Re: Slow today
"how enormous trans-national organisations could take decades to design a fighter aircraft, and Saab create the Viggen on a shoestring."
Hmmm, it isn't that plain simple. Couple of loosely scattered points:
- Viggen didn't fall from the skies like Dannebrog. Saab had decades of previous experience for designing planes. Preceeding J-35 Draken was already a successful fighter, good enough for exports into neighbouring countries. Bizarre looks for an extra bonus.
- Viggen had a rather unique airframe, but engines and lots of other innards were bought in.
- In 60's and 70's development cycles weren't that long. Around 5 years for simpler projects, ten for complex ones. Several fighter designs came out every year. But somewhere along the way, for a multitude of reasons, the pace started to slow down. Now it's decades as you say.
- Smaller companies often have their advantages. Less inertia, less bureaucracy & politics, smaller communication overheads. All these tend to grow exponentially with size. If the stars align, people are enlightened, and common project management pitfalls can be avoided, then wonderful things may happen. Isolated team within a bigger company may also work well. Like Lockheed Skunkworks.