likewise..i just love there candid expressions and honest explanations.

YF-22/YF-120 combo was the hottest one of them all. Look at the graph they showed with all the stats at 36:10.

She wouldn't look out of place 50 years from now. The YF-23 programme could be reactivated any time. My favourite fighter i have a scale model i'm building of it.

+Gareth Wilkin I suspect that political shenanigans were afoot.👿

outside the box Oh yes.

It seems like the same reason why the f-14 was taken out of service. Number one reason was probably money(which can be fixed by a good economy), but deeper it seems like there is a distaste for airframes with engines far apart, even though the f-14 proved many advantages to a large airframe with engines far apart. The larger airframe provides extra lift at at high angle of attack at slower speeds.

It was a bad time for Northrop when it came to it's relationship with the US government because they had just been caught lying to Congress about the cost of the B-2. Also, the YF-22 launched live weapons from it before the decision was made and the YF-23 never launched any munitions from it at all. Also, the ATF was a competition where Congress wanted an air superiority fighter no matter the cost. Northrop made cutting the cost of the YF-23 one of their major selling points when they did not need to. Northrop showed that their plane was really good and so did Lockheed. The difference is that Lockheed did more int heir testing than Northrop did and if you are trying to sell to someone that doesn't trust you then you show them every detail of what your product can do. I am not saying that the YF-22 was better or worse. I honestly don't know and nor does anyone else on here because Northrop never tested it with live munitions so while it is an amazing aircraft in every respect that it was tested for Lockheed had more data and more tests done on their air frame then Northrop did and that is too bad because they did have a fabulous design. To me it is too bad because the engineers worked hard to make a great design but when it cam to pushing the YF-23 to it's limit as an air superiority fighter Northrop did not do that.

Yes, of course.

Blueprints is just a manner of speaking. AutoCAD, FASTRAN, whatever is being used these days. Probably AutoCAD, plus custom aero and finite element simulation.

+jvburnes there are report they did but a number of these aircraft. There is a picture of one of these at a secret base in England.

Isn't that what happened to the F-16 and f-18. Both won on sales to the government in the end.

YF-16 was changed into the F-16FSD when the USAF added 8,000lb to it so it could have radar, ECM, databus, and other avionics. Made it longer, larger wings, heavier, less performance for maneuverability, but more weapons systems and electronics. YF-17 was canned, even though the LWF program managers thought the YF-17 had it in the bag. After they returned from Groom Lake for HAVE Doughnut evaluation, all the pilots said the YF-16 was easier to reverse in when defensive, was harder to see WVR, and had better visibility from the cockpit.

Congress would love that fiscal argument. I agree it would have been great to have them, one as a deep penetrator/interceptor, the other as strictly air dominance, because they're using the F-22A to do JDAM missions now in Syria. The costs of keeping 2 lines open and funded would have been substantial from a defense budget perspective, and I don't think the USAF would be willing to sacrifice other programs to foot that bill when they could have one plane do the mission.

Seems fiscally sound. 🤥

No proof the YF-23 had better technology.

Paul Metz says they never went past Mach 1.85 in this video, and the graph at 36:10 shows the relevant max speed, altitude, flight number, flight hours figures. A YF-22 test pilot, Tom Morgenfeld, said he took YF-22 PAV-2 to max climb rate, max altitude, and max speed over mach 2 in one flight, and that the GE YF120 motors turned the YF-22 into a different airplane compared to PAV-1 with Pratt & Whitney motors. The YF-119 rated 30,000lb of thrust in AB, whereas the YF120 rated 35,000lb. When the YF119 was selected, it was uprated for 35,000lb for the F-22A in the F119-PW-100. The YF-23 inlet boundary layer control system couldn't mitigate the inlet flow at higher supersonic speeds, and was one of the main things they were going to change on the F-23A production proposal, along with reducing the volume of engine nacelles since the thrust-reverser requirement was dropped. The YF-22/YF120 was faster and more maneuverable with better climb rate than any of the 4 prototypes. Production F-22s are Mach 2+ capable, and they used those kinematics in the initial F-22 tactics development exercises out around Nellis, to include supersonic closure rates against fleeing F-15Cs that were traveling Mach 1+. If you ever look at how the transonic region is managed, they don't hang around at Mach 1 due to the waveform drag, so Mach 1.2 or more is where they prefer to be. Gives you an idea of what the Raptor can actually do. Test pilots said they were bearing down on the fleeing Eagles with over Mach 1 of closure, which is just insane.

In the documentary from the western museum of flight, one of the engineers who worked on the design says he believes the YF23 was able to reach at least mach 3.2

Maybe the reason they did not choose the YF-23 is because the Air Force was just looking for the 5th Generation fighter but the YF-23 is a 6th Generation fighter.

Gerry Crisostomo Negative ghost rider.

It doesn't seem to have all the panels and "masking tape " that cover the F-22 and F-35 , making them look tatty in my opinion . Lovely plane , hope the Japanese can get something from it ? Wales UK.

using both would've been cool

In an interview an engineer from Northrup says the blackwidow II would've been at least mach 3.2 capable.

Certainly better looking! It looks like a 21st century P-38

Engine exhaust is kinda funky.. looks more like something you'd expect from a bomber. The Raptor looks leaner and more like a fighter - the name is fitting. In general I see the YF-23 as a high-speed interceptor, I think we all know based on how he stumbled through the thrust vectoring question that it was a significant limitation for the design. By his own admission in the beginning he mentioned that WVR dog-fighting capabilities were important to the design. Who cares if "they both met the requirements" - if all is equal, what's the first thing they'll start looking at? Who exceeded the requirements. Saying the YF-23 can achieve the same 60deg AOA is pointless if it can only do it at a min airspeed, then remain a sitting duck with no directional control as its' airspeed drops. 60 deg AOA is completely different with TV - you can kick into it and either maintain position (both planes had higher than 1:1 thrust ratio) or kick back out of it. Watch the Raptor demos - they achieve high AOA, but remain completely controllable. It's kinda laughable that he states the YF-23 could "also achieve 60deg AOA" as the aircraft would essentially be uncontrollable afterwards, even with those massive control surfaces (relatively speaking, the raptor actually had larger control surfaces as it had both horiz/vert all-moving tails.) This situation is replicated by the Mirage "F-22 kill" where they violated multiple ROI and the F-22 wasn't even in the fight anymore. In order to get the claimed gun shot (while the F-22 was no longer maneuvering) the Mirage pilot dumps all airspeed and stalls the plane multiple times in a "snap shot" which wouldn't result in a kill anyways. Like the YF-23, this leaves the Mirage with zero energy to recover without trading altitude (regardless of a

I agree. The 22 was an air superiority fighter and the 23 was more of an interceptor. But then again it doesn't matter how powerful an aircraft's engines are they must still perform as desired and when the GE engines were having the problems that they had int he air to air refueling then that isn't exactly a great selling point. Also, in a presentation that Paul Metz gave on the 22 he did say that there was a reason for Lockheed to fire that missile and that it was not just for selling. They did it because when you are launching a missile from an internal weapons bay where the hot exhaust of the missile will go into the intake then the aircraft must be able to breathe in that hot exhaust without stalling and that is why Lockheed did that. They did that to say we can fire the rocket not problem at all and Northrop was like lets put the inlets directly behind the missile and then not demonstrate that our aircraft can take that hot exhaust. Now, that was not a requirement but when Lockheed showed that to the DoD they explained to them why it was a big deal. I did not like that part of this presentation because it makes it look like the DoD is run by a bunch of idiots who have no clue what this nation really need but the engineers at Northrop they really know. And on that note... I once saw a meme on Facebook that said that sometimes a mechanic's worst nightmare is an engineer. My father in law was a mechanic on the Nimitz and worked on the F-14 and F-18 and pretty much every Navy aircraft at the time of the 80s. After he was in the Navy, he then worked for Northwest airlines. He had a 21 year career working on jet aircraft. I showed that meme I saw on Facebook to him and he laughed and replied that it was totally true. I have had conversations with him about what aircraft he worked on and he said that the F-14 was terrible to work on. I think that we all know that the F-14 was an engineer's dream. But it was terrible from his perspective. He said that nothing on it was simple and no repair was simple and sometimes the same job on the F-14 would take three times longer than on other aircraft. So while engineers loved that aircraft and it was fantastic in the air the fact that it took that long to fix anything means that it was not a combat effective aircraft.

@@EstorilEm The correct decision was made. In any event a very well put together video.

It only got chosed course of stealth...the 22...they're both amazing

Well you probably didn't see that because what Northrop says that the YF-23 could do and what it actually did were two different things. It is not to say that the YF-23 was not a great plane. It was. It is just that Northrop promised the world with the YF-23 and it couldn't deliver. Lockheed was very up front about the capabilities of the YF-22 and while the YF-23 was a great plane Northrop was not up front with the Pentagon and the Pentagon went with the YF-22. Testing showed that the designs of both aircraft were fabulous but Lockheed was up front from the start and Northrop was not.

I heard they were in talks

YF-23 didn't need TV with the size of the rear wings/tails. The YF-22 had many advantages over the YF-23, including speed, maneuverability, more weapons count internally, demonstrated weapons separation already, and better visibility for the pilot. Frontal aspect RCS on both of the RCS demonstrators was good. There were compromises with each, with a more conventional boundary layer splitter plate for the YF-22, and the YF-23's serpentine arrangement with Boundary Layer Control matrices that didn't allow it to reach speeds the YF-22 did. Both met the requirements, but there were a lot of things the YF-22 did that made it the better choice at the time, despite how much sexier the YF-23 looks.

PAK-FA uses Saturn AL41F motor derivatives of what's in the Su-35, still trying to play catch-up to the US 1980s Improved Performance Engine program for the F-16 and F-15E, while suffering failures that we solved in that era. In the MAKS 2011 air demo, they had a massive flame-out on take-off, and quickly aborted. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/iNWIpKplmrrMiXU.html

Then the Marines and our level 1 partner the UK would have no jets.

There wasn't a fly-off. Watch the video.

That was my first thought

Mach 2.3 in reality.

In the documentarys a testpilot Said Mach 3.

Nico Montinola Reports said they were offered a hybrid F22/35 design or the YF23. Either would be game changing for that entire region. 💪 presence for 🇨🇳 🇷🇺 🇰🇵 🇮🇷 🇸🇾.

It has a lot of wing and a lot of power, with pretty sleek leading edges and only 2 sets of wings/stabs, versus 3, which helps with drag. The spread intakes are probably the most draggy aspects of the bird, aside from the wings, but they blend in rather well. It's a combination of exceptional beauty when looking at all the other requirements for the ATF.

Interceptor type speed vs Air superiority agility

Nicholas Trueblood F22 are not being built. Production run has completed.

F-22 tooling was not destroyed.

Fábio Beautiful plane.

The tactician has to win over the aerodynamicist, and the YF-23 and even F-23A proposal with an additional weapons bay did not carry as many missiles as the YF-22 and F-22A. The YF-22 also exceeded Mach 2, something the YF-23 did not due to inlet design issues, not because of the airframe. Tom Morgenfeld said the YF-22 with the GE engine had so much excess thrust, it was a totally different feeling airplane than the YF-22 with the Pratt engine, but the GE engine variable cycle stages weren't up to snuff for reliability.

I agree. This will become a fighter-bomber that can sneak in or even fight it's way to the target, very much like the F-15E Strike Eagle.

This will be exported since the F-22 can’t. 💰 💰 💴 💵

+hckyplyr9285 My theory is that the overall shape reduced its signature to a bare minimum, but at certain angles, you'd see a spike on the radar.

***** Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Once more, I'd expect Northrop Grumman to have coated some parts of the intake with radar absorbent material to further reduce the effect of radar bouncing off of the turbofan.

+OmegaEGGY Actually may have been a bit of an error on my part. The EMD design did feature bumps in the intakes - kind of like the Boeing X-32 - which were intended to help shield the fan blade faces. But the best resource on the net for the YF-23 (yf-23.net/F-23A.html) says no, they would have been exposed. See the first pic. But I know nothing of the person who did the simulation. Could just be some dude on the internet, could be an expert.

+hckyplyr9285 And thanks for the response, I get what you're saying. I have no idea how significant such visibility, if it existed, would be. Anyone know how close the production F-22A is to the EMD proposal Lockheed made? I have read that the Air Force insisted on a boat load of changes that drove weight up and may have compromised performance a fair amount. The YF-22 was supposedly capable of a range of 800 nm including a certain amount of supercruise, whereas F-22A is given as having only 410 nm range w/supercruise. Supposedly this was due to loss of fuel fraction in EMD?

hckyplyr9285 Ah yes, I forgot about the F-23A. You are correct, those radar blockers should be able to reduce the visibility of the fan blades.

Very insightful and very plausible.

No it was not. On paper it was but when it actually flew it was not. As the speaker said, they used a lot of parts from other planes, such as landing gear from the F-18. That means that they were using parts not designed for that aircraft. Every bit and piece built for the YF-22 was designed specifically for it so it performed exactly as they said that it would. Yes the YF-23 was a great design but it messed up because Northrop told the Pentagon that whatever the YF-22 could do the YF-23 could do it better and then come to find out it was not what was advertised and the YF-22 was exactly what was advertised. Lockheed did not promise as much as Northrop did but Lockheed delivered on all of it's promises. Northrop promised more than Lockheed did but it could not deliver on all of them and that was not a good reflection on the YF-23 program if it could not deliver all of Northrop's promises.

The YF-22 was more than sufficient, as was the YF-23. They met or exceeded the program expectations, which were tactical fighters that could out-maneuver the Su-27 and MiG-29, while being able to operate in a high radar threat environment, super-cruise, internal weapons storage, thrust:weight greater than 1:1, advanced avionics, AESA radar, advanced cockpit, thrust vectoring, DFLCS fused with DEEC, etc. The F-22 ended up having a smaller RCS than the F-117, and excellent maneuverability, while still being able to super-cruise at 1.6 Mach.

Exactly. I think that the DoD made the right choice with the 22 but the 23 was an excellent aircraft as well.

F-23 can't do STOVL and can't land on a carrier. Fail.

IDK I want to say they gave up on fighters and moved onto just building Aircraft Carriers and Laser weapons. The new Aircraft carrier series is there model. Fingers crossed on a 9th Enterprise, the 6-8 were very honorable ships, well... The 6th one was freaking lucky lol. It was fairing cargo between two ships, lost a lot of shells that fell into the ocean, and somehow that ordinance drifted into enemy territory and killed a Cruiser or Battleship. First time a dinky boat that was around the size of a landing ship killed a cruiser or battleship XD

They got the b21 too. Lockheed was not happy about it!

The F-35 served two purposes. Tech development and bankrupting our competitors that are trying to keep up.

+XaHyMaH The Sr71a had chines and canted vertical control surfaces inward (not 90 degree ,Straight up) this meant it was the 1st generation of stealth aircraft.

***** You're wrong. Read more about IR telesopes.

+XaHyMaH Actually, the SR-71 had a completely different form of stealth. It wasn't the heat that made gave it away, but rather the massive amounts of turbulence. Radar guided missiles detonate upon entering this turbulence a mile or two behind the aircraft, so in a sense the turbulence functioned as sort of continuous counter measure in order to hide the SR-71 which itself had a low radar signature for the time, therefore making it a generation 1 stealth aircraft. Also, anything with an IR guided missiles would not be able to get in close enough to the SR-71 for a missile shot.

The SR-71 was not stealth compared to the F-22 but the F-117 Nighthawk wasn't either. I saw an interview with a designer of the SR-71 and he said that it was designed to be stealthy enough that the enemy could not see it until it was too late to lock onto it enough to shoot it down and it did that very successfully.

For it’s time it was the best thing available. I’m sure in 100 or 50 years we will look at the F-22 and say that’s not real stealth, it’s all relative.

Midwest UTV Nah... as they mention, you can’t fly stealth airplanes at “max” without the paint falling off.