YF23 all but forgotten about?

[33Vortex]

Anyone know specifically by how much the supercruise of YF23 outperformed the YF22 and how that compares to production model F22s? I know, it's not specific performance figures publicly known but do anyone in the community have an idea? I read somewhere that NASA had a YF23 flying for a while to research supercruise abilities but have no idea if that's true or not. I'm also curious why the YF23 did not win the contract. What's the scoop?

[LCADolby]

No idea about supercruise, but, I read that the Black Widow II was unable to match the computer technology, firepower, maneuverablility and cost of the F22. While the YF23 was only a little faster and slightly stealthier.

[icepac]

The yf22 won because they did not attempt to meet a part of the original spec. concerning a certain functionality  very early on and concentrated on everything else while the yf23 guys struggled with trying to stay with the original requirements.

There sure are a lot of foreign next generation demonstrators that look a lot like the yf23.

[curry1]

The yf-23s performance was better than the yf-22s.  But the F-22 beats the yf-23 in every way including stealth and super cruise.

[TOMCAT21]

Politics, like everything else. That is why we half the crap we do not because it's necessarily better but because of politics.  My family has been in the defense industry for over 60 years and I have seen it.

[icepac]

Understand that, my family as well.

My granddad wrote the original procurement proceedures after WWII and sometimes a congressman or senator brings it out of the archives and quotes from it to make a point how far we've strayed from it.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=18301

Notice that he's holding that skillcraft government issue pen upside down in the pic.

He had a very subtle sense of humor.

[F22RaptorDude]

I heard about this before when reading stats online about the F22, Never forgot about it, always in the back of my head.... but you all know me, F22 all the way right? 

[33Vortex]

Ok, so nothing substantial or conclusive then. However I found this nice drawing looking for YF23 pictures.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/YF-23%204%20View.gif

[mbailey]

Understand that, my family as well.

My granddad wrote the original procurement proceedures after WWII and sometimes a congressman or senator brings it out of the archives and quotes from it to make a point how far we've strayed from it.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/photographs/view.php?id=18301

Notice that he's holding that skillcraft government issue pen upside down in the pic.

He had a very subtle sense of humor.

'
Thats really cool icepac  

[Heater]

The major factor was maintainace cost and political I Know some one that was in the Program office

[Babalonian]

Something tells me the data isn't readily available, and if it is to someone in our community then they probabley can't divulge it.  I would be very curious to see a detailed comparison with some performance data on the YF-22, YF-23 and F-22 someday, I suspect like others that the F-22 is mostly an updated YF-22 that incorporated desireable aspects of the YF-23 program.

[Shuffler]

Anyone know specifically by how much the supercruise of YF23 outperformed the YF22 and how that compares to production model F22s? I know, it's not specific performance figures publicly known but do anyone in the community have an idea? I read somewhere that NASA had a YF23 flying for a while to research supercruise abilities but have no idea if that's true or not. I'm also curious why the YF23 did not win the contract. What's the scoop?

The YF-23 was faster, lighter, and probably stealthier than the YF-22 but lacked thrust vectoring. In fly off demonstrations the YF-22 with F 119 engines was able to show a wider flight envelope and so won out.

The YF-22s, now F/A 22, big selling point was Supercruise. Supercruise was actually possible with some earlier aircraft... B-58 Hustler, EE Lightning. and Su-15 "Flagon". The F/A 22 is the first to be designed with it from the start.