazione_articoli_2015/Seg_artic_ago_15/Boeing_Prepares_T-X_For_First_Flight_As_Competition_Intensifies.pdf

Because you really don't want to find out that Lt Scroggins can't do a g-straining maneuver worth a damn when he's solo in a $150m jet.

[Heathrow Harry]

LM have the F-35, Northrop the bomber and Boeing the tanker...............

Raytheon look like a good bet......

[KenV]

Note that the g requirement is not "sustained" in the normal US-standard sense in that height and speed may bleed off. So it's not about air-combat training but about assessing the student's response to elevated g (and rapid onset, since the maneuver starts in straight and level flight).Two comments:

1. Assessing student reaction to high G, including rapid onset high G, can be done in a centrifuge much more cheaply and much much more safely. USAF routinely does so to 9 G (not just 6.5 G) today, and not just for its students, but during recurrent pilot training.

2. Assessing student reaction to high G does not require maneuver entry at 15,000 ft, nor 80% fuel state. Reportedly, it was the 15,000 ft requirement that killed the Hawk. Nor does it require exiting the maneuver at 12,000 ft, nor losing only a few knots airspeed. You can pull lots of G for quite some time in basically every existing jet trainer if you're willing to lose energy (i.e. lose altitude and/or airspeed) doing so. That was pointed out by the Hawker Hunter pilots several posts back. You only need to preserve energy if you want to be able to fight after pulling lots of G.

How many sorties would be flown with this requirement during initial training? Or is this more aimed at continuation training for F-22/ F-35 pilots would you think?"Initial" training sorties? Not too many I would think. Such high load maneuvers will probably be limited to student pilots who have progressed to the point that they have been selected for high performance jets like F-22, F-15, (and maybe to a lesser extent F-35) to prepare them for those jets and the type of flying they will do in those jets.

This is a complicated question as it relates to both the training program/schedule and to the service life of the jet. Designing and building an aircraft for such high sustained loads for a significant per centage of its service life will result in a pretty heavy jet, so I'd guess that the requirement is for not too many of such maneuvers over its service life. On the other hand, all composite aerostructures are much less prone to fatigue than traditional metal aerostructures, so that will certainly make a difference. (The Hawk has a metal wing and it was a contender until recently. I don't know what the M346 wing is made of.) On the other other hand USAF may not yet have provided a load spectrum for the aircraft over its full service life. It might be that if the load spectrum includes many such maneuvers over its service life, existing aircraft with metal wings will either require weight increasing beef up, or redesign using composites. I don't know.

While there is lots of talk of moving some recurrent training in combat jets to a trainer, there are no solid plans for that as yet. But some of the requirements of the trainer were included with that in mind. I'd guess that once the aircraft is built and serving and its full capabilities are understood (including its systems capabilities), solid plans to offload recurrent training from fighters onto a trainer will be developed. One step at a time if you will. But some of the attributes for such a trainer (like its kinematic performance and open architecture systems) must be designed in at the outset. Hence such requirements so early in the program.

[typerated]

But LO why would they care about the end state energy if it was just about the students capacity to pull G.


You can have a much cheaper, lower performance platform to just pull G - although you end up using lots of sky to maintain it for a while.


Ken's answer makes perfect sense

[KenV]

LM have the F-35, Northrop the bomber and Boeing the tanker............... I'd like to point out that the KC-46 is based on a fairly old airliner. Building KC-46s does not preserve an industrial base capable of designing and building tactical aircraft, especially agile fighter types. So if that is a consideration in the T-X competition (and it may or may not be a consideration), then Boeing's tanker does not enter into the equation.

[GlobalNav]

@Kenv

I would agree that the KC-46 award doesn't seem to add to the industrial base for tactical aircraft design, but a fair amount of what's going into the KC-46 is coming via Boeing Defense and certainly supports its continued existence. I also expect that, as with the C-135, there will be many variations/ modifications of the KC-46 over the years to come to provide for additional missions unrelated to AR.

All of which, whether you agree or not, has little to do with the choice for T-X.

Too bad so many candidates just don't have that dashing beauty of the T-38.

[LowObservable]

You can read into the RFI what you will, but the clarification issued on 7/10 says that the sustained g is "for purposes of APT requirements".

I believe that the USAF wants the student to experience, in a real aircraft, rapid onset (in the RFI) followed by sustained g through 140 deg. of a 180 deg. turn. The 10 per cent limit on speed loss, I would guess, is to ensure that the aircraft is more or less in a steady state (like a fighter) rather than bleeding speed like a stuck pig. Entry and exit altitudes may be safety considerations.

So IMHO the idea is to deliver the fighter g experience without the thrust and expense required to do it in level flight at 20kft.

[KenV]

I would agree that the KC-46 award doesn't seem to add to the industrial base for tactical aircraft design, but a fair amount of what's going into the KC-46 is coming via Boeing Defense and certainly supports its continued existence. Agreed. But while Boeing Defense is the prime, Boeing Commercial Aircraft does the great majority of both the engineering and the assembly. It provides precious little to keep the folks in St Louise (the former McDonnell folks) on the leading edge of fighter design and development. Although with SAAB doing most of the design work on the T-X, I'm not sure how much a T-X win will keep the St Louis fighter folks on the bleeding edge either. But certainly way more than the tanker.

[Heathrow Harry]

yeah but Congressmen go on Buggin's Turn Ken -

it's Raytheon's turn at the taxpayers trough

[KenV]

I had to look up Buggin's Turn. Never heard it before.