Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

IF the maneuverability of the F-23 would potentially cause an issue vs some future enemy, they could simply upgrade the MAWS to EODAS standard just like LM has proposed for the F-22. It is a non-issue.

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What's this about a "much larger" bay? Last time I checked, it could do 4 AMRAAMs, and F-22 does 6. If I had been an Air Force officer making the decisions back then, that would have been a pretty big factor to me, and I'll bet it was to them too. The thing's job was supposed to be to shoot down lots of other planes. Even with 6+2, F-22s right now have to end heavily outnumbered engagements just due to running out of weapons when they could still keep fighting otherwise. Anyway, regardless of size, YF-23's bay depended on a specialized new mechanism that could, if one missile got stuck, end up blocking others behind it, and it wasn't ready to go yet anyway.

YF-22 fired both AMRAAM and Sidewinder. Another thing it did which YF-23 didn't was fly at 60° angle of attack. YF-22 also flew almost 50% more hours & flights, and that was after entering the competition a month behind.

YF-23 got to Mach 1.6 without afterburners; YF-22 got to 1.58. That's about a 15-MPH difference. You can't seriously tell me that was decisive. With afterburners, it's 2.2 and "2.2+" (projected; both tested up to 1. Cool

, so a pretty similar difference there too.

On the maneuverability issue, YF-22's advantage was not just the thrust vectoring but also the greater control surfaces. And the key was not just that it was more maneuverable, but when & where the difference in maneuverability was widest: at high altitudes and speeds, which is when & where a plane that depends on control surfaces loses maneuverability. They had similar speeds & ceilings, but YF-22 could make better use of them.

How was the removal of the hourglass a case of PC?

I got a kick out of the hourglass.
They definitely had the bay doors working on the YF-23, I just don't know that they ever installed the launchers in the bays. The actual volume of the bay was smaller than the total YF-22 3-bay volume, but being all in one place may have meant more of the volume was usable -- they had a three layer stacking layout that would have stacked 9 AMRAAMs in the F-23's single bay (with an under-cockpit bay for the AIM-9s). Of course, there was some question of how well that would work.

IIRC, I have this DVD in my collection. It is probably still on sale. Sorry for the cold water.
http://yf-23.net/publication.html#DVD

The F-23's bay was deeper than the F-22's. This would allow it to hold munitions in the 2k class no problem.

Have a look at this thread (and this post specifically) for an idea of the size of the bay.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/i ... l#msg14222

As far as the number of missiles of the F-22 vs F-23, remember that the YF-22 held only 4 AIM-120A/Bs (due to their larger fins) and only got 6 when the C went into production.

Scorpion1alpha wrote:

Just another example that made the USAF more confident in the YF-22 when it can demonstrate something so early during the fly off period back then. What was even more impressive was that weapon separation / firing wasn't even a requirement during that time.

You're right it wasn't...and therefore could not be taken into account when deciding which team to go with.

delvo wrote:

What's this about a "much larger" bay? Last time I checked, it could do 4 AMRAAMs, and F-22 does 6. If I had been an Air Force officer making the decisions back then, that would have been a pretty big factor to me, and I'll bet it was to them too. The thing's job was supposed to be to shoot down lots of other planes. Even with 6+2, F-22s right now have to end heavily outnumbered engagements just due to running out of weapons when they could still keep fighting otherwise. Anyway, regardless of size, YF-23's bay depended on a specialized new mechanism that could, if one missile got stuck, end up blocking others behind it, and it wasn't ready to go yet anyway.

Last time you checked? During the competition AIM-120C's didn't exist yet...so BOTH teams would have been limited to four. Northrop was meeting ALL of the DEM/VAL performance measures perfectly. Although I didn't quote you, the publicly released information on speed was nowhere near what the -23 was doing. It was a lot faster.

SpudmanWP wrote:

IF the maneuverability of the F-23 would potentially cause an issue vs some future enemy, they could simply upgrade the MAWS to EODAS standard just like LM has proposed for the F-22. It is a non-issue.

Sorry, not in the F-35 "no need for manuverability" camp. I'm in the F-22 "point the nose anywhere at any speed" camp. Very Happy

I say have every advantage you can- sensors, speed, and the agility of an acrobat. And the F-22 was the better compromise of the two, which is why it won.

Although it must have been a much harder decision than the JSF X-32/X-35 choice...

firstimpulse wrote:

Sorry, not in the F-35 "no need for manuverability" camp.

The F-35 is plenty maneuverable...we're talking about the YF-23.

Ya, with all the claims about F-35 supposedly being a disaster, imagine how much worse it would be if they'd picked a JSF that looked like an F-16 had swallowed a bus. Very Happy

So faster and stealthier, are there any guestimates on which was the more expensive (theoretically) of the two? Could that have been a factor?

I would say the F-32 was perceived to be more expensive for two reasons:
1. They were having cost control issues on the B-2 program
2. Anytime you introduce complex shaping , like the multi-bump (pod-like) body layout of the F-23, cost goes up.

The Phantom and the Apache are examples of ugly looking awesome. The F-32 is just...funny. I really think it would have basically been even more of a stealthy A-7 than the F-35C is now.

SpudmanWP wrote:

I would say the F-32 was perceived to be more expensive for two reasons:
1. They were having cost control issues on the B-2 program
2. Anytime you introduce complex shaping , like the multi-bump (pod-like) body layout of the F-23, cost goes up.

Agreed with point 1.

On point 2, Northrop's F-23A EMD blueprints that were revealed on secret projects showed that the finalized design would tend a bit more towards a "single body" design like the F-15 and F-16 than the "3 body" design that the F-14 and YF-23 sported.

In any case, the shaping really is indicative of the RCS computational software Northrop had as opposed to Lockheed. It truly is interesting to wonder how much of a stark contrast there must have been in the CFD and CEM coding utilized between the two companies when designing their contestants.

Back about 22 years ago, I really truly believed that the -23 was just too good to let it die. I thought that I'd see the YF-16 versus YF-17 scenario play out again, and the USN would pick up the -23 the way it did with the -17. But I guess the Super Hornet is a better plane to have replaced the Tomcats. . . . Who knew they'd wait over 20 years later than the USAF to develop a stealth fighter, which while good isn't as good as either ATF concepts.

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

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