Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: Northrop F-20... Message-ID: <6593@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 16 May 89 03:57:07 GMT References: <6547@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 75 Approved: military@att.att.com From: nak@cbnews.ATT.COM (Neil A. Kirby) In article <6547@cbnews.ATT.COM> eclam@maytag.waterloo.edu (Edmund C. Lam) writes: > > >From: "Edmund C. Lam" >I have always wanted to know the reasons why the U.S. arms procurment >passed over the F-20? From what I know of it, it seems to be a very >cost effective machine. > To effectively describe why it was passed over requires a description of how the US military buys planes. Normally, the way it's done is for the defense contractor to ask the Government for development money to build the prototypes of the planes. The military gets to specify what they want the plane to do, and they oversee the prototypes so that they can evaluate them. From there, if the military likes the prototypes, they put out a production contract. The virtue of this system is that private enterprise doesn't get hurt if the fickle government decides not to buy. This has some interesting effects. The offices that develop the prototypes become the contractors' friends in the military. Folks in Systems Command of USAF (the folks who buy planes) like to keep their job. So the progarm office for the prototype will almost always be very favorable towards a production contract - they get to keep their jobs. It beats a transfer elsewhere or possible unemployment. So how does that make a difference to F-20? Then President Carter, not noted as the biggest friend to the military to ever hold that office, wanted the USAF to get a cheap fighter. THe idea was that the contractors would pay for prototypes, and the USAF would pick the one they liked. This would foster competition and cost sensitivity. The contract would FIX the prices paid, and would include maintenance and spares and warrantees. USAF would get pick of the litter and not have to pay for the runts. Only [insert the name of the company that built the F-20 here, I knew it a paragraph ago] bit. They came out with the F-20. Wht happened? The F-20 had no friends, since it had no program office, and no history of spending money. No one in the military HAD to have it. The F-20 had 90-95% of the flight capabilities of the F-16 at about half the per plane cost, and it included spares. So the military said, "Why should I buy another plane that does less, when I'm already paying for these two fine planes (F15 & F16)?" So they rejected the plane on performance. They said "Make this our export fighter." But even though it made good sense, it would be a smack to the other nation's national pride to take a 'second best' fighter that 'was less taxing to maintain and service'. After all, it would imply that the other nation didn't have what it took to keep a really neato front-line fighter in the air. So it didn't sell. > > [ a few articles later somebody talks about maint costs of F16 and > F20.] > The costs are widely different. The F15 and 16 are both very expensive to work on and to keep in the air. The F20, at least under the proposed contracts, would have been much cheaper to keep flying. One of the design criteria was to keep it cheap to fly. This is probably why it lacks some of the capabilities of the F16. I'm surprised that it didn't destroy F5 sales, myself. It had great price/performance. If I were running a third world nation, I'd have bought lots of them. Train your pilots well, and if you lose a few planes in training, the planes were cheap. In war, you would have near parity in per-plane capability, and more planes. Neil Kirby ...cbsck!nak