BWoS
Deacon
I take it you're referring to the M-346 and the T-50. I have had extensive briefings on both until my ears bled, seen the mock-ups, interviewed the programme managers, flown the rigs and written about both until my fingers bled.
The M-346 (let's be honest and call it a Yak-130) is an impressive airframe, like so many Russian jets, but it's a very long way from becoming reality, while the T-50 is a bizarre jet, too compromised by an insane requirement to exceed Mach 1 and by the need to form the basis of a frontline attack aircraft. Where price isn't an issue (and sometimes even where it is), Air Forces still inevitably select the Hawk over all alternatives.
And what Lockheed programme is less than two years late, come to that? F-22? No. JSF? No. -130J? No.
Who's talking 5hite?
I take it you're referring to the M-346 and the T-50. I have had extensive briefings on both until my ears bled, seen the mock-ups, interviewed the programme managers, flown the rigs and written about both until my fingers bled.
The M-346 (let's be honest and call it a Yak-130) is an impressive airframe, like so many Russian jets, but it's a very long way from becoming reality, while the T-50 is a bizarre jet, too compromised by an insane requirement to exceed Mach 1 and by the need to form the basis of a frontline attack aircraft. Where price isn't an issue (and sometimes even where it is), Air Forces still inevitably select the Hawk over all alternatives.
And what Lockheed programme is less than two years late, come to that? F-22? No. JSF? No. -130J? No.
Who's talking 5hite?
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There's a probably much truth in what's been said on this subject, but the Services and the procurement system ought to shoulder a fair share of the blame for delayed programmes and the delivered system not being what it should have been at the end of the day.
The average posting for folks in OR and the like must still be only about two and a half years so that the career pattern of these high flyers is not messed about. And if you're going into a job like that, what better way of making a name for yourself than changing something? Trouble is: some of the changes should not have been made in the first place and by the time someone realises this to be the case, there's no more money in the system to put it right. One of the biggest causes of delayed projects is the highly mobile goal-posts.
Perhaps one of the reasons why the Hawk has been so successful is that Hawker-Siddeley basically built the aircraft as a 'production' machine with no prototype for the procurers to mess about with and as a virtually private venture. From first flight to in service was, I believe, 4 years which must be a post WWII record for a British military aircraft.
The average posting for folks in OR and the like must still be only about two and a half years so that the career pattern of these high flyers is not messed about. And if you're going into a job like that, what better way of making a name for yourself than changing something? Trouble is: some of the changes should not have been made in the first place and by the time someone realises this to be the case, there's no more money in the system to put it right. One of the biggest causes of delayed projects is the highly mobile goal-posts.
Perhaps one of the reasons why the Hawk has been so successful is that Hawker-Siddeley basically built the aircraft as a 'production' machine with no prototype for the procurers to mess about with and as a virtually private venture. From first flight to in service was, I believe, 4 years which must be a post WWII record for a British military aircraft.
Last edited by OldBonaMate; 15th Nov 2002 at 03:04.
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Air Forces do not inevitably select the Hawk. When T-45 program was in it's early days and called VTXTS the preferred airplane was a new design. It was not affordable, so the existing aircraft contenders were the North American T-2, AlphaJet (by Lockheed) and a "navalized" Hawk Tr Mk something. "Hawk" won because nobody wanted more T-2s, the AlphaJet has 2 engines burns more gas and takes more maintenance. That leaves "Hawk". And the T-45 has as much relationship to what is used at Valley as my Chevy has to what Jeff Gordon drives on weekends.
Agree supersonic requirement for the T-50 is BOGUS, same as for the T-38. There are only a couple sylabus hops in the USAF curriculium that involve going zoom. And on half the instructor drives and the student just watches. The Navy guys said we could do that easy, just put in a button to press to add 300KTS to the ASI.
The T-45 has improved considerably over the first prototypes, and is now actually almost appropriately carrier suitable for students. The first ones had problems with disturbed airflow into the engines from the wider nose needed for the redesigned nose gear, had some stabilityand handling problems in close, and were underpowered resulting in marginalish accelation capability from lower powersettings. Still, the Adour was far far ahead of the other engines (including the J-85).
Agree supersonic requirement for the T-50 is BOGUS, same as for the T-38. There are only a couple sylabus hops in the USAF curriculium that involve going zoom. And on half the instructor drives and the student just watches. The Navy guys said we could do that easy, just put in a button to press to add 300KTS to the ASI.
The T-45 has improved considerably over the first prototypes, and is now actually almost appropriately carrier suitable for students. The first ones had problems with disturbed airflow into the engines from the wider nose needed for the redesigned nose gear, had some stabilityand handling problems in close, and were underpowered resulting in marginalish accelation capability from lower powersettings. Still, the Adour was far far ahead of the other engines (including the J-85).
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Jacko ----
Sarcastic Pause On
oooh you are so experienced it overwhelms me! And being able to speak fluent Korean with the program managers at KAI would have been a real coup!
Sarcastic Pause Off
1) 346 happens to be very favoured by some of the MFTS IPT and may be closer to reality than your vast intelligence pool indicates
2) Prices according to common media reports on "AJTs" for "flyaway" prices..... L-159 $8.5M, M-346 $11M, T-50 $13M, Hawk 128 $14M..... so go ahead lets have a price competition.... I think the ONLY reason that Hawk has not already been selected is EXCATLY the point they cannot prove VFM
3) JSF "delays" were down to customer competitive process, actually the program is on schedule so those little yanks are not as bad as you make out - oh and the US kit does tend to do the job eventually --- see C-17, C-130J, F-117, etc. etc. JSF is probabaly cleared for more weapons now than Typhoon will be for the next 5 years!!!!
to answer your final question - methinks it is still you
Sarcastic Pause On
oooh you are so experienced it overwhelms me! And being able to speak fluent Korean with the program managers at KAI would have been a real coup!
Sarcastic Pause Off
1) 346 happens to be very favoured by some of the MFTS IPT and may be closer to reality than your vast intelligence pool indicates
2) Prices according to common media reports on "AJTs" for "flyaway" prices..... L-159 $8.5M, M-346 $11M, T-50 $13M, Hawk 128 $14M..... so go ahead lets have a price competition.... I think the ONLY reason that Hawk has not already been selected is EXCATLY the point they cannot prove VFM
3) JSF "delays" were down to customer competitive process, actually the program is on schedule so those little yanks are not as bad as you make out - oh and the US kit does tend to do the job eventually --- see C-17, C-130J, F-117, etc. etc. JSF is probabaly cleared for more weapons now than Typhoon will be for the next 5 years!!!!
to answer your final question - methinks it is still you
Deacon, you don't need fluent Korean to talk to Youl Park, 'cos his English is pretty good, and besides which I did have Alex Wanki Jr (his marketing manager) whose English is better than mine, and Robie Notestine, Lockheed's chief T-50 International Marketeer, and a whole host of engineers and other KAI bods. All of whom spoke excellent English, strangely.
Funnily enough, Massimo Lucchesini (AerMacchi's M-346 programme director) was similarly fluent in English when I spoke to him.
1) Yeah right.
2) Doh! No-one suggests that Hawk is anything other than expensive, and the 'money-no-object' solution. (Short of developing and building your own...)
3) JSF isn't cleared for any weapons yet. And it's hugely late according to the original timetable. Yes the US makes great kit, and buying it when mature is usually a great option. But they have often had their own BWoS moments, and to deny that is facile.
Iron,
The fact that the USN procured a Hawk derivative speaks volumes for the aircraft. Not everyone needs such a highly modified aircraft, since not everyone needs to operate trainers from an aircraft carrier.
I liked your comment that "the T-45 has as much relationship to what is used at Valley as my Chevy has to what Jeff Gordon drives on weekends". Export Hawk 100s have a similar lack of commonality to the Valley aeroplanes, performance and avionics wise.
I hate you both for making me say anything nice about BAE.....
Funnily enough, Massimo Lucchesini (AerMacchi's M-346 programme director) was similarly fluent in English when I spoke to him.
1) Yeah right.
2) Doh! No-one suggests that Hawk is anything other than expensive, and the 'money-no-object' solution. (Short of developing and building your own...)
3) JSF isn't cleared for any weapons yet. And it's hugely late according to the original timetable. Yes the US makes great kit, and buying it when mature is usually a great option. But they have often had their own BWoS moments, and to deny that is facile.
Iron,
The fact that the USN procured a Hawk derivative speaks volumes for the aircraft. Not everyone needs such a highly modified aircraft, since not everyone needs to operate trainers from an aircraft carrier.
I liked your comment that "the T-45 has as much relationship to what is used at Valley as my Chevy has to what Jeff Gordon drives on weekends". Export Hawk 100s have a similar lack of commonality to the Valley aeroplanes, performance and avionics wise.
I hate you both for making me say anything nice about BAE.....
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I feel I should add my two pennorth having flown over 3000 hours in BWoS products and legacy machines ( the best 3000 I flew in the F-4 which we bought solely because TSR2 was cancelled) and having worked for BWoS for 10 years before I saw the light.
Yes, they are much maligned but most of it comes from the hearts of disappointed professionals who have to blame someone for the fact that they can’t go to war in the best kit despite the high price tag and late delivery. However, the company must share some of the blame at least with the project definers and managers in the MOD – I have also worked there and seen some terrible examples of mismanagement.
Arguably the best front line fast jets we bought in the last 35 years were the F-4 and the Buccaneer, neither of which was procured for the RAF via the normal OR and MODPE system. That either says our procurement system is rubbish or that the best will win through regardless.
I once wore an F-16 lapel badge in the BAE hospitality tent at Farnborough and asked them when we might see something as good coming from them and the response was “When the MOD leave us alone to build the fighter we think they need”.
As far as I know they (albeit the ex-Hawker crowd) were left almost alone to come up with the Hawk – and it did not disappoint.
The American way, of course, is to cobble together a suitable machine in double quick time and accept the fact that it will have lots of problems. They then pour dollars at it until the problems go away. The F-15 was a disaster area at the OT&E stage but you would not have heard that around the bazaars.
We, on the other hand, form multi-national projects to make sure that no individual government can cancel the aircraft and then, despite the ridiculously complex structure of the decision-making process, build bits of it in several different locations and hope they fit and work when they meet. It is not surprising that this all takes time and that it does not work very well – what is surprising is that the process works at all. We Brits bad-mouth our own products mercilessly in the hope we will get better ones but it does not work. At best we might get some extra funding to tart it up a little but, to quote an old and very competent friend, “You can’t polish a turd”!
Bad day to say so on the day we lost the use of DA6, but it seems that the Typhoon might just be worth the long wait and that it might just have scraped through our ridiculous procurement process with something left to offer our deprived fighter pilots. If so, let’s stop bad-mouthing it and its makers and get on with the job of turning it into a good front-line weapons system in case we need it to be so.
Yes, they are much maligned but most of it comes from the hearts of disappointed professionals who have to blame someone for the fact that they can’t go to war in the best kit despite the high price tag and late delivery. However, the company must share some of the blame at least with the project definers and managers in the MOD – I have also worked there and seen some terrible examples of mismanagement.
Arguably the best front line fast jets we bought in the last 35 years were the F-4 and the Buccaneer, neither of which was procured for the RAF via the normal OR and MODPE system. That either says our procurement system is rubbish or that the best will win through regardless.
I once wore an F-16 lapel badge in the BAE hospitality tent at Farnborough and asked them when we might see something as good coming from them and the response was “When the MOD leave us alone to build the fighter we think they need”.
As far as I know they (albeit the ex-Hawker crowd) were left almost alone to come up with the Hawk – and it did not disappoint.
The American way, of course, is to cobble together a suitable machine in double quick time and accept the fact that it will have lots of problems. They then pour dollars at it until the problems go away. The F-15 was a disaster area at the OT&E stage but you would not have heard that around the bazaars.
We, on the other hand, form multi-national projects to make sure that no individual government can cancel the aircraft and then, despite the ridiculously complex structure of the decision-making process, build bits of it in several different locations and hope they fit and work when they meet. It is not surprising that this all takes time and that it does not work very well – what is surprising is that the process works at all. We Brits bad-mouth our own products mercilessly in the hope we will get better ones but it does not work. At best we might get some extra funding to tart it up a little but, to quote an old and very competent friend, “You can’t polish a turd”!
Bad day to say so on the day we lost the use of DA6, but it seems that the Typhoon might just be worth the long wait and that it might just have scraped through our ridiculous procurement process with something left to offer our deprived fighter pilots. If so, let’s stop bad-mouthing it and its makers and get on with the job of turning it into a good front-line weapons system in case we need it to be so.
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Forget worrying about all the shiny kit Big And Expensive Systems are incapable of providing, they are so far behind with our new RWR that I miss a 6 week jolly, sorry trial, to California in Febuary,
Cheers easy.
BAE, buy Wastelands and your incompetence will be complete.
Cheers easy.
BAE, buy Wastelands and your incompetence will be complete.
Does "Chuchuk haji mara! Songyo haera....." mean "Waiter, over here! A large fried spaniel..."? 
With acknowledgements to J Clarkson esq!
With acknowledgements to J Clarkson esq!
Last edited by BEagle; 23rd Nov 2002 at 13:06.
