Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Rockwell XFV-12; The VTOL Fighter That Couldn’t" video.

The Navy was never going to accept a subsonic aircraft as a fighter, regardless of the Sea Harrier's performance in the Falklands. When Mach 2 is listed as one of the requirements, the Harrier and its side nozzles are removed from consideration.
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It certainly should've been, yes. As the video points out, it was quite a blunder on Rockwell's part to never fly the XFV-12 as a STOVL aircraft. Particularly given that decades of Harrier operations have shown that VTOL is more gimmick than useful capability for a warplane, while STOVL (still allowing operation off a short deck but allowing far more fuel and weapons to be carried) is insanely valuable.
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@FinsburyPhil I seriously don't understand why nobody with STOVL carries is using an "EV-22 Osprey" for AEW. Hanging your radar under a helicopter seems like it should've only been a stopgap until tilt-rotors were available, but instead it's remained to this day the go-to solution for any carrier that can't launch an E-2 Hawkeye. It makes no sense. An Osprey has better endurance and can fly higher than a Merlin, both such obvious advantages for the AEW role.
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The Convair 200 seems like it was by far the more promising of the two designs, but for some reason the XFV-12 was the one that got a prototype built.
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@iiwhatisyouremailprivatenn2470 The Yak-141 uses a similar system that was developed independently. Lockheed Martin (which now owned all the Convair designs via their purchase of General Dynamics' Fort Worth division) licensed all the Yak-141 test data from Yakovlev, since the Yak-141 had actually been built and flown whereas the Convair 200 had not. Thus, the F-35B's nozzle isn't directly based on the Yak-141's, Lockheed Martin just used the Yak-141 to verify that the system would work they way they expected it to.
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@ohredhk Landing vertically seems like it'd be less challenging than taking off vertically. You don't actually need enough thrust to hover for that, just enough thrust to come down slowly.
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@EdNashsMilitaryMatters He basically cuts off his coverage at the missile era, with few exceptions.
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Even with the "don't buy foreign" bias that pervades US weapons procurement and is only rarely overcome, the Convair Model 200 (which unlike Rockwell's design didn't get a prototype ordered) seems like it would've been a more promising option. It's the origin of the swivel nozzle system on the F-35B, but with a separate auxiliary lift engine behind the cockpit like in the Yak-141. This has the obvious downside that the lift engine is dead weight when in horizontal flight, it has the significant benefit of actually working. Presuming that the engines would've actually produced the specified thrust (which admittedly has been the downfall of some previous aircraft), the Convair 200 should've been able to actually get off the ground and then fly at supersonic speed exactly as Zumwalt wanted. Convair was also proposing a Model 201 version that deletes the lift jets for use on regular CATOBAR carriers as a lightweight fighter. Though for that role, I think the Navy probably got a better outcome with the F/A-18, with its higher payload than the 201 would've been able to carry.
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