YF-23 Black Widow II video.

[Shadow]

The design was well ahead of its time and it's a shame that politics, like with the Tigershark, was what killed this plane. I think that the YF-23 was a more practical design for today's world than the YF-22. It was faster, stealthier and judging by the design, could carry a greater payload of weapons, or atleast more conveniently hold them. Separate compartments had to be made to accommodate Sidewinders for the YF-22. Thrust vectoring is nice but I don't see it being practical given the current aerial combat tactics used now. It seems like more roles could have been filled with the YF-23s design. As someone pointed out, they were even looking towards it to potentially fulfill a bomber role. A stealth replacement for the F-15E possibly?

[David Hingtgen]

A production F-23A would have had a separate Sidewinder bay right in front of the AMRAAM bay---though it would have been 1 bay that held 2 missiles, rather than the F-22's "1 missile per bay" setup.

[Old_Nash]

It's sad to see a Great Fighter to rust in the desert...

He was convicted for being the best.

[Max Jenius]

It amazes me the amount of engineering that went into this & other projects. It's a segment of our society that I wouldn't even know how to begin to enter. The laboratories, the computers... awe inspiring. I can only imagine what is going on under our noses at this very moment.

[Bowen]

A production F-23A would have had a separate Sidewinder bay right in front of the AMRAAM bay---though it would have been 1 bay that held 2 missiles, rather than the F-22's "1 missile per bay" setup.

I wonder how the trapeze-racks for the AMRAAMs would've worked out

If something jams there you'd be down 2 usable missiles instead of just 1

[Shadow]

I'm still surprised by the weight gain between the YF-22 and the F-22A. I have to wonder how much more a production F-23A would have weighed by comparison. Also, I know they said it was agile, not as much as the Lightning II but it sounded like the YF-23 could easily out turn an F-15 by the way they were describing it in the video.

[Knight26]

Mx on the YF-23 was no more intensive then other stealth jets at the time, and would have only improved. The B-2 has always been a maintenance pig, but improvements made in the last few years have halved the Mx time. The YF and F-22 are still Mx pigs in a lot of ways, in large part because of all the Mx stations shoved into the internal bays instead of having their own access hatches. A friend of mine is an engine maintainer and dreads pulling F-22 engines because of the fact that you have to cut into the jet to do it then reseal the cut afterwards. The F-35 on the other hand learned a lot from the B-2 program and so a lot of those Mx issues have been lessened.

Talking to the NGC engineers I work with here, a lot of the Mx issues seen on YF-23 were to be addressed in the production bird, especially the engine tiles, which were the biggest Mx pig.

Edited April 19, 2012 by Knight26

[raptormesh]

I'm still surprised by the weight gain between the YF-22 and the F-22A. I have to wonder how much more a production F-23A would have weighed by comparison. Also, I know they said it was agile, not as much as the Lightning II but it sounded like the YF-23 could easily out turn an F-15 by the way they were describing it in the video.

I got the impression that it's quite agile in the supersonic flight envelopes.

[David Hingtgen]

A production F-23 would have had a smaller rear fuselage around the engines, due to not needing room for thrust reversers---so it would actually have weighed less there. (the YF-23 didn't have reversers either, but the change was late enough that the rear fuselage was still designed to have room for them)