Message posted by Mark Lincoln on August 13, 2011 at 11:55:33 PST:

The F-15/16/18 programs were well run and all were quite conservative compared to the level of advances seen in the often lethal programs of the 1950s.

We had learned a GREAT deal about how to design, test and develop fighter aircraft and such was applied to those programs.

It should be noted that NONE of them were capable of speeds and altitudes regularly investigated in second generation fighter programs.

Nor have they suffered the short tragic service lifetimes of some of the 'Century Series' generation of airplanes.

The 'state of the art' matured incredibly in the 20 years preceding the F-15/16/18 programs.

Those programs were beneficiaries. They were not 'experimental', they were developmental.

Thus they were inherently conservative in concept and execution.

In Reply to: Re: DARPA - we have a problem ... posted by greatguess on August 13, 2011 at 11:23:36 PST:

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