Back in 2000, the mostvaluable fighter fly-offs in modern times took place between the Boeing X-32 and Lockheed X-35, as Gerard Keijsper explains. IT DOES NOT seem so long ago, but it is almost 30 years since the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a Request for Proposals for the Advanced Short Take Off and Vertical Landing (ASTOVL) aircraft technology demonstration program in 1992. The aim was to build a supersonic STOVL fighter with an empty weight of 24,000lb, similar to the F/A-18C Hornet, to keep the weight and cost in check. Financial constraints. The USMC was having trouble getting political support for the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, with then-US Vice President Dick Cheney one of its fiercest critics, and they could not afford to fund another high-profile program on their own. USAF Brig Gen George Muellner, then Deputy Chief of Staff for Requirements at Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base (AFB), received a presentation from Lockheed/DARPA about a replacement for the F-16, but with more range. This was the kind of range the USAF craved, even if it didn't have the funding to mount another project, owing to the cost of the F-22A Raptor.
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