“Because we can’t wait for 20 year acquisition cycle to get something other than the F-35, we have to make do and try to make smart choices on its internal and external configurations.”
A new and better air superiority fighter can be designed, manufactured, and deployed into combat duties within 18 to 36 months if it was made an emergency top priority order with sufficient funding, and the task can be done within 5 years given the correct funding and specialization for its mission. It is only a matter of will and financing.
Yes, and their are tons of old farts that used to be in the biz that would dust off their skills to comeback and this this the old college try. IMHO a single engine version of the YF-23 with as many off the shelf components as possible would fit the bill. And while we are at it, Classify it and run it under the same 13 rules that Lockheed used to design and manufacture the F117A. Keep Congress and the freakin' Senate out of it, heck we designed the P-51 in 100 days, we can do it again....
FWIW their are some videos about the YF-23 that are interviews the test pilots and get into design attributes that were probably under raps that they now can talk about. The V Tails are huge and I never realized they never did "High Alpha" testing or firing a weapon off the rail and Lockheed did. Given the characteristics of their Delta wing ( which are good at High Alpha ) and the huge tails, their is not doubt in my mind the YF-23 probably would rock a lot of worlds even without thrust vectoring. All that glitz may have won it for them vs. Northrup.
You dig deeper listen to the interviews of those on the program ( or more ) you get a sense that they were robbed.
While we are at it my wish list would be we never destroy tooling going forward and store them in the bone yard as well even if we have to build buildings to store them.
Programs like the A-10, we have the plans redo them in CAD and make new tooling in CAM for replacement parts, this is do-able....