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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Bat Plane Bux
Message-ID: <13372@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 22 Jan 90 06:02:37 GMT
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: animal@isis.rice.edu (Carl Rosene)
>In my original posting I stated my belief that the B2 was the first military
>prototype off the production line. Mr. Spencer stated that, in fact, most
>prototypes actually come off a production line. I'll concede the point and
>blame my mistake on the media. But, I believe he might agree that it has not
>been common practice to put the production line at full production before
>a flight test program can be completed...

It's not usually considered good practice, but it has been done occasionally.
The results generally have not been good.  The two cases I can remember are
the F-100 and F-111.  Several F-100s and pilots were lost before a flight-
test aircraft went violently out of control (killing the pilot) in a worst-
case test, and analysis of the wreckage and instrumentation records finally
led to understanding of a nasty stability problem.  And roughly half of
the total F-111 production run were too far down the line to incorporate
the definitive fix for the intake-engine compatibility problems, when it
turned out that significant structural changes were needed.

The B-2 program is being very optimistic.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu