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By: - 6th April 2013 at 18:59 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
In short, it was the bleed air driven lift fan.
Bleed air is extremely detrimental to engine performance.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 19:06 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
It was too close to the X-35.
The intention of the US DoD was to compare two dissimilar types side by side, one low-risk low-return type and one high-risk high-return type.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 22:35 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
IIRC the initial MD design called for a bleed-air driven lift fan. This was deemed to be too risky so they went with separate lift engines. It was these lift engines that lost it the bid slot, IMHO.
Somewhere I have an article that goes into in and has cutaways showing the lift engines.
By: - 6th April 2013 at 23:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
1 - There was a strong prejudice against lift-plus-lift/cruise. Part of this was just a hangover from the original DARPA STOVL program, which did not look at LPLC because it had been tried before and it was thus not DARPA's job. Part was a belief that it was heavy and complicated, but then nobody realized that SDLF drove a ton of extra weight into the lift engine.
2 - In the 1996 downselect, the institutional winner - the one from the DARPA program that convinced everyone that it could be done - was SDLF. Boeing offered a potentially much cheaper solution but with more risk. Historically, a lot of two-type flyoffs have chosen one low-risk candidate and one higher-risk, higher-payoff contender.
There were other factors involved, though, including the fact that the "Dream Team" had been pulled together late in the day. But the fact remains that the MD design could have been attractive in many ways... a stock F119, probably better ground footprint &c.
By: - 7th April 2013 at 05:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Add in the then-ongoing negotiations for Boeing to buy McD (completed 1 August 1997), and there was no chance for McD's design to be chosen by the dominant partner of the new merged company over its own design.
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By: J-31 Burrito - 6th April 2013 at 18:40
at the time of JAST McDonnel Douglas was the most successful western combat aircraft manufacturer with its F-15 and F-4.. and also had experience in svtol designs with the Avian 8B-II.
why did it not get so far in the JAST competition? whats wrong with their design