2014/09/01

So depressing

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The Scorpion prototype (Textron AirLand)

Q: How long did it take to develop the Scorpion?

[Bill Anderson, President of Textron AirLand]: Starting from a clean sheet design on 9 January 2011 to the first flight took 23 months. I literally started with an empty building, nine people and a white board. On the commercial side, time is money. If it had taken ten years to build, then it would have cost you $40m. It took us less than two years and you can buy it for $20m. The airplane uses high but mature technology.

He didn't even mention how much taxpayer money would have been milked from software development and production preparation AFTER the prototype was assembled.

S O
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1 comment:

  1. I am not really sure if there's just one side to blame for all this wasted money in development.
    Of course Companies are trying to "milk" as much as possible, but it is made way too easy for them by the constantly changing/evolving/increasing "requirements" the armed forces "need".

    Just take the 'Scorpion' as a baseline requirement, and there are a lot of things one could think of as being demanded in a "normal" program. ["Geez, it would be nice to have a radar.", "Wouldn't it be great if could be a little faster?"]
    And suddenly, even without too much milking, we're looking at three more development years and double unit cost. And then somebody decides to buy F-16s instead ;)

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