For those of you using CA Harvest Software Change Manager, it has it's origins with Hughes Aircraft and the software written for the F-15.
It was sold commercially as CCC/Harvest by Softool Corp starting in the late 1970's. Looks like Broadcom is the newest owner. It's still being used - the last time I encountered it was in 2009 at a large bank.
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.
(Was working at McDonnell Douglas at the time (mid 1990s), ISS related, had no idea about the F-15 connection. I do remember thinking CCC/Harvest seemed like a really strange choice at the time, but this F-15 connection... alright, so that's probably why.)
The "Dissent and Decision" section is fun. Reads very much as a battle over egos and personalities rather than the technical merits of a particular aircraft.
That tends to happen because military procurement is always a set of compromises, so there lies a tremendous amount of room for basically arguing about how to weigh the different requirements/criteria/mission sets.
Also while the article vindicates Sprey's want of having a lightweight fighter, the reality is that while lightweight fighters did come, they quickly became exactly what Sprey would not have wanted (once the F-16 entered service, it quickly gained BVR capability for example) because the mission that Sprey envisioned (pure within visual range air combat) wasn't nearly as significant in the 90s and onwards.
I get to see them flying at low level pretty much daily, as I live on the Mach Loop in Wales where they practice. The howl as they go over never gets old, though I guess I’d feel very differently if they weren’t just training.
I've worked at Wings Over the Rockies a bit, and they have an old F4. It's not good looking/elegant. It just looks like a bunch of giant metal cylinders welded onto each other that holds a lot of very explosive liquid with mounting points to put smaller cylinders on with more explosives. I get that the status quo has marketed fighter jets as sexy, but they just are there to do a job and that job is to kill.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the competing designs to the McDonnell Douglas design before. Were these public at the time like with later aircraft competitions? I’m thinking of the YF-17, YF-23 and X-32.
They make an inexplicable Top Gun/Tom Cruise reference which suggests they don’t seem to know the difference between the F-15, F-14, or F-18. Or perhaps even between the US Navy and USAF.
I’m not aware of any plans to send F-15s to Ukraine. I have only heard of F-16 and maybe F-35.
The video thumbnail shows F-15s with a single (offset?) rudder.
There’s a reference to the F-11 which seems to actually mean the F-111.
There is a reference to an F-22 Megaprojects video that doesn’t seem to exist. They may mean F-35 here.
They claim the F-15 was active in Vietnam when it didn’t enter combat service until 1976. This may be another mistaken F-14 reference.
The video claims the F-15 C and D are no longer in service with the US military but they are.
The gun is not in the nose, it is in the wing root.
The AIM7 and AIM9 were not new for the F-15C. Both are from the late 1950s.
F-15E weighs more than the F-15C/D.
The video suggests that the F-15EX and F-15 II are different planes but the F-15EX is the “Eagle II”, the same plane.
The F-15EX is not claiming to go mach 3+. It is mach 2.4 capable, similar to the F-15C/D.
Jordan didn’t have Mig-25s, the Syrians did.
It’s so egregious I unsubscribed from the channel before my Gell-Mann amnesia could subject me to further incorrect information. It’s a shame because I enjoyed these channels but now can’t trust them.
Certain aspects were better, yes. That's because the Soviets made different trade-offs in the design -- variously because of doctrine, time constraints, availability of exotic materials (and the ability to use them in manufacturing), and "helpful" direction from Moscow.
The MiG-25 "Foxbat" is a famous example. To succeed in it's role as an high-speed interceptor it should have been made from titanium. But it's a very expensive and difficult metal to work with, so temperature critical parts were instead made from stainless steel. In the west there were lots of jokes about it rusting in the rain and the use of vacuum tubes, but tubes allowed it to have a very powerful radar. Plus that's what they had to work with (the Soviets having great difficulties making high-current semiconductors).
I don’t know if that is true or not, but if so, I guess it is a stirring endorsement of the idea of being a nice liberal democracy that people want to move to.
I'd be curious to know which aircraft were actually better than their US contemporaries and by which criteria they'd be judged better.
The Mig-25 seems like a good example of a Soviet aircraft considered better than its US contemporaries, at the time. Misunderstanding and misinformation let the US to think they were far, far behind the Soviet Union. Viktor Belenko cleared that up! It was a plane good at just one thing, with downsides that would never let it through a (non-CIA-directed) US procurement process. On the plus side, competition, fear, and rivalry, drove the US to some amazing research, engineering, and innovation.
As a child at a local military airshow, the F-15 was awesome, dangerously beautiful. Shamed even the X-wings and Tie fighters I'd just seen on the big screen. Many years later, I had a similar feeling watching an Su-27 at Farnborough; Sukhoi captured some aesthetic that Mikoyan-Gurevich never seemed to get right, and did it better than any western contemporary.
> OSD, however, refused to tolerate this kind of intransigence and in May 1966 McNamara ordered a joint review of the commonality issue. Conducted over the next 18 months,
the review confirmed that the needs of the Air Force and Navy could not be met by a single airframe. The two services argued that attempts to merge their requirements would produce, at exorbitant cost, a grotesque mutation with increased weight, and reduced performance.
The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance.
This whole "multi-service aircraft can't work" meme has been going for essentially a century, and has been wrong just as long.
The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, the services just don't like having to play nice with each other.
The F-35 is better thought of as a family of tightly-related aircraft which share as many major systems as possible (avionics, sensors, engine, cockpit) while having differing airframes. Doing exactly the kind of reusable engineering a major project should be doing. You can claim that different project management might have been cheaper, but the idea that three separate airplanes, one for each service, could have been engineered and produced for less is just wishful thinking.
". The first time the opponents
showed up [in the training area] they
had wing tanks along with a bunch of
missiles. I guess they figured that being
in a dirty configuration wouldn’t really
matter and that they would still easily
outmaneuver us. By the end of the week,
though, they had dropped their wing
tanks, transitioned to a single centerline
fuel tank and were still doing everything
they could not to get gunned by us. A
week later they stripped the jets clean of
all external stores, which made the BFM
fights interesting, to say the least"
F35 can hold their own quite well. Disregard the 2015 report with the limiting software, this is where they are at, and things will only improve with the new engine
> The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance.
For such a poor performer, the F-35 is sought after by almost every country that can afford it and that the US will sell it to. Sales increased even more after Russia invaded Ukraine, when European countries perceiving a new threat switched their plans to the F-35.
chiph|2 years ago
It was sold commercially as CCC/Harvest by Softool Corp starting in the late 1970's. Looks like Broadcom is the newest owner. It's still being used - the last time I encountered it was in 2009 at a large bank.
smcameron|2 years ago
Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.
(Was working at McDonnell Douglas at the time (mid 1990s), ISS related, had no idea about the F-15 connection. I do remember thinking CCC/Harvest seemed like a really strange choice at the time, but this F-15 connection... alright, so that's probably why.)
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
Stevvo|2 years ago
icegreentea2|2 years ago
Also while the article vindicates Sprey's want of having a lightweight fighter, the reality is that while lightweight fighters did come, they quickly became exactly what Sprey would not have wanted (once the F-16 entered service, it quickly gained BVR capability for example) because the mission that Sprey envisioned (pure within visual range air combat) wasn't nearly as significant in the 90s and onwards.
tomohawk|2 years ago
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/buying-just-80-f-15exs...
YZF|2 years ago
mpclark|2 years ago
The_Colonel|2 years ago
justinator|2 years ago
knolan|2 years ago
belter|2 years ago
Fairchild Republic F-X: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-5032893d14a8556ef65b4...
General Dynamics F-X: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-725ce5a1fe83a987224ca...
North American Rockwell NA-335: https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-aad2b19e0e947f1cc2a4a...
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
skeeterbug|2 years ago
mulmen|2 years ago
They make an inexplicable Top Gun/Tom Cruise reference which suggests they don’t seem to know the difference between the F-15, F-14, or F-18. Or perhaps even between the US Navy and USAF.
I’m not aware of any plans to send F-15s to Ukraine. I have only heard of F-16 and maybe F-35.
The video thumbnail shows F-15s with a single (offset?) rudder.
There’s a reference to the F-11 which seems to actually mean the F-111.
There is a reference to an F-22 Megaprojects video that doesn’t seem to exist. They may mean F-35 here.
They claim the F-15 was active in Vietnam when it didn’t enter combat service until 1976. This may be another mistaken F-14 reference.
The video claims the F-15 C and D are no longer in service with the US military but they are.
The gun is not in the nose, it is in the wing root.
The AIM7 and AIM9 were not new for the F-15C. Both are from the late 1950s.
F-15E weighs more than the F-15C/D.
The video suggests that the F-15EX and F-15 II are different planes but the F-15EX is the “Eagle II”, the same plane.
The F-15EX is not claiming to go mach 3+. It is mach 2.4 capable, similar to the F-15C/D.
Jordan didn’t have Mig-25s, the Syrians did.
It’s so egregious I unsubscribed from the channel before my Gell-Mann amnesia could subject me to further incorrect information. It’s a shame because I enjoyed these channels but now can’t trust them.
29athrowaway|2 years ago
chiph|2 years ago
The MiG-25 "Foxbat" is a famous example. To succeed in it's role as an high-speed interceptor it should have been made from titanium. But it's a very expensive and difficult metal to work with, so temperature critical parts were instead made from stainless steel. In the west there were lots of jokes about it rusting in the rain and the use of vacuum tubes, but tubes allowed it to have a very powerful radar. Plus that's what they had to work with (the Soviets having great difficulties making high-current semiconductors).
bee_rider|2 years ago
kevbin|2 years ago
The Mig-25 seems like a good example of a Soviet aircraft considered better than its US contemporaries, at the time. Misunderstanding and misinformation let the US to think they were far, far behind the Soviet Union. Viktor Belenko cleared that up! It was a plane good at just one thing, with downsides that would never let it through a (non-CIA-directed) US procurement process. On the plus side, competition, fear, and rivalry, drove the US to some amazing research, engineering, and innovation.
As a child at a local military airshow, the F-15 was awesome, dangerously beautiful. Shamed even the X-wings and Tie fighters I'd just seen on the big screen. Many years later, I had a similar feeling watching an Su-27 at Farnborough; Sukhoi captured some aesthetic that Mikoyan-Gurevich never seemed to get right, and did it better than any western contemporary.
RcouF1uZ4gsC|2 years ago
The truth of this is again illustrated by the Joint Strike Fighter F-35 with its massive cost overruns and its reduced performance.
cpgxiii|2 years ago
The F-4 Phantom, probably deserving the title of greatest Western multi-role aircraft of the cold war, had long successful service with both USAF and USN (and USMC), with fewer inter-service airframe differences than between the F-35A and F-35C. Multi-service aircraft are totally workable, the services just don't like having to play nice with each other.
The F-35 is better thought of as a family of tightly-related aircraft which share as many major systems as possible (avionics, sensors, engine, cockpit) while having differing airframes. Doing exactly the kind of reusable engineering a major project should be doing. You can claim that different project management might have been cheaper, but the idea that three separate airplanes, one for each service, could have been engineered and produced for less is just wishful thinking.
avereveard|2 years ago
(source attached to this post https://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=54012 )
F35 can hold their own quite well. Disregard the 2015 report with the limiting software, this is where they are at, and things will only improve with the new engine
u320|2 years ago
wolverine876|2 years ago
For such a poor performer, the F-35 is sought after by almost every country that can afford it and that the US will sell it to. Sales increased even more after Russia invaded Ukraine, when European countries perceiving a new threat switched their plans to the F-35.