Have anyone seen it? Showed the exclusive footages of how the recent war of JSF was won! What pieces of engineering marvels! Also very interesting to see the different "personalities" of the two competing teams, Phantom Works with more a cool "reserved" attitude and Skunk Works with "in-your-face" arrogance! I was all choked up by the end of the show ! You know, many of us bash the American engineering in automobiles. But when it comes to aerospace engineering, I'll be the first one to wave the American flag!

 

i watched that, it was a cool show. I really like watching NOVA.

 

I saw it too! That was very cool and, while I thought the Boeing was neat in that they took a really different approach, I have to say that it was one UGLY plane. Amazing stuff, though that special "fan" on the Lockheed is going to be a tough thing to maintain.

As far as aerospace, sure, you all (Americans) have some great engineers, but us Canadians have some pretty sharp guns over here as well (I've worked for one company that puts Boeing to shame in terms of engineering efficiency and equals it in engineering prowess...as a Boeing top dog put it himself).

You do have the money though, that's for sure - $1B EACH to two companys (well, okay, $1.1B to Lockheed as they went over budget)?!?! That's a lot of moulah!

 

Couldn't stop watching that. That was awesome.

JonBoy, which company is that?

 

In the end, I thought they made the decision pre-maturely. I didn't think either of the planes proved itself. Sure, the Lockheed plane was able to go from supersonic flight to vertical landing, but I am not sure how reliable that vertical fan will be in the long run. Also in order for it to go vertical, a thousand little things must move/open/close... I just don't think it was a very reliable design. I think given a little more time, the Boeing team can work out some of the problems they were having. Just my 2 c/ worth.

 

F-22 please.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by integrate
[B]Couldn't stop watching that.

 

That show was very very interesting! It came on at 2 a.m., just when I was going to go to sleep, and I ended up watching the whole thing. I had to get up for work at 7
I didn't know it was 2 hours long.
After each respective teams planes first got airborne, and they were all teary eyed and cheering, my wife says "oh look, happy nerds!"
I thought the Lockheed Martin team deserved the win. They didn't have to take off certain body parts to make it pass the different tests. And let's face it, the LM JSF looked much better. The original Boeing design looked like a pregnant guppy.

 

Now, now be nice to the "Nerds" cuz I'm supposed to be one of them too ! Did you see the signs that the Boeing engineers held when they were on strike? It went something like, "NO NERDS, NO JSF!"

Yeah, in the end, Skunk guys WON, becacuse the Boeing plane FAILED the air-born-refueling, its hot gas injestion issue in vertical mode, the need for it to be "trimmed" to go supersonic and maybe slightly worse radar signature. Talk about close race!

But Boeing is supposely few steps ahead of Lockheed in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. It's going to be another interesting competion should they go head to head again!

 

I had two friends that worked for Boeing, they both got canned right after they lost the contract. A slumping airline market didn't help either.

Sam