God love you, whyilovetexas111! Hope you’re feeling great again soon.
Looks like an F-22 mated with a French Mirage. Pretty good looking kid.
Northorp is the Socialist Dept. of Bombers.
Boeing is the Socialist Dept. of Cargo Planes.
Can't have any real competition in our "free market" system.
Chemo is no fun. I agree. It sucked big time. I am interested in the next generation war. Missiles trucks Aka F15, targeting drones and F22+F35. It will be interesting. Who will we fight. Aliens. UFOs?
“The late, great Sean Connery...”
Holy crap, I didn’t know he was dead! And almost 2 years!
Well that sucks.
Sounds just like the competition between the F16 and the YF17 back in the day. My dad was a fighter pilot flying Phantoms at the time and intensely interested in the competition.
Our systems were on the YF-23, but the YF-22 was chosen, so … layoffs!
I did get to sit in one of the two displays of the YF-23. The one I saw was in Torrance, California. Very cool and a nice-looking plane.
What is interesting is that the YF-22 versus YF-23 contest (Fifth Generation - G5) was in 1991 which means that they both were the best of late 1980s technology. From my civilian seat, to me it looks like the choice of the ‘22 was that it was a better all-around successor to the F-15 (G4), whereas the ‘23 was more specialized towards the Soviet Union (SU) aircraft. Given that the fly-off was as the SU was breaking up, that threat axis was not as urgent.
What is significant now is that it is 30 years on, and while there has been the F-35 Multi-role (A/B & C) developed, it is not a designed match to the latest developments in potential adversaries from China & Russia. So there looks to be a repeat of this competition to, at the very least, see what a G6 fighter (Next Generation Air Dominance) would do in the flesh. Also to be noted in this space is that Boeing is making some noise with upgrades to the 1970s F-15. It will NEVER be stealthy but it is still an impressive platform! AND there is the need to see what can be done by G6 RP (Remotely Piloted) platforms.
Just for funzies, for those who remember the Clint Eastwood 1982 movie, ‘Firefox’. I never liked the ‘mental control’ over the weapons that was the trick of that jet. Think how much better it would have been if that was redirected to flying the jet while the hands and active mind did the weapons!
This is about the umpty-4th time this year this subject has been posted.
Don’t forget the X-32 — X-35 battle
LMT's retired generals had more mojo than NOC's retired generals. Oh well.
NOC got the B-2 stealth bomber, and they're developing the B-21 next gen stealth bomber.
They also built the Webb space telescope, which is looking like a huge success. It's a whole new generation of orbital observation platform, and you can rest assured it's only one in a series of copies, most of which will not be known about publicly.
God bless, hope you are past all the pain points.
To the article: Both planes were amazing. I do like the F23 more in terms of range and ceiling, and... frankly... the looks of it. :)
I worked in the SPO for the ATF, and I felt the YF-23 was the sexier and stealthier plane. However, Northrop had been rewarded the B-2 contract, so to spread the money around, the YF-22 was selected. F-22 was more agile but not as stealthy as the YF-23. In the end, either one would have been the best fighter on the planet, hands down.
The biggest problem with the YF-23 was the choice of engines for the evaluation flights. Northrup seemed to be wedded to GE at the hip for the test flights, and the engines caused several problems with flame outs, unexpected engine problems mid flight, and just plain old not enough juice compared to the PW. Lockheed flew F22’s with both engines, but the power available and thrust vectoring in the F22 with PW5000’s was not matched by GE. The YF23 was stealthier, but no thrust vectoring and the poor performance by the engine/airframe combination selected for the flight, performance and weapons testing cost Northrup the contract.
Yeah, in ten years the prom queen divorces the "winner," takes his house and his kids and three-quarters of his after-tax income.
My understanding is that military contracts get awarded as to whether Who is the President. If the President is a Democrat the aircraft manufacture or most of the components most come from a Blue State and be giving tons of money to the Democrat party, if the President is a Republican the aircraft manufacture most come from a Red state and be giving tons of money to the Republican party. I’ve also heard that full bird colonels that become Generals become Generals because they more or less become politicians. This might be all an exaggeration but I think it is closer to the truth then many people want to admit.
Most Clickbait is as informative as 19FortyFive.