Boeing tfx program

Walton had gone to Amherst College in Massachusetts and, as part of his developing interest in political science and politics, he had done some volunteer work for Jack Kennedy's Senatorial campaign. Walton never got to explain the details of that association.

At the first mention of Kennedy's name, he recalls, Morales literally almost hit the ceiling. Walton says Morales's tirade about Kennedy, fueled by righteous anger and high-proof booze, went on for minutes while he stomped around the room. Suddenly he stopped, sat back down on the bed and remained silent for a moment. Then, as if saying it only to himself, he added:.

I looked at Ruben Carbajal, who had remained silent while Walton was telling me this. Carbajal looked at me and nodded his head.

Yes, he was there, it was true. But, in all the long hours we had spent together and all the candid revelations he had provided, it was a remembrance he couldn't bring himself to tell me about his friend Didi. He was struggling from Congress over his refusal to authorize a new manned bomber, and his award of the contract to build the TFX fighter plane to General Dynamics instead of Boeing had become the subject of a congressional investigation. According to Anderson, McNamara had stated that the TFX dispute was the greatest crisis of his career, and that he had to be proven right, no matter what happened.

Before I explain, at first glance adding Anderson's name to the various persons associated with the TFX Scandal, seemingly leaves one completely focused on LBJ as the big fish of the Kennedy Assassination.

If that strikes anyone as slightly dubious, it should. I would not be so naive as to be a defender of LBJ's innocence, far from it. At the same time, those enamored with the idea of the JFK Assassination being solved, in effect with the fingering of LBJ as the man responsible for the assassination, might pause to consider that he had a very real fear for his own safety in the aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination, especially from the right wing extremists.

One such incident involved a motorcade where Bobby Kennedy and LBJ were both seated and a man was discovered with a rifle on the route, before the election. But to get back to the issue of the TFX Scandal, I would venture that the best treatise on the affair ever written was documented by Peter Dale Scott in his unpublished manuscript The Dallas Conspiracy. In it he documented that although Anderson was not in Dallas on November 22, and there was nothing to link him directly to the shootings, there were ten, repeat ten connections linking him indirectly to Oswald, Ruby and those persons controlling the lives and fortunes of those two.

Robert B. Anderson became a partner of Carl M. Loeb Rhoades and Co. It has been suggested that had it not been for certain stock investments on the part of Penn Central, the firm would never have imploded.

It has also been proven that one of those investments was in Great Southwest Corporation. I have had a fear that as the years progress, the initial body of evidence, will become a distant memory, and the focus center exclusively on other areas. As stated earlier in this thread, there is the point raised that there were several plots active in the fall of , which is why looking at Dealey Plaza in isolation, can be something of a mind-boggling experience.

Back in the s, Australia was considering a replacement for its English Electric Canberra bomber fleet. On the contrary John, I agree to a large extent.

Politics - and dirty politics - do sometimes intrude on what should be a purely military decision. Regarding the F yes, something definitely stunk with that purchase. Surprisingly though, both the US and the UK had a hand in it. For those who aren't aware of the background Problems with the wing box a critical portion of the swing wing assembly meant that we didn't actually take delivery of the aircraft until although we did get 24 x F-4 Phantoms as an interim measure.

The debacle cost the UK taxpayer more than it would have cost to develop the TSR-2 which seemed to have a bright future as a capable strike aircraft. The government went so far as to order the TSR-2 construction jigs destroyed so that the aircraft could not be easily restarted. The point where I disagree with you John, is that the F did become a very potent weapons platform. Ask the pilots who fly it today Australia is now the sole operator and they would prefer it soldier on for many more years.

It was so good we expanded our fleet, buying surplus F aircraft and modding them to C standard, and buying the FG. Yes, there were upgrades - but the F was considered to be worth the money and I agree. A telling point is when we bought our B not KC tanker aircraft in the late s. They were equipped for air-to-air refueling, and there were two systems which we utilised: the USN "drogue and probe" system and the USAF "flying boom" method.

The USN method had a drogue trailed behind the tanker aircraft, with the receiving aircraft deploying a refueling probe. The receiver flew the probe into the drogue the basket. The F, on the other hand, used the "flying boom" method. This involved the receiving aircraft flying into a specific position behind the tanker, and the tanker boom operator would "fly" the boom into the refueling receptacle on the receiving aircraft.

When the RAAF got its tankers, the flying boom was specifically not included. Why do you think that happened? Could certain regional nations have felt threatened if the F's range could be extended? This is an odd discrepancy. Either he testified twice, or the reports have this event off by more than a year. Interestingly, although Time echoes the FBI's doubts about Reynold's allegations, it actually comes down on the side of Reynolds at the very least, it's very negative on the FBI , The article concludes by implying that the FBI's rebuttal of the allegations was vague and citing the fact that they were not under oath, as were Reynold's statements.

I do think the key word is General Dynamics was close to bankrupt, and it was a critical US national security industry associated with subs and fighter planes. General Dynamics started life as Electric Boat, or submaines, they then pick up a Canadian aircraft company followed by the Texas aircraft company associated with old WWII production plants. So, they'll pump money with political deals into a high cost overrun F project to keep General Dynamics afloat economically.

Then crank up the little Vietnam War to keep feeding the critical national defense weapons systems and developements. US national security in the Pentagon vision has to have a weapons keep alive effort that comes from these various continual wars. It is interesting to watch the General Dynamics dealings with Netherlands to pull in the Netherland's Fokker aircraft to make parts for the F fighter for the Netherlands.

Then the efforts of Lockheed to bribe Netherland's Bernhard on other Texas aircraft contracts. You will be able to leave a comment after signing in.

Share More sharing options Followers 0. Prev 1 2 3 Next Page 1 of 3. Recommended Posts. John Simkin Posted March 1, Posted March 1, Robert J. William Proxmire, speech in the Senate, 24th March, 3. Carl T. Curtis, Forty Years Against the Tide, page The Navy argued that the heavier weight would decrease the time the plane could stay in the air above ships for fleet protection. His attempt to turn it into an inter-service plane went beyond even his abilities.

In almost any discussion of the F controversy, the process of the source allocation and bidding by manufacturers is made into a matter of intrigue and mystery. The reason being that, when the four bidding rounds were completed, the Pentagon unanimously endorsed the offer by the Boeing company. There were three bids by single companies and three dual bids. The Pentagon had worked out a complex multi-stage evaluation process that was point scored over four major areas. McNamara was restoring the original scored decision.

The Pentagon preferred the Boeing bid, because the company promised higher performance in certain areas. But as Robert Art points out, the Boeing bid was based upon an engine that was only in the planning stages. It had yet to be built or tested. And it would probably not be perfected and ready for the assembly line until The other factor that is usually used in adding intrigue to the episode is the fact that the Boeing bid was lower in price. As any experienced author in the field of weapons procurement understands, this issue is a tempest in a teapot, for the simple reason that it is a rarity when a weapons system comes in on time and on budget.

For this reason, very few participants believe the original estimates anyway. By nature and experience manufacturers knew the Pentagon liked things like higher speed and more explosive power.

Therefore, contractors would deliberately lower the price of their projects to make it easier for the generals to sell the contract to the Defense Secretary. A good example of this corrupt process occurred with the F During congressional hearings, it was discovered that one of the evaluators, Admiral Frederick Ashworth, had not even read the final evaluation report.

But that the Pentagon was a sucker for performance that went beyond the contract requirement. McNamara was specific about this in an interview he did with the Government Accounting Office. GAO interview with McNamara of April 16, In other words, the promised performance would only be achieved after the contract was awarded in the form of additional, unawarded but substantial cost overruns.

Which was another area that McNamara and Kennedy were trying to reform. Which loosely meant that whatever the overrun was, it would be covered by the original contract. He wanted to alter the system by adding a ceiling price and also incentives for coming in ahead of schedule. His goal was to achieve high quality at the most economical price. Which leads into an important point that Jonathan Marshall misconstrued in his presentation about the TFX.

Marshall said that when going through the final estimates McNamara did not present written reports before he made his decision, which ignores the fact that everyone was working from the same estimates that the Air Force had prepared. And he was specific in his analysis about the areas where he felt they had fudged the numbers, thereby showing that the price difference was a mirage ibid, pp.

Another point missed in this regard is quite relevant: the Secretary of Defense did not have a systems analysis department in If the reader can comprehend it, for 14 years, the Defense Secretary was in essence rubber stamping what the Pentagon placed on his desk. But the truth is that McNamara did have written reports at his disposal.

He had a secret study made by a private consulting firm. Understandably, he did not wish to reveal this at the time. In that last, crucial regard, the numbers were overwhelmingly against Boeing. In the Boeing version, less than half of the structural components were the same. McNamara justifiably concluded that, in reality, Boeing was going to produce two different planes.

Yet, they were going to charge the Defense Department less for this? As Robert Art points out, this factor would greatly increase costs in the development of the plane. Yet it is one reason the Pentagon preferred Boeing. They preferred two separate planes. I think that the role of public manager is very similar to the role of a private manager; in each case he has the option of following one of two major alternative courses of action.

He can either act as judge or a leader. In the former case, he sits and waits until subordinates bring to him problems for solution or alternatives for choice. In the latter case, he immerses himself in the operations of the business or governmental activity, examines the problems, the objectives, the alternative courses of action, chooses among them, and leads the organization to their accomplishment.

I have always believed in and endeavored to follow the active leadership role, as opposed to the passive judicial role. As the reader can see, when presented with the true elements of the TFX case, McNamara and Kennedy were trying to reform a well-entrenched system that needed reforming.

For whatever reason, the journalists working the story did not want to reveal that fact. Particularly poor in this regard was the work of Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, who knew no boundaries in writing up unfounded rumors and gossip about the TFX, even if it came from the likes of Bobby Baker. But even more important in manufacturing the tidal wave of misinformation about the conflict was a figure who Marshall did not mention.

This was Senator Henry Jackson from Washington. As Joe Baugher notes at his web site, it was Jackson who instigated the initial congressional hearings on the subject, which went on for the better part of a year.

Davies, Introduction. All through the requirements process there had been back-and-forth arguments between Navy and Air Force and Navy and OSD over the aircraft upper weight limit. At some points the Navy actually abstained from the joint requirements process, but an eventual upper limit of 55, lbs fully loaded was set.

For reference, comparable aircraft weights at the time were:. Still, the death spiral was on. By the time a Navy-funded Anti-Air Warfare study was completed in , fuel requirements for the FB to meet its original mission had climbed from 16, to 26, lbs, challenging the already short on thrust TFP-1 engines.

To rectify this situation, the engines were upgraded to the 12, lb dry thrust rated TFP engines. Unsatisfactory in the FAD role due to complexity and limited range, the FB also fell short of the mark for air superiority due to weight and maneuvering ability compared to the F-4 Phantom which it would be replacing.

Experience from Vietnam was beginning to feed in to the program as well where it was becoming apparent that assumptions made at the end of the last decade about air warfare were being overturned and would lead to the now famous Ault Report and creation of the Navy Fighter Weapons School, better known as Top Gun. The FB was a slug, requiring over 6 minutes to accelerate from.

Turn rates were similarly poor. The Navy was increasingly growing unhappy and was vocal about it. Two of the prototypes crashed — one off Long Island in July and another off the southern California coast in Sept All was not lost though as a replacement was warming up off stage via the VFX-1 study….

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