Here's Why the Pentagon Didn't Pick the X-32

it's been 20 years since the f-35 won the two-way x-plane competition since that time the headlines have been dominated by a program that's over budget and behind schedule so what if the other airplane the x-32 had been awarded the contract and how does this process even go so for those answers i have the perfect guest my old friend tomcat pilot rowdy yates who was the chief test pilot for the x-32 program let's talk to rowdy so ready let's let's start with coming out of vf74 you selected or you accepted orders to test pilot school so what does test pilot school in general give you in terms of a skill set that you didn't have as a fleet you know your average fighter pilot although you of course you were above average but uh what what because you hear about the you'll be sorry party at the beginning of test pilot school and you hear it's really hard so what what's that all about uh really there are three things that we learn at test pilot school academically a high level of aerospace engineering academics we also learn how to write a lot of time is devoted to learning how to prepare test plans and then write the reports coming out of a given flight test and then finally the communication piece verbally so we spend time uh giving presentations being graded on those presentations so that uh when we enter the the flight test community if you will uh we're prepared to communicate exactly how the airplane whatever we're testing whether it be the aircraft or systems is performing so the decisions can be made about the future of whatever it is we're testing so you get through tps and you go over to vx 23 which is the tac air um i guess developmental test squadron i think we would call it right and that's correct what what did you do at first there and what was your path to the f-32 program so that year that i was at strike test squadron i was the f-14 air-to-ground weapons test officer so we were flying profiles to clear weapon separation bombs the 80 mark 82 83 and 84 uh weapons bombs off of the f-14 the test involved flying various profiles and various dive angles and speeds releasing the bombs and ensuring that they were coming off the aircraft safely it was a little bit in limbo for a couple of months when i received a phone call from one of the civilians in the joint strike fighter program and knew my quote availability uh and said hey how'd you like to be the first guy to fly the x-32 or x35 so you said yeah yes i would like to be that guy exactly what i said very quickly so what happened how does that go after that so uh the orders were cut i was able to stay in place there at pax river and within a couple of months first thing i remember i got to go get checked out in the f-18 they said we need you to fly the f-18 uh to prepare for this and then started working with my air force counterpart in the joint strike fighter program paul smith who was an air force lieutenant colonel and uh he and i then were given the task to go put together the concept demonstration phase flight test program for the government so at what point did you were you selected to do f-32 versus f-35 about a year prior to first flight as i recall uh it was like march of 99 when the determination was made who was going to which program up to that point the whole flight test team i had other test pilots and flight test engineers working in our um on our team we were supporting both programs we would attend meetings we would go fly the simulators to check out um control laws but a year prior to first flight they we were selected for whichever program and then the the team were not allowed to uh communicate across that border thereafter however paul and i were the only ones that were allowed to talk about each other's program uh mainly well totally for the purposes of safety fairness of the competition and finally efficiency those were our three charters if you will for executing the program and interestingly efficiency was last first it was safety clearly and then fairness was the number two priority because of the criticality of the competition the first time you interfaced with the industry side how far along were the designs of these airplanes very early um so i can speak mostly about the x32 the boeing variant that i flew that design was um a derivative of a secret design that boeing had made quite a bit of progress with um it was a black program it was stealth and boeing made the decision to leverage that design for their x-32 you know when i entered the program they were pretty far along in the the design process the control law development was just starting you and i talked beforehand you were saying that the overall requirements were were very overarching i guess and there were three of them what what were the requirements that three three and only three uh which is uh very fascinating the requirements communicated to the contractors both lockheed and boeing you got to demonstrate an aircraft that can fly up and away and we call that the air force mission meaning just take off fly and come land back on a runway you have to uh demonstrate carrier landing approaches uh not at the ship but at the field what we call field carrier landing and then you have to demonstrate a stovall variant short takeoff vertical end there was no requirement to do a vertical takeoff but it was short take off vertical land and then i guess you could say the fourth requirement is you had to do that with two air vehicles so you had to demonstrate those three things with only two air vehicles what were the differences between the f-32 and the f-35 and we go into the specifics of of things you ran into during tests but i think i'm thinking particularly of the stovall part the two companies came at that completely differently think of it this way the the boeing design used uh largely the design from the harrier and redirected thrust from the main engine with some uh thrust posts we called them out on the wing tip to provide the control you needed there um so that the boeing design was largely a an updated harrier design the lockheed design was much more technologically advanced i called it the 17 miracles that had to happen for that aircraft to go into hovering flight into lockheed's credit they all happened effectively and safely but its main thrust for the vertical was a lift fan a 48 inch diameter lift fan very close to the pilot's head right behind him um that would spin when the doors would open and redirect cool air from above the aircraft to below the aircraft providing the thrust needed to keep it uh aloft and also the the nozzle like you said of the 17 miracles was the nozzle moving a lot of the interesting happened to be um i'll say copied from a russian design uh that had been used previously uh a dual swiveling uh exhaust that would the exhaust would actually rotate in two different directions redirecting the exhaust from the engine uh into the vertical one of the big issues that um that came up was that boeing's design was not going to be able to conduct the short takeoff vertical land uh exercise if you will test at edwards and they would need to get their stovall aircraft to pax river where the air was a little thicker at sea level can create more thrust and have enough safety margin to ensure that aircraft could hover um lockheed did a very interesting and it was well received test where they actually did a vertical takeoff at edwards accelerated to supersonic and then came back and did a vertical landing at edwards in the thinner air their engine their design was i'll say a much higher performance had greater performance than the boeing design so so that was one place where we said lockheed's got an advantage from a performance standpoint now to be clear the the competition was not just about the performance of the aircraft there were many many factors that went into the evaluation of each company's design well i said there were only the three requirements each company was going to be assessed on manufacturing sustainability all of the things that we care about on a program from cradle to grave so how about cost now here we are 20 years later and all the headlines are about behind schedule over budget the kind of things that get programs killed that you know better than i coming from that world you know how was how did how was the pepsi challenge between the two around unit flyweight costs and those sorts of things i do remember giving briefs to uh congressional staffers and other vips that would come to edwards during the flight test program uh whereas i remember the the unit costs that the program was advertising back in 1998 99 was in the 30 to 40 million dollars an aircraft range uh and you know we look back on that now and go what were you thinking uh that's even a tomcat it was it was the complexity of the lockheed design you would think it's going to be a lot more expensive to produce there could be more things that go wrong designs that maybe weren't quite mature enough even in or for the proposal to be able to estimate costs and sustainment uh throughout the life of the program so it was not surprising to me that the costs went up so significantly uh could they have gone up gone up as well with the boeing design yes um but it didn't surprise me when lockheed costs started going through the roof so who were the the evaluators so you said the first flight happened when it happened i imagine that was just a launch and fly right but did you have chase airplanes were they recording things what how how did that go and it must have been kind of nerve-wracking right i mean each one of these is like you're on you're being evaluated right the we were required to submit daily reports every time we flew i had to submit a report to the program office in fact i had to let them know when the takeoff times were each time we flew so they could be on alert i guess i'm not sure but i would write a daily report we knew we were being closely watched uh even though we were out at edwards um and and the flight test um you know you're wondering we're doing single plane sorties it's just you you'd have you don't have a chase airplane or no we did we did in fact i i had two f-18s from strike that i was responsible for out at edward so i had a little mini detachment where i had 20 uh maintenance troops out supporting my two airplanes and we used those two airplanes the boeing team used f-18s my f-18s the lockheed team used edwards f-16s at edwards for their chase aircraft but these are being flown just in a chase safety of flight capacity it's not like you have a grader in one of your opponents correct in fact it was it was important the program office uh made it clear that this was not a fly-off uh as had been i'll say understood from previous competitions uh this was not a fly-off this was each team uh being given the requirements as i mentioned earlier and then go go fly go design build and fly your aircraft and then submit a proposal but the program office was clear and i believe i know why um they did not want congress to call a test pilot and say come tell us about how the x-32 flew come tell us about how the x-35 flew because it was not about the competition was not about how the aircraft flew it was they were meant just as demonstrators okay i think that would surprise our viewers right because there's some sense that there's this you know drag race going on and that there's a 1v1 going on and then there's a you know carrier suit piece where you can see who can fly the ok threes and generate sorties better but that's not at all what was in scope here that is correct you are 100 correct it was um you know each contractor would design its own flight test program what they wanted to go show beyond the requirements i mentioned earlier and and just let the evaluation occur back at the program office with the proposals the data from the flight tests could clearly be put in those proposals but it was not about who could fly faster who could fly better who could stay up the longest who could do the most carrier approaches or anything like that did you start to develop a sense of of kinship again as a were you a lieutenant commander at this time what was your rank when you're doing this i believe i started as lieutenant commander and then made commander during the program so i i was a commander when we flew so your charter is to do what's in the best interest of the war fighter to use navair lexicon right and and but did you have a sense of kinship and loyalty to boeing as you went along which is sort of you know when you work in a program office i felt it to bell boeing working v22 you know you want the airplane to succeed right you know you're always i don't want to say you're caught between loyalties as a program manager or a chief test pilot but there's some of that right there was no doubt in my mind or anyone else on the exit the government group supporting the x-32 was that our job was to help boeing win we wanted to do everything we could to support what boeing was doing and what they believed was their in their best interest to win the competition and there was there was no problem with that i did not feel any conflict there i was there i was the government's chief test pilot no question about that but i was there to help boeing win again you're a fighter pilot you develop a partnership with the machine that you strap on how was the f-32 in terms of handling characteristics in terms of slow speed flight how many g's how what was the high end capability what was this airplane capable of did did you like it did you fight it what what was your overall sense yeah the flight test program was very limited because the design was very limited again there were no uh extensive requirements for gs max mock things that a typical uh i'll say emd program where we're going to go and really make sure the design is what we expected to be which was the f-35 program these were x airplanes x-32 each contractor was given a billion dollars to go build them and and a length of time four to five years to do it so um the designs were not meant for those types of evaluation high g high mock things like that um so but with the carrier approach which was uh the part of the program i was closest to we would um uh conduct carrier approaches and and do offsets do deviations from the glide slope from the center line to see how the aircraft responded and i would get a sense then is it is it handling properly what are the handling qualities of the x32 again acknowledging that it was probably not their final design in fact there was great uh consternation about boeing's design that we flew in in x32 um was not what they eventually submitted in their proposal for the emd design for the the actual production design whereas the lockheed design was pretty close to what they submitted in their proposals what you're talking about is you went from sort of a delta wing airplane to a more conventional winged version the delta wing the x-32 that i flew did not have horizontal stabilators and so um in the in the analytical process uh that boeing undertook to decide what the final design would be they actually changed horses midstream and said okay we're going to go with a more conventional little bit of a delta wing uh but also would have uh a conventional tail as well like an airplane you want to take to the boat and that's exactly the comment that i made um that they had leveraged f-18 handling qualities and control laws extensively for the x-32 and having flown the f-18 at the ship um that was the comment i made after just a couple of fclp what we call bounce periods as you know uh that i would take that aircraft to the ship tomorrow um it was handling that smoothly and precisely i could make fine corrections i could make gross corrections uh back to the center line back to the glide path um and and so there were no issues with the handling qualities as i uh uh with the x32 so you have basically a year to to hit the three major points you're working primarily out of edwards some stuff at pax were you obviously living uh geo batching it in edwards for for that period of time mostly exactly and in fact my whole team uh was was living in uh lancaster actually uh the program had determined that we would be allowed to have apartments uh in lancaster and uh while i was geo batching it other i recall several of the civilian flight test engineers on the team actually moved their families out to lancaster lived in apartments for the year or so that we were there supporting flight testing yeah so if the viewers have never been to edwards it's like a long way from lancaster to the main gate at edwards i mean that's a gigantic facility i you can't overstate the enormity so you get towards the end did you guys feel like you were a player or because of your crosstalk with paul were you like i think we're stuck in here a little bit because of our piece and the other sort of you know mitigators here but when you submitted the proposal you guys like high five we got this thing what was that all about remember it was safety first uh fairness second and then lastly efficiency and effectiveness so i don't know if any businesses go is there any business intel only what was in the press that well did you know when they had done the high altitude stove thing were you guys aware of that yes okay because that was a big deal that was yeah that's what i'm thinking right they're like oh we we gotta you know like limp out to pax to do it at sea level they did this thing and went super sonic and came back it's like omg yeah you know and that's what i was gonna reference is that probably was the one that we kind of you know kicked the dirt a little bit and said okay bam okay um but but going into the final decision you had a sense that this is a jump ball is that was that how you felt we still could win this thing i i felt like probably lockheed was going to win and i knew the program office would be uh hard-pressed to to lean towards the boeing design number one because what they demonstrated was not their uh proposed final design lockheed's was and the fact that the their lockheed design had performed better than the boeing design the other unspoken sense of why they went with f-35 was the let's just call it the cosmetic vanity piece the x-35 um looked more like a fighter than the and while you know you might say it looked kind of like an a7 um compared to the x35 the x32 was not not an aesthetically pleasing or typical fighter looking aircraft um boeing knew they had a problem with that if you will uh and to address it they had a little mantra that said look you're taking it to war not to the senior prom and that that got a lot of traction in time we would have grown to like it right um and yeah there you go so you know that's that's the problem right that is a pretty cool looking airplane yeah yes right right that's the problem yeah and plus nerdy dirty and on you know it's it's right curb appeal is is limited it looks kind of goofy when it's taxing and yeah so many anecdotally said um that was the final straw was the aesthetics the fact that the m32 was let's just say it ugly what form matches function um and and you certainly when you look at an x-35 or an f-35 you can imagine that it's going to go fast that it's going to be maneuverable uh things that we like in our fighter aircraft uh looks more like a traditional air force navy fighter as i said boeing knew they were up against something there maybe they didn't appreciate it in the early stages when they decided to leverage that design that i mentioned earlier the the stealth design that they had invested in um and i think there was a that choice was made because it would allow them to save money they would not have to do clean sheet design with uh the x-32 so ultimately all these years later what do you think would have happened had f-32 got the nod where where would that airplane have been better than the f-35 maintainability sustainability cost to operate yeah and then you know fleet performance i believe that boeing demonstrated a more robust manufacturing capability they were using technology uh in their especially in their st louis plant um that was pretty state of the art at the time they were demonstrating that technicians could wear screens on their arm where they'd have instant access to drawings as they are building the aircraft with their hands and and that was quite revolutionary at the time as you know lockheed built their aircraft at palmdale skunk works great facility tremendous capability but really they don't tout their ability to do mass production in at the skunk works from a performance standpoint i don't think that that the change in the design to a more conventional uh tail and more conventional aircraft would have mattered that much um i i think they would have been fine let's put it that way if the requirements were a 6g or 7g airplane that airplane would have met that capability uh max mach i don't know i mean you have that big intake in the front um and i don't know exactly how fast they could have gotten that airplane but but engines were being developed pretty rapidly at the time i suspect they could have met whatever mock number the government would impose in the production variant this is the fourth installment in the aom series amigos of mooch um we've had reb we had we had slammer and now we've had rowdy thanks so much for joining us today great to be with you thanks for having me all right that'll do it for this episode if you're a first time viewer please ring the bell and become a subscriber give me the likes and comment if you'd like to help support this channel please consider using the super thanks the heart icon with the dollar sign below or become a patron at patreon.com wardcarroll check the links for official channel merch and where to get the punks trilogy my first three novels about a tomcat squadron and if you use the discount code punk yt p-u-n-k-y-t you get 10 off special deal for channel subscribers and as always i look forward to talking to you again soon [Music] you

Channel: Ward Carroll

Views: 464,243

Keywords: Ward Carroll, X-32, X-35, F-35, Joint Strike Fighter, X-Plane, 5th Generation Fighter, Stealth, NAVAIR, Test Pilot School, U.S. Navy, Edwards Air Force Base, Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Phil Rowdy Yates, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, defense procurement, military airplanes, aircraft carriers, DCS, DCS World, Pentagon, Department of Defense

Id: u2YFxZw7UUw

Length: 27min 10sec (1630 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 11 2021