Northrop / McDonnell Douglas ATF - YF-23 and EMD F-23

Woody said:
elmayerle said:
Well, if you go about 60% of the way down the page, he's got some excellent pictures of the JIST F-16 inlet.

Thanks Elmayerle/Matej,
For some reason the pictures don't load on that page of Mataj's site when I use Firefox (maybe they don't for other people either). I just tried Explorer and it works fine.
I've seen this F-16 before but the smaller images of the inlet disassembled are very revealing as they don't appear to show any suction device for boundary layer removal though there is an interesting recess right at the front of the 'hump' which is covered when assembled. Do you know what this is for? The images in-flight look potentially retouched just around the intake area to this photochopper's eye, maybe to hide that secret bit?. And that chin spike is for aerodynamics only you say.
Thanks once again, Woody

There isn't a suction device to clear the boundary layer. The bump and inlet are designed to divert it from the inlet without diverter plate or any other device. This is one way in which the F-35's RCS in reduced.
 
Regarding F-23A 'revolutionary launcher' I must say that Lantinian was first independent researcher that discovered this Northrop's launcher patent several years ago (he looked through several thousands of them). After appearing Google patents, search became more easier, but one can hardly imagine any correspondence between Northrop patent title and its subject.

More, regarding probable F-23A weapons load - guys, you are to stop. Fighter just DOESN'T NEED so much weapons. I'm serious.
 
Citation from famed Ed Rasimus
"Weapon bays on the original mockup held both Sidewinders and AMRAAMs with no problem--4 and 4 IIRC."
Interseting, I never thought that -23 mockup was ever built...
 
Many thaks to Flaterick to pointing out my patent research thing. I would not have said it myself.

Still elmayerle had a very good in Reply #21 . YF-23 design allowed not only aft and fore movement of the Bays but also increase in depth. There are no engines or airducs on top of the bay, only fuel and minor systems..

Looking at the F-23A as an aircraft designer I would say: yes its longer but since when lengthening the airplane is more risky than making it shorter, because the F-22A is indeed shorter and thinner in its middle section where you have weapons, fuel, air intakes, gun magazine. Packing the same stuff in less space is more riskier to me. Also lets not forget that F-22A had completely redesigned main weapons bay doors.

Now if we recall some of the problems the F-22 design went trough.

1. Overheating rear fuselage in Supercruise. Compare the rear of YF-22 and F-22A.How thinner it is on the production model. The F-23 with widely spaced engine blocks would not have had the problem of overheating.

2. Shockwaves in the Engine inlets requiring a strengthen forward fuselage after Raptor 01. No wonder, the air intakes on the A model are obviously shorted than the prototype. The F-23A has inlets way more optimized to handle supersonic airflow and the adoption of the concept by the F-35 only proves it.

3. F-22 was always criticized by not being able to carry big bombs. The latest FB-22 proposal features bulged up main weapon doors so it can house the 2000lb JDAM, yet the fuselage is the same is used with no lengthening to reduce cost. The YF-23 had a deeper bay and would have no problem fitting the 2000lb JDAM.

4. The 1994 redesign due to signature problem, costing probably a year delay in the F-22 program. Looking at the F-22A and you ca see it borrowed a lot of the Black Widow features: he shape of the nose, the way the aircraft brakes, the probes measuring AoA on the side of the radome, the minimum number of edges every panel, the topside of the engines, the clipping of the all moving tails. Yet the F-23A design features stealth/performance blending from the next level, like the inlet cone design.

5. Weight. The inability for the F-22 design to meet it weigh target is attributed to the failure of its designers to meat their goal of 50% Composites in the Airframe(2 as well). From the news article flaterick send me it is clear that the F-22A proposal in material is similar to the YF-23 design (one step behind). Also the F-23A featues not only 50% composits but BMI termosets account for a higher percentage out of that than the same BMI termoset do out of the total composits used on the F-22A, which are only 24%.(Flight International March 1997)

To me the F-23A would have had easier time meeting its weight target. As far as risk goes the change between Lockheeds 1985 winning design and the YF-22 tells me all I need to know about confidence in concept and the ability of USAF to choose their aeroplane based on their flying qualities. Same with the Rockwell F-X submition looking so much like SU-27. I hope the PAKFA does not turn out the be looking like the YF-23. I am going to be massively upset with defense secretary Rice, who chose the F-22

Regards, to all

P.S. I hope you are all enjoyng this discusion as much as I am ;)
 

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The main reason given for the redesign of the nose (cockpit/intake) area of the F-22 was due to the poor downward visibility from the cockpit of the YF-22. Therefore the intakes were shortened and the cockpit was moved forward. It also helped make the F-22 pretty good looking as opposed to the YF-22s butt ugly look.

Of course, apparently they didn't learn that lesson, because the same request was made when going from the X-35 to the F-35. They moved the cockpit forward and moved the inlets back for better visibility from the cockpit.

As for moving the intake apex on the F-35 from the middle of the side to the waterline/upper shoulder point, I am guessing they did that due to vortices off of the apex going into the inlet due to sideslip at moderate alpha. By putting it at the top corner, the vortices shed there now go over the aircraft (I hope). But I'm just guessing on that point. Whatever the reason it does look better.
 
The F-35 was lengthened before and after the cockpit for a simple reason, they/we needed the volume to install all the systems a fully combat-capable derivative of the X-35 would need (and it's still a tight fit to get everything in - think of putting on a pair of pants that -just- still fits). To the best of my knowledge, the inlets of the F-35 are fairly similiar, if not indentical, to those of the X-35.

Oh, and as to dorsal inlets, they can be made to work at high-AOA, but it takes some very careful tailoring of the forebody and LERX to set up the proper conditions. Northrop demonstrated this in testing back in the late 1970s that was written up in the AIAA Journal of Aircraft. Interestingly enough, after a few of these papers had appeared, none further did; this was at the time when Low Observables was becoming recognized as an area of design criteria in its own right. I rather imagine that the implications of this technique sank in and further testing was classified. I do know that one of Northrop's proposed YF-23 configurations took advantage of this to mount dorsal inlets over a double-delta wing.
 
I would love to see that submission, with the dorsal inlets. Although it makes sense that Northrop has alot of experience with them, just look at all of the early ATF northrop concepts when it was still just a strike fighter with the dorsal inlets and their VATOL design with dorsal inlets.
 
I don't have a copy of it and I seriously doubt there's one floating around as only the few folk who worked on that concept kept the illustrations; I just happened to work with two of them on another classified program.
 
One of the reasons US don't like canards besides stealth are:
1. Very high trim drag. In supersonic flight the CG moves forward plasing more weight on the canards. They have less surface and to generate the nessesary lift have to turn at an grater angle. This creates more trim drag

2.Canards Stall before the wing, hence if your wing stalls you have no canards to help you out. I don’t think we will ever see the Euro canards performing cobras without Trust vector control for this exact same reason.

The CG moves forward???????

the Canards stall before the wing?????

Any sources please.
 
Overscan, please transfer this to the 'Scale Modelling, Fan Art & Profiles' area or 'The Bar' or otherwise do with it as you see fit.

lantinian said:
So in short: IMHO you have created an aircraft with a very limited maneuvering flight envelope

Thanks Lantinian for the pointers, and mean that. I won't go on too much about my fantasy plane here as it detracts from the serious (if paradoxical) discussion of the real fictional plane, but, from my limited knowledge, I'll try and explain my reasoning:-

1. It was a quick drawing only as an exercise in illustration style and entertainment, as neither F-22 or YF-23 are not my favourite planes (first excuse).
2. The weapons bay is supposed to be wide and flat (its a fair comment) like the F-22s but bigger, and I probably would have moved further back to the C of G if I'd spent more time, but its still further back than on the real YF-23.
3. Like-wise I would have made the expansion of area under the intakes more gradual in depth to help area rule (see my previous retraction Reply #22) and as the intakes are hollow they wouldn't contribute so much and need not be too heavy.
4. Saying canards cause turbulence or reduce control can be applied to any canard plane (MIG 1.44?).
5. As for control power distance from the C of G: (see answer #2 and) remember I added heavy thrust vectoring nozzles at the back. And the moving canards are pushed along in front of the centre of rotation (which is probably a lot further back than you think) so probably still have (and for many other reasons) more power that equivalent trailing tail surfaces.
6. The intakes are on the top side as a bit of a laugh at the expense of some of the entries in the 'Re: Northrop pre-ATF and ATF studies" thread (Sorry guys), which as I already said (see my previous retraction Reply #22) I think is a bad idea.
7. Your reasons why canards are no good: trim drag is down to C of G verses C of lift (isn't it C of lift that moves backwards not C of G that moves forward ;D) and can be altered by weight distribution at the point of design. And cobra's are for airshows. All of which is addressed in the 'Cunards' thread.
8. Your friend's design is quite reasonable but is really not much of a change, as the wing position, tail and volume are unaltered. I do worry that the canards would impede the pilots view and perhaps fowl the air intakes. They are too far inboard to serve as close coupled slats for the wing though they might act as LEXs. They would however add weight and not add as much lift as my canard/widened body combination (IMHO).
Thanks again Lantinian; this is the sort of discussion I love and I look forward to your reply.

Cheers as ever, Woody
 
Unconfirmed rumour I've heard that while Northrop didn't dig too hard into NATF-23 proposal, one of the carrier desk -23 variant was a canard ...with just 15% commonality with AF version.
 
flateric said:
Unconfirmed rumour I've heard that while Northrop didn't dig too hard into NATF-23 proposal, one of the carrier desk -23 variant was a canard ...with just 15% commonality with AF version.

Going by the one model I saw, that's a fairly accurate rumor. IMHO, the carrier version definitely was lacking in aesthetic appeal.
 
Needless to be an Einstein to make an parallel with later MDD-BAe ASTOVL/JAST GCLF concept to imagine overall shape of NATF-23.
While being known -23 nut, I can hardly, hardly, hardly imagine this sleak low sitter making 5G controlled high alpha crash with a hook extended on a carrier desk.

I wonder ..how much will we wait to see Northrop's ATF history in details... ca. 2015? I know that after Boeing-McDonnell 'merge' Northrop, many court actions were made to prevent leaks of information MDC got during teamwork on -23. Not the last point was technical documentation of the project. And in this case FOIA requests will do nothing to closely held while being dusty commercial secrets.
 

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Going by the one model I saw, that's a fairly accurate rumor. IMHO, the carrier version definitely was lacking in aesthetic appeal.

That's the first I've heard of this, but this makes sense of what one of my friends said to me. AFter we graduated he went to work at Navair on the NATF and he talked about how "ugly" the NETF from Northrop was. When the ATF prototypes rolled out, I thought he must be high, because the YF-23 was so much better looking than the YF-22.

Now, upon hearing this, I realize he may not have been high. ;D
 
Sundog said:
Going by the one model I saw, that's a fairly accurate rumor. IMHO, the carrier version definitely was lacking in aesthetic appeal.

That's the first I've heard of this, but this makes sense of what one of my friends said to me. AFter we graduated he went to work at Navair on the NATF and he talked about how "ugly" the NETF from Northrop was. When the ATF prototypes rolled out, I thought he must be high, because the YF-23 was so much better looking than the YF-22.

Now, upon hearing this, I realize he may not have been high.

Trust me, he wasn't consuming psycho-active substances; the NATF-23 design I saw was nowhere near as attractive as the YF-23. If memory serves me correctly, the main commonality between the two was in systems and equipment fit and the forward fuselage.
 
Just to wrap up some thing up nefore internet service provider crashes again :D. Sorry guys if some of this posts stays of the topic.

the Canards stall before the wing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(flight)Check at the end just before Spoilers. My reasoning is that because canard stal before the wing you never want your wing to stall unless you have a tail control as well. Hence the SU-47 design with canards and tails. ::)

The CG moves forward?
My Mistake :-[. Its the Center of Lift that moves forward in supersonic flight. Basically the CG and the CL for a canard design should be swapped. My CG estimation was based on the main landing wheel position and book says CL it approximately 1/3 down the wing chord.

However if we do indeed decide on the CG based on the top view, Woody would be right: the CG will be farther back, behind the wheel and the aircraft will fell on its tail! :eek:

If we correct the wheel position we still have the CL in front of the CG. In supersonic flight the canards will need to generate negative lift to keep the nose down. You have loss of lift in cruise flight and bonus lift in maneuvering. Unstable canards designs are not a good choice for long range fighters IMHO as a result of that.

Something else for Woody.
http://www.desktopaero.com/appliedaero/configuration/canardprocon.html
If you note on of the disadvantages of canards is that the center of grafity of the fuel end up behind the CG of the Aircraft. Your design does not seam to do so :-\. I am still thinking on the implications of that ???

I would have made the expansion of area under the intakes more gradual in depth to help area rule
I still think having side by site weapons bays in the same line as the canards is a too big and increase in area ;). I would stick with the tandem weapons bay arrangement if I was you ;). its more aerodynamic.
Second, in the middle of the weapons bay you have a drop in the area :( as the canards are gone and the forward fuselage starts to blend with the wing.

Saying canards cause turbulence or reduce control can be applied to any canard plane (MIG 1.44?)
Its the way you do it that doesn't feel right. All other canards planes have the canards set higher that the wing. IMHO to promote vortices on top of the wing. The MiG 1.44 has 2 vertical tails and has dogtooth edge on the canards to direct the vortex inward of the tails. Your canard design, IMHO will disrupt the wing lift and the vertical tails. :mad:

If I would want to improve on the F-23 design I would not stray away from the concept (Northrop Formula) but rather go deeper into it: Example: Pelican tail, Aeroplastic wing, FB-23 type of exhausts (like the first post by Matej) with possibility of TVC sideways and up only. e.t.c ::)

Regards
lantinian
 
Hello and thank you for your answers.

the Canards stall before the wing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stall_(flight)Check at the end just before Spoilers. My reasoning is that because canard stal before the wing you never want your wing to stall unless you have a tail control as well. Hence the SU-47 design with canards and tails. ::)[//quote]
Well the problem with that is that is assumes the canards are at the same AOA than the wing wich is not the true especially on unstable plane that pitch by themselves.

The same applies for aft tails, except the aft tail can stall by being in the wake of wings. Yes i know tails are below the wings but Air masses flow goes downward especially at high AOA's.

I think then all is a matter of wing/Tail/canard interaction, and canards do not make bad controlls for low speed manoeuvrability at all.
Now do not forget we're talking about devices that make the plane move not (mainly) lift it.
That is the max AOA capabilities of Rafale and eurofighter Vs F-18 and F-22 for example come from their wings.
In the case of F-18 the straight wing+Lerx cleary helps, for the F-22 it is unclear if the TVC is necessary for the 60° AOA sustained or not since it is blended in the FBW at those AOAs.


The CG moves forward?
My Mistake :-[. Its the Center of Lift that moves forward in supersonic flight. Basically the CG and the CL for a canard design should be swapped. My CG estimation was based on the main landing wheel position and book says CL it approximately 1/3 down the wing chord.
[/quote]
I think this not correct, the CL moves AFT, wich has for consequence to make the plane more stable and in this case canards are very good for trim drag.
This is not a surprise that a non coupling canards plane like the typhoon has outstanding possibility in supersonic like sustaining more than 6G's at mach 1.5 or pull 9G's all over the transonic regime.
The position of canards make that the plane needs less canards AOA to trim and pitch the plane compared to a conventionnal aft tail.

Now what lockheed said about the position of the tail of F-22 was precisely becaue of that, as the CL moves aft they needed to pull the tail far aft of the plane to conserve a good leverage.


To finish; things not to confuse with:

Instability is a matter of WING (as she's the main contributor) CL position relative to CG.
If two plane had the same wing, one with the aft tail, the other with the canards, the canards one would be the unstable, but in real life, no plane has same wing, so no plane has same CL-CG repartition, so a plane can be unstable or stable be it an aft or canards plane.
(as said, the viggen is stable, the F-16C is stable too)

Canards/tails main action is leverage. they rotate the plane so when discussing capability it is important not to mix controls VS states (leverage vs lift).


While we can see some definite "specs" of some configuration in planes, some of them are quite surprising..the Drakken ability to pitch at high rate is clearly something we don't expect from a delta plane...however it can!


It is because all is matter of interaction between parts of the plane. Nowadays when you see a plane, it almost impossible even for a professionnal to say what is the use of this or that thing on the plane without seeing actual CFD or directly hearing this from the creators.

What do you think is the use of the Rafale's nose bump just below the cockpit? What is the use of the Raptor Boat like nose and forward fuselage section's shaping?
 
This might amuse. It is a scan from a product card I picked up at this week's Navy League show in DC. The name on the card is Lockheed Martin, but the design is clearly influenced by the YF-23.

The Low Cost Aerial Target was actually designed by a small California company called AeroMech, which was recently acquired by another company called xcelaero. It is a target drone - catapult-launched, jet-propelled and parachute-recovered. Not dimensions are given, but the photos show it is small enough to be carried by two people.

The LCAT is in use as a low radar-signature target. The idea of the design is to minimise the drone's natural radar cross-section as much as possible so that the radar signature can then be augmented artificially to mimic that of any target aircraft. The product card shows it being used as a target for an F-22-launched AMRAAM.

Clearly someone felt the YF-23's configuration was indeed the stealthiest solution...
 

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As Western Museum of Flight said, Northrop will not return PAV-2 to the WMOF...
 
So is Northrop-Grumman keeping it, doing with it what they will (which is not encouraging given their track record), or is it going to another museum?
 
Dunno, Evan, in your position I'd better ask you than you me:)...'restoration' said to be completed as far as on late summer 2005 - here some pics posted by ximeno at F-16.net
http://www.f-16.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=3010&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=yf23&start=75
What this restoration colud be - saving PAV-2 from uncertain future of WMOF that lost it's place in Hawthorne or adding plywood nose section for it to represent temporaly FB-23 RTA bird for showcase to AF generals (very sceptic of the last idea in era of CGI) - is still mystery for me.
 
elmayerle said:
So is Northrop-Grumman keeping it, doing with it what they will (which is not encouraging given their track record), or is it going to another museum?

I don't know, they might have something involving flight testing in mind, the restored jet appears to have an ejection seat in the cockpit. Just random speculation on my part, the jet looks no-BS fully restored.

Elmayerle, maybe you can shed some light on another YF-23 issue. Check out the following coordinates in Google Earth: lat 33.541418°, lon -106.210667° WTF is a YF-23 doing way out there north of White Sands?
 
This is highly detailed full-scale YF-23 RCS mockup, weighting 5 tonns and having all external panel lines and details. Was built by Northrop's so-called '705 Test Crew' (mock-up shop) and exstensively tested at Tejon Canyon RCS Test Range. On a photo you can see shelter that was rolled over the mockup on a rails during Soviet spy sattelite flyover the range.
Photo (c) Northrop Media Services via Ian Maddock
 

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There was a lot of "stuff" tested at the Tejon Canyon range; I know they did a good bit of TSSAM testing there.
 
That's where Northrop keeps PAV-2 now
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&t=k&q=United+States&ie=UTF8&ll=33.927569,-118.380416&spn=0.001645,0.002494&z=19&om=1
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=33.927738~-118.381026&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=7021100
 

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flateric said:
Citation from famed Ed Rasimus
"Weapon bays on the original mockup held both Sidewinders and AMRAAMs with no problem--4 and 4 IIRC."
Interseting, I never thought that -23 mockup was ever built...

It was built, in fact. Photo (c) Allen Rockwell (he worked for Northrop) - later author of several large powered YF-23 models (as a hobby).
 

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elmayerle said:
flateric said:
Unconfirmed rumour I've heard that while Northrop didn't dig too hard into NATF-23 proposal, one of the carrier desk -23 variant was a canard ...with just 15% commonality with AF version.

Going by the one model I saw, that's a fairly accurate rumor. IMHO, the carrier version definitely was lacking in aesthetic appeal.

From this exchange, I take it that Northrop didn't consider swing-wings like Lockheed did for the navalized F-22. Then again, it's hard for me to imagine the swing wings combined with the Pelikan tail.

Regarding the lack of NATF info, is this primarily because of government-imposed classification, or contractor-imposed secrecy towards proprietary info?

I can certainly understand why neither Lockheed nor Northrop put much effort into the NATF proposal. Everybody was too familiar with the limits of commonality from the TFX days, and it seemed like Congress was far more interested than the Navy in the NATF. Then again, the reciprocal agreement about evaluating the A-12 as a replacement for the F-111 had some merit. While the A-12 lacked speed, it relied on stealth for survivability. Then again, the Strike Eagle has proven itself in combat to be a more-than-adequate replacement for the 'Vark.
 
CFE said:
Regarding the lack of NATF info, is this primarily because of government-imposed classification, or contractor-imposed secrecy towards proprietary info?

Contractor(s) seems more likely from what I've heard. There was kind of litigation (OK, I'm not hard in law terms, and currently can't check e-mail from Northrop guy why was describing the case) that prevented both Northrop and MDC from releasing technical details of the ATF program. When was it - after team lost the competition, or before MDC was eaten by Boeing - I don't know.
 
YF-23 fill-scale RCS model at White Sands missile range
http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&q=33%C2%B031%2716.64%22N+106%C2%B011%2742.20%22W&z=18&ll=33.541654,-106.21074&spn=0.002057,0.005322&t=k&om=1
 

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Current state of YF-23 PAV-2 - parked outdoors inside NG Hawthorne facility after 2-year 're-surfacing' restoration.
Photos are from SoCal_CJ originally posted at www.f-16.net
 

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The most beautiful fighter ever designed ::)

Thanks for the pics
 
Here are a couple of observations on these F-23 topics, I'll try to do more later. First, regarding the NATF: Commonality between the AF version and the Navy version would be primarily in subsystems. Both Lockheed and Northrop planned to build the naval version on separate production lines since they would be so different. The naval versions of both would be two seaters as the Navy correctly understood how much more effective the two crew concept is. Lockheed's NATF would have been a variable sweep aircraft and in fact published artist's illustrations of it. Northrop reportedly was going to use a canard design with a revised main wing location. As for those who criticize maneuverability of canards, keep in mind that the Typhoon, Rafale and Gripen are canards and will outmaneuver any US fighter except Raptor, especially in the case of Typhoon.

Part of the reason why there wasn't that much work or interest on the part of the contractors can be laid to a statement made by AF around the time of the rollouts. Basically they said that the Navy would not be allowed to buy a version of the aircraft that was not selected for ATF. While this may seem to be a cost decision, keep in mind the above that the Navy and AF version were going to be built on separate production lines, anyway and what would primarily be common would be subsystems (including engines and fire control, although the Navy version would probably have been more capable). Possibly AF was wanting to avoid a repeat of the LWF situation, wherein the F/A-18A/B was noticeably more capable than the F-16 A/B (with the arrival of improved avionics in the Falcon C/D this gap was dramatically narrowed). Who knows, but this gave USN a lot of pause. They wanted much of the capabilities that AF was looking for but apparently thought that AF was concentrating too much on fighter abilities whereas they wanted a more versatile platform, given the fixed amount of deck space. It seemed that they might have thought the AF model would be "too much" fighter and not enough other stuff. And, the NATF was going to be Very expensive, so if they couldn't get a version optimized for their needs, maybe they shouldn't continue through. They probably also thought that an advanced Tomcat, combined with AIM-152 could give them "enough" fighter and they could concentrate their bucks on attack. (Dick Cheney's cancellation of the F-14D was totally unexpected). An F-23 NATF with its larger weapons capacity could accommodate AIM-152, whereas an F-22 NATF might not have been able to. Also, Navy was a strong believer in IR guided missiles, while AF was not (at one point, according to press reports, AF argued that AIM-9 capability was unnecessary and recommended that it be removed from production F-22s in the interest of cost. Even today, although F-22 can carry AIM-9X, there are no definite plans to install the hemet-moutned targeting system).

Given this, Navy was not too enthusiastic a proponent from that point on. The contractors saw the writing on the wall and wisely chose not to put an enormous amount of effort into the NATF. To no one's surprise Navy pulled out of NATF and Lockheed and Northrop's strategy turned out to be the right one.
 
One of the last ATF-23 ads from April, 1991 AWST
 

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flateric said:
CammNut said:
Having seen the YF-22 and YF-23 close up, I think it is clear why Lockheed won. The YF-22 was an aircraft, a true protoype of the F-22. The YF-23 was a plastic model of the aircraft that Northrop would have built had it won.
With all my circuits on YF-23, I can't disagree.

Your disagree because although YF-23 looks more green than YF-22 but also more potential. Is my guess right?
 
Woody said:
Thanks Elmayerle.

elmayerle said:
Having said that, a F-23 with inlets shaped like the JIST inlet would work nicely.

Do you have any images/diagrams/links of the JIST intake tests? (I can only find committee reports) It would be great to update my virtual aircraft catalog without the need for so may jaggies.

I'm still a fan of 'low speed maneuverability" if by which you mean dog-fight maneuverability after the merge.

Cheers, Woody

Hi, Could you teach me what is JIST inlet? Do you mean CARET inlet or you mean others?
BTW, if you can flight in supersonic, why you perfer fall in subsonic if the manuverability is same?
 

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