it is not a threat , certainly not in the beginning . The F-35 is the king of the hill , a trillion dollars or ten until 2070 . Like , who cares , right ? Will Roper is a middle level guy that's assigned during the Trump Administration . Trump is in the pocket of Lockmart allright but it is a game that must be played . Moreso as Trump must look like challenging big business for votes ; hence Roper gets to work on "cheaper ways of acquiring fighters" . As it is a known quantity , F-24A to F becomes a subject of computerized projections and stuff in some must-be-secret-US-Goverment facility . In further steps a likely large fighter is also investigated . The F-24 is in for "production aspects" because it is solely designed to be handicapped with stupid losers trying to find ways around material supply bottlenecks and solutions to that might be used for American planes ... Which are otherwise required to last 20 or 40 years in service . 10 years in the 1950s was good ; while Russians did not bother even for that . Their MiGs would last only two years but they were built for that , cheap and easy to rush massive numbers into a short sharp clash if need be . You know , supposedly what awaits America in a war over Taiwan with China ...
but it is Goverment money , so , as said , Roper also studies a fighter that would have the range in such a war . "Navy fighter" flies in 2017 . No weapon systems , can not land on a carrier , has no cup holders . No nothing . Basically a smartphone or laptop for the pilot for flight data .
now , it is Lockmart and PW for the engines . Northrop will get the bomber . Boeing has the airliners , the second engine maker is free to compete in the civilian market . Which it can as its partnership with French Snecma assures Paris will keep the Airbus Board under its thumb to see newer models will have engine options from America . Basically out of reach of those US officials owning stocks in Defence ... This is the Cheney vision , from Nixon's through Reagan's into Dabya's terms . When Roper sees the Navy fighter through , the second engine maker gets it . No , no contracts ... Down to being barred from Wall Street's top 100 index and stuff . That was nothing "creative accounting" could not have solved ...
some Blueblood of the American industry and economy , if you haven't heard about them ...
remember , a monopoly in fighters . Then comes a series of brilliant actions by the US . Suddenly defence dollars become scarce , risk of failure becomes real as partizanship eats into checks and balances which in better times used to lose checks into the financial balances of those who would refuse to see malpractice and corruption in the system ... If you didn't understand this sentence , Trump or even Bidon would have to attack Lockmart and its stockholders' wallets if something happened and politicians had to hang people if the US Public was not to hang those very same politicians .
now , the second engine maker has been trying to quit military engines sector since the 1960s . This was the Truman vision , keeping car companies in making jet plane engines after their war emergency work in 1940-45 era . Due to the need for specialization , that didn't work out . Leading to PW monopoly as Wright , Westinghouse , stuff fell by the wayside and Allison being handicapped with its contacts with the British , who would rather have the global sales on their own if they could . This reaching a peak in the 1980s . The famous Engine Wars where a reluctant Pentagon had to force the second engine maker to stop quitting the military sector , PW got punched a bit .
the reason for Neutron Jack was different . Israel was fast becoming the best friend of the US , it needed an aviation industry , PW had nothing suitable , a last version of the last engine was chosen to power the Lion Cub , better known as the Kfir . Which was an improvement on Nesher , a Mirage under the hood . There was a fake French embargo at the time , French manufactured parts would be assembled in Israel and the Mirage testbed that flew the first American engine was the finest dogfighter the Israelis had ever seen upto that moment .
but there was a problem . Mirage is a "lightweight" , SAMs are the preferred way to fight for Soviet supplied Arabs , it takes a Phantom to battle SAM batteries and Mirage needs to carry more stuff . Hence the Kfir , a Mirage with a new wing . When the wing produced too much drag , PR department could not slight their magnificiently masterful national effort and it was the fault of the last engine , which didn't produce enough "thrust" . Of course there are geeks who know their jet engines and they should have already challenged me here .
79 was the last engine . 404 got a second source production in the name of increasing efficiency . New York Times , October 3rd, 1984 has Lehman (Reagan's Secretary of the Navy) "asking" for PW to produce the engine . He was naturally late as the idea was first voiced in 1975 if the USN was to fail to choose the F-16 bid , PW taking over fully in time . No F-100 production was offered in return and not just because F-110 was in production by then .
back to Israel where the pilots of the first Kfir squadron are very unhappy . They are all former Mirage pilots , theirs is a famous unit with a lot of kills over MiGs , "Technolog" (the American engined test bed) is a dream to fly ... but their new fighters are like trucks , can't do Mirage things ! The second engine company refusing to give aways secrets that should have increased power even more , you know , like because they do not exist ... Offended and seeing anti-Semitism and whatnot and taking full confidence from the Evangelist affection for the newly elected Likud , the Israelis decide to develop Lavi , a full Lion or whatever . Will have the PW engine they had asked their American friends to have developed in their name , it will also outperform the F-16 and will be heavily exported , you know , to some country in the Mediterranean .
when Jack Welch takes over in 1981 , the second engine company has actual ability to fill inside the F-20 hull with like everything , once Northrop builds it . Eisenhower pushed them back in , Kennedy pushed them out , Johnson had a war on , Nixon did his best but he was out first , Ford had inflation , Carter cancelled the B-1A to kill the entire engine division , Reagan would like to have a war on ; his wars were always too short to his liking . Neutron comes from the CEO's ability to enter some building and fire everybody inside . The building would remain but the people would disappear . Like the bomb that was famous at the time ... This he claimed was done to improve the poor condition of the company , in later years he would be called like the greatest CEO . It also allowed him to get rid of traitors who lived downriver . Read the guy's Wikipedia page , you will see it is all there .
his son WILL prefer this version that his father was doing his thing for Israel , Democracy and Freedom and Liberty . Instead of an ever developing idea that his father was foremost in destroying the United States for greed and being a jerk . His father famously lied that people were fired left and right and the sons of such workers attacked him at school or something . There is still a schoolbus load of witnesses that he was mobbing a kid from the aviation side of the company because it was still unfeasible to fire the kid's dad .
here , we will need another name . John Lehman . Secretary of Navy for Reagan . A relative of Grace Kelly who ignored his "dire" warnings about certain events during the filming of The Star Wars and no , ı will not link to that post . Princess Grace might have found it easier to ignore him if it was indeed the Lehmans a teenager Princess Caroline had to elbow her way through at a church service in the US as she was expected to be photographed next to her mother , but anyhow . Lehman would have his revenge when he DID send two A-4 jets to buzz the set of The Return of The Jedi .
so , he dislikes Lord Vader , opposes Turkish fighter co-production deal ... What gives ? Israel bombs Saddam's nuclear reactor , Saddam gets kinda sorta angry , Israel might have to bomb Iraq in some quite serious way . They need more capable F-16s , because they , too , can not afford an all F-15 airforce ... Which would still fail to be , with no orders but for Lehman . He is an aviator in the USN Reserves , has the ego . The thing to stress here is that Vietnam was bad for morale , a lot of self-questioning taking place . After Zumwalt's sideburns aka relaxed rules and stuff , MACHISMO was going to come back . Lehman had chosen Joe Hoser Satrapa as his man to be the standart bearer of that new era . You will find a lot of Hoser stories on the web . Like the one where he would strap on like 40 pounds of armaments to go Chuck Norris in the jungle if he was shot down over Nam . Chuck was just about to become famous during the war , Rambo is a product of 1980s . So , Lehman has put Hoser in charge , of stuff like teaching gunnery in Topgun and they are in an F-14 and Hoser wows he didn't stall the engines (twice) on purpose to make a point . Can't fire Hoser for opposing the then two-bit Cheney , for clearly demonstrating Cheney's a wrong idea at that particular moment . Also can not accept the point ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...-lehman/1fdb76f2-fe8e-44f2-b0d0-61c250e91e64/
because he defines himself as a combat aviator , he would really go to a war of suitable size and his life might depend on F-14s doing their job correctly and with those engines it might be a problem . And yet engines are not cheap and sizeable numbers must be ordered . That's why the US finally ignored the bribes that had been paid to the commander of the now dead Turkish Airforce to buy the less capable F-16/79 and move on to F-16C/D-30 and beyond . After Israelis had demanded the 110 engines for a war they might have to fight and were eager to use the contract to force PW to stop increasing the costs of the 1120 engine for their F-16 killing Lavi , Turkey was the second country to order the same . Even if Lord Vader and gang had treated it to be a thing in 1978 or so . Which then meant orders for the F-14 , which in turn forced USAF to buy more , which rolled into the famous Engine Wars of the 1980s . The second company forced to stay in the military market "forced honesty on PW" which indeed then managed to produce working engines on cost and schedule . The Subpar Hornet saga is easily explainable as a dud to keep the second engine company in the military market , because the US Political system needs the Engine Wars fable to falsely promise that it can deliver . Also if it was not the F-18E/F , it would clearly be the F-14D+ or E which were already equipped with the 110 . Something that was threatening the very fabric Lockmart needed to sell the F-35 to the Navy , long range and stuff when compared to the Bug , a standart F-18 Hornet .
and it is a recurring theme . It costs money , the profits are not great , the political system rejects despite company spending the highest amount of dollar bills on lobbying . ı don't have the heart to find the post where ı implied F-35 would keep using PW engines , because one might then make some connection with leeway offered to the second engine company about the enforced clean-up efforts in some rivers . Which would save the company 15 to 20 billion US dollars over 10 to 20 years with Governer Cuomo counter-suing and losing . Only to keep the illusion that there is competition and PW is not the monopoly until the end of the thermal death of the universe .