What if:F-17 Cobra entered service

KonTim

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Let's say that YF-17 won the competition of USAF for a new light fighter and has entered service.Which would be its avionics?Its evolution pattern?In which countries would be exported to?Could anyone imagine?
 
I would suggest all those nations that bought the F/A-18 would be contenders for the F-17. RAAF. RCAF, Switzerland, Finland. You might see the F-16 challenged for the NATO airforces. It would all depend on whether or not it would have a BVR Missile capability and an adequate radar.

F18L%20users_zpsqfl9tirh.jpg
 
Wow. Awesome picture, really. Where did you found that ?

I can see the Netherland buying that bird, and maybe belgium wouldfollow. With Spain and Finland and Switzerland, that's five European countries buying the F-17. It would be the smallest twin jet mach 2 class fighter in the world.
In turn,this might influence early Typhoon story: by 1977 when the TKF-90 was being reviewed, the German government benchmark was the F-18L - they wanted the smallest, lightest and cheapest mach 2 class fighter. There, the even smaller F-17 would be considered. Maybe Germany would buy it to replace the Phantoms, strangling the Typhoon in infancy.
France is not possible unless Marcel Dassault in run over by a bus, although the Rafale is essential a next generation take at the F-17 - smallest airframe to cut cost to the bone, albeit it was not entirely successful on that matter ;)
Mind you, a French pilot went to Edwards in 1975 and flight tested the YF-17 prototype, and loved it. There are photos of a YF-17 with a tricolour tail and French roundels somewhere.

http://www.ffaa.net/projects/hornet/hornet_fr.htm

http://www.ffaa.net/projects/hornet/images/hornet-0008.jpg
 
Archibald said:
France is not possible unless Marcel Dassault in run over by a bus, although the Rafale is essential a next generation take at the F-17 - smallest airframe to cut cost to the bone, albeit it was not entirely successful on that matter ;)
Mind you, a French pilot went to Edwards in 1975 and flight tested the YF-17 prototype, and loved it. There are photos of a YF-17 with a tricolour tail and French roundels somewhere.

http://www.ffaa.net/projects/hornet/images/hornet-0008.jpg
Thanks. I knew a "French Air Force" F-15 (tested around 1975 too before the ordering of the Mirage 2000), but I did not know this "French Navy" YF-17.
 
What Ever Aircraft win in the LWF Program ( YF-16 or YF-17 )
Its needed by NATO to replace the aging and "problematic" F-104G series and Other Aircraft

But there is little Catch to it
is Northrop willing to move there F-17 production to Europe ?
See General Dynamic made deals with Belgium, Netherlands not only sell them F-16, but to build them also there
(next to that is Belgium corruption, what Northrop has to face)

Let assume Northrop insist on production remain there Plant in USA
here you got realistic chance that Belgium and Netherlands goes for another Manufacture who offer to build at costumer,
Dassault-Breguet's proposed Mirage F1M-53 offers that feature...

Other Buyers
Do it characteristic the F-17 Cobra could buy by Air-force who not wanted the F-16.
one is Italy, another could be German Airforce, last one would have budget issue...
 
I think it would have been just as successful within the NATO LWF partners as the F-16 was. The extra running costs of having two engines would have been offset by the fact that the major airforces still perferred two engines for increased safety. I am pretty confident the Luftwaffe would have gone with the F-17, they were very interested in the F-18L. The RAF was looking more for an attack type with the ability to mix it with MiGs over Germany. I'm not sure the F-17s sensors and weapons fit were quite suited for that, but if it had evolved a more F/A-18 level of swing-role then it might have been a compelling choice for Whitehall to save some cash to funnel into the Tornado GR and F programmes.
 
Deltafan said:
Archibald said:
France is not possible unless Marcel Dassault in run over by a bus, although the Rafale is essential a next generation take at the F-17 - smallest airframe to cut cost to the bone, albeit it was not entirely successful on that matter ;)
Mind you, a French pilot went to Edwards in 1975 and flight tested the YF-17 prototype, and loved it. There are photos of a YF-17 with a tricolour tail and French roundels somewhere.

http://www.ffaa.net/projects/hornet/images/hornet-0008.jpg
Thanks. I knew a "French Air Force" F-15 (tested around 1975 too before the ordering of the Mirage 2000), but I did not know this "French Navy" YF-17.

The entire website is very good. A valuable source on the French aeronavale and its projects and cancelled aircrafts.
 
now i found this on Forum about Northrop P-530 / P-600 / P-610 / YF-17 Design Evolution
https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,448.msg273280.html#msg273280

in Short
Northrop Corp. had send delegation to Europe for Northrop 530 advanced tactical fighter project. (that became F-17 Cobra)
they talked with European aircraft manufacturers in Great Britain, Italy, Germany. Holland and Belgium.
Seems they wanted to let other build F-17 Cobra in Europe.

So is my assumption, that Belgium and Netherlands goes for another Manufacture who offer to build at costumer,
Not more accurate, they would buy the F-17 Cobra and build them.
 
Australia definitely would have purchased it, since they helped define the mission requirements of the YF-17 for Northrop. I think West Germany may have as well, as they wanted a twin engine aircraft and many of the Dornier early TKF-90 studies looked like a version of the YF-17.
 
I was slightly wrong. What the French pilot tested was a F-17 / F-18L hybrid (wings and engines from the former) and it happened in 1978.
 
The radar been selected for F-17 would be the APG-65 of the Hornet or of some other type?Do we have some info on this?

Also i think that Shah Iran would be a possible buyer for the aircraft.
 
Hughes were proposing the "Atlas" radar for the P.530 (ancestor of APG-65), Westinghouse a WX series radar (an ancestor of APG-66).
 
Rockwell International X-band radar (left) proposed for Northrop P-530 fighter has mechanical scanning antenna with lightweight planar array and multiple pillbox feed for 180-deg. azimuth field of view. The 220-lb. radar, shown in model form, will generate 4-kw peak power output. It will have air-to-air intercept mode plus ground-map, ground-range and moving target detection and tracking capability.

Planar array antenna (right), visible in mockup of Hughes Aircraft P-530 radar entry, can swing full +-90 deg. The radar uses company-designed large-scale microcircuits, each located in a 2.2-in.-dia., 120-lead package. Two of these packages could constitute entire arithmetic/control section for 16,000 word memory processor.

Lightweight radar, being developed by Hughes Aircraft for possible application to Northrop P-530 fighter, would be rail-mounted in aircraft's nose to facilitate maintenance access. Hughes’ Bob De Haven removes processor module after sliding radar out and separating quick-disconnect connectors in demonstration.

The Hughes Atlas radar for the P-530 is aimed at a compact installation to fit the Cobra nose and easy access to line replaceable units to facilitate maintenance.
The X-band radar occupies 3.9 cu. ft., weighs about 200lb., and uses a vertically polarized 23-in.-dia. flat plate antenna with 33 db. gain. The antenna can scan a full 90 deg. in azimuth to either side of the aircraft center-line and 165 deg. in elevation. It has a low pulse repetition frequency of 0.8 to 4 kc. and a medium PRF of 8 to 17 kc. Average power output is 260 w. while prime power requirement is 3.56 kw. Peak power output is 4.5 kw. at 20% duty cycle. Like its two competitors, the Hughes radar also boasts of an MTBF (mean-time-before-failure) of at least 150 hr. Per unit radar price in quantities of about 400 will be less than $200,000, according to the company.

The multimode radar will provide ground-map and navigation functions as well as air-to-ground ranging and air-to-air intercept modes. In normal wide-angle search patterns, the Atlas radar can detect a 5-sq.-meter airborne target at 30 mi. in the look-up mode. In the narrow search mode the detection range will be 39 mi. In looking down at targets against ground clutter, it can detect in medium PRF the same target at 16 mi. The radar can acquire and track a target in the lookdown mode, Hughes says, regardless of the aircraft’s attitude, altitude or speed.

In air-to-ground ranging, the pilot can designate a ground target by putting his headup-displayed radar cursor over a selected target. The radar will track the target automatically and supply range and angle data to the aircraft’s weapon delivery computer. For dogfighting, the antenna scans about the boresight and the headup display comes on after the pilot depresses a single switch. The radar then searches and acquires targets automatically.

The radar proposed by Rockwell’s Missile Systems Div. for the P-530 will radiate 4 kw. peak power and 160 w. average. The 212 lb. sensor requires 1.75 kw. of prime power. It takes less than 12 minutes mean-time-to-repair. The Rockwell radar has a planar array antenna with a multiple pillbox feed. Antenna field of View is +-90 deg. in azimuth and +-60 deg. in elevation. Beam width is 2.8 deg. in azimuth, 3.3 deg. in elevation. In the air-to-air mode, the radar has a 20 naut. mi. look-up range using coherent Doppler, 10 mi. when operating on a frequency agility feature. In clutter conditions, coherent Doppler range is reduced to 16 naut. mi. In air-to-ground mode, the radar provides ground-map, ground range and moving-target detection and tracking. Range for ground ranging at 70 to 10 deg. depression angles is 10 naut. mi. Moving target range is 10 naut. mi., assuming a 20-sq.-meter target traveling at speeds in excess of 5 naut. mi./hr.

Westinghouse’s entry in the P-530 derby is a 225 lb. version of its WX family of airborne radars (AW&ST Aug. 28, 1972, p. 54). The pulse Doppler radar occupies 4.23 cu. ft. It has an average power output of 200 w. The radar detection range on a 2-sq. meter target with 85% probability is 20 mi. in pulse Doppler. Conventional pulse ranging permits the figure to be stretched for targets not in clutter. The radar has frequency agility on a pulse-to-pulse basis in the conventional pulse mode.
Westinghouse uses a Cassegrain antenna with a subreflector located in the aircraft’s nose. The subreflector reflects radiated energy back against the radar’s
flat plate antenna so that energy will be reflected at twice the angle of the flat plate. Switching the polarization of the subreflector permits it to become transparent to the re-radiated energy.
 

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Turbo-Union were pushing for RB.199 engines for P.530 in 1974. Its possible a European-built F-17 would have had RB.199 engines.
 
Note that the APG-65 and APG-66 are both larger (and more capable) than the P.530 radars. You could argue either would win out on the F-17.
 
I imagine the USAF would be sandbagging the project pretty hard, as iirc it was the F-16's contest to lose and something catastrophic would have had to go wrong with GD's effort or major political interference to occur for Northrop to win:
  • If the USN jumps on board with it for the NACF... a larger, Sparrow capable F-18L sized Cobra would be a competent swing fighter and a major threat to the F-14/F-15/Tornado in the post-Vietnam budget era. And you thought a carrier full of Hornets was bad...
  • Or maybe the USAF keeps it a simple and light as possible, AIM-9s, guns, and dumb bombs with a smart computer.
  • USN might be spiteful and pick Voughtheed's F-16 ;D Which could be successful, leading to export sales that under cut the Cobra or it could tank leading to a stronger Tomcat production run.
  • In all the chaos and skullduggery maybe Lockheed can sneak the CL-1200 into production (Italy, Netherland, Taiwan, F-106 replacement) and manage to get a decent run if Carter bans Cobra exports like he did to the F-16.
  • PW misses out on a lot of business with GE/RR getting the Cobra contract, would they have the funds to go for the PW1120? No Super Phantom or Lavi...
  • Boeing still proposes Phantom upgrades, better luck this time? Still a good idea, especially with the PW1120, but still on the outside looking in. Guard possibly picks advanced F-4 variant instead of YA-7F strike fighter or Cobra all weather fighter (LANTIRN still late and underwhelming in this timeline)
  • Congress throws Fort Worth a bone by extending out F-111 production. FB-111H, B-1 never resurrected?
  • AIM-95 probably still gets cancelled. :(
 
Northrop pulled out all the political stops on this one, concentrating on the high unemployment rate in California (Northrop) and Massachusetts (GE) compared to Texas. The archives are littered with various California / Massachusetts politicians weighing in with suspiciously identical letters on the subject, plus their supposedly greater foreign sales potential and better Navy compatibility.

The main reason it didn't win was that the specification was essentially written by John Boyd in consultation with Harry Hillaker at General Dynamics based on ongoing work they'd done together. GD then designed a new fighter almost perfectly matched to the specification.

Northrop decided to adapt the Cobra design they'd been working on for ages rather than start from scratch. It ended up with a reasonable fit to the specification, but not as good as GD.

The way to get the YF-17 built would be to posit that e.g. John Boyd was sent to Alaska for yelling at somebody or imprisoned for illegally colluding with contractors (not too much of a stretch) and the LWF specification was weighted towards things the YF-17 was better at e.g. high alpha capability at low speed.

Otherwise if the SecDef had forced the Airforce (and European nations) to wait until the Navy evaluations were complete, and was more concerned with commonality, YF-17 might have won based on "highest commonality across ACF and NACF" or similar.
 
In my alternate history where the Space Shuttle is cancelled late 1971, Nixon realize to his horror that he shot his aerospace industry for the second time in six months, after Boeing SST was canned too. Meanwhile Lockheed is agonizing and has to be granted a loan by the U.S government (heresy ! shame !)
So he request the National Academies for a major assessment of High Speed Research. X-15, XB-70, lifting bodies, build a pair of SST prototypes, subscale Shuttle models, Lockheed A-12 family and D-21 drone. And also, Lockheed NF-104 Aerospace Trainer (last flight in June 1971).
The Academies goes the low cost way and push for subscale Orbiters and brand new NF-104, called NF-120. They have a Mirage F1 low tail (on the exhaust) and a larger wing, correcting the F-104 deadly flaws.
Lockheed jump on that and blend the NF-120 with the CL-1200. NASA pays for a trio of NF-120. Lockheed then re-enter the deal of the Century through Italy, swapping the last F-104S for F-120s. Turkey is also quite interested.
With Italy backing, Lockheed then plays havoc with the Deal of the Century. Norway and Denmark fall for a rebuild of their F-104G into F-120 (which is mostly a ploy from Lockheed, but hey, those are the days before the bribery scandal erupts, in 1976 !)
Leaving The Netherlands and Belgium alone.
The Netherlands goes for the F-17, then for Northrop F-18L, or a hybrid of the two. Spain quickly follows, and Switzerland.
Belgium goes the F1M53 way, which will have plenty of interesting side effects.

Just day dreaming...
 
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