In article <us1g0c9jmqb1b3tf21g3bnl2lfl1uborbj@4ax.com>, J Three says...
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America's F-23 Stealth Fighter vs. the Lethal F-22 Raptor: Who Wins?
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/americas-f-23-stealth-fighter-vs-the-lethal-f-22-raptor-who-14461
In 1991, Lockheed won the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition and went
on to develop the stealthy world beating F-22 Raptor air superiority fighter.
U.S. Air Force chose the Lockheed aircraft because it believed that company
Raptor would cost less.
At the time, Northrop was in the doghouse with the Pentagon and the U.S.
Congress because of massive cost overruns on the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber and
the ATF, but I can only assume that there was some long-overdue consideration of
Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) told the LA Times years ago.
But what would an operational F-23 have looked like? And what if General
Even in 1991, in terms of raw performance, the General Electric-powered YF-23
was acknowledged to have been the best performer even compared to its Pratt &
Whitney YF119-powered twin. The YF-23 had much better supersonic cruise
performance, stealth and was only slightly less maneuverable at extremely low
airspeeds.
YF-23 could do it without thrust vectoring. Those V-tails were very powerful
an advantage at very, very low airspeeds but neither company had enough time to
investigate dynamic low speed, high AOA maneuvering. This was a good example of
how a competition needs to consider the PR value of flight test events. Lockheed
understood this and did high AOA and shot missiles and pulled 9Gs. All single
The source added that in some ways, it might have cost Northrop the Advanced
selection.
But what would all of that have meant for an operational aircraft? In either
case, the U.S. Air Force would have received an outstanding air superiority
fighter that has no equal. But while the Lockheed Martin F-22 is bar none the
best air superiority fighter the United States has ever produced, an operational
F-23 might have offered an even greater performance margin over potential
adversaries than the Raptor currently does.
The final operational version of the F-23 would have offered much better range
YF120. That would have come in handy over the Pacific. It would also have been
possibly more so at different speeds and altitudes.
Both the Raptor and a fully operational F-23 would have carried eight air-to-air
competitors had proposed similar avionics suites. In fact, the Raptor ended up
with the radar that was originally proposed for the YF-23.
both the YF-22 and YF-23 were outstanding designs. Had Northrop won the
competition, the F-23 might have been a better overall performer, but it would
have likely been more expensive. With the F-23, the Air Force would have a
greater margin of superiority over potential threats like the Chinese J-20 or
the Russian PAK-FA. But would that have been worth the price differential? Hard
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