Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: McDonnell-Douglas/Northrop F/A-18
Message-ID: <1990Jul31.223648.6549@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 31 Jul 90 22:36:48 GMT
References: <1990Jul30.015802.8659@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
Lines: 41
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
In article <1990Jul30.015802.8659@cbnews.att.com> raymond%europa@uunet.UU.NET (Raymond Man) writes:
:
:I don't think MD has a leg to stand on to disagree. While MD probably
:put in more design, research and development time in working out the
:detail of the F/A-18, the whole plane is just an YF-17 scaled up
:10% to meet Navy requirement. The fact is the Navy did not like
:doing business with Northrop which they considered having no
:naval plane experience and the cooperation with MD was a force
:majeure. Then why did the Navy chosed the YF-17 in the first place?
:Well the Congress in their infinite wisdom to save money, directed
:the Navy to choose a plane from the contenders in the YF-16 vs YF-17
:fly off, their intention was to have the Navy using the same plane
:as the UASF. But the Navy of course dislike using an USAF plane(when
:was the last time that happened? The FB-111 fiasco came pretty close.)
:all the more when the winner, YF-16 was single engined, giving the Navy
:a good excuse (actually F-8U, A-4, A-1 Skyradier**, A-7 are all SE) to
:choose the loser of the fly off.

The situation was a little more complicated than that.  Yes, the Navy
has a preference for 2 engined planes, whatever the reason.  The
F/A-18 was both a fighter and an attack plane, so the Navy could use
one airframe to replace 2 aging designs (F-4 and A-7).  This was a
tremendous cost-effectiveness measure.  It also made the carrier air
groups more flexible since in a high-threat situation you could have
more fighters, and in a low-threat strike situation you could have
more attack planes, all without juggling the numbers and types of
aircraft on board.  There are also range and load considerations.  If
it is going to be used as a strike plane it has to be able to carry a
large load.  In addition, since carrier admirals don't like to park
their birdfarms near anybody who is shooting at them, those admirals
like to have as much range as possible.  That was one of the biggest
complaints about the F-18, that its range was less than the A-7 that
it was supposed to replace.


-- 
Terry Rooker
terryr@cse.ogi.edu