YF-22 vs YF-23

[zero-one]

But that's not what you said. " the longer and thus heavier" You're implying it would get heavier if it got longer.

I'm just really convinced it will.
The F-22 actually got shorter and still gained 10,000 lbs.
The F-23 getting longer and getting lighter or maintaining weight will be nothing short of an engineering miracle

[wrightwing]

Look at the SR-71 and it's T/W and speed. Look at the F-111 and its size and top speed.

F-23A would have certainly been less observable in IR spectrum than this. It was shielded on 3 sides and burried into the top of the airframe hiding a lot of the exhaust plumes as well.

You do realize that this FLIR mage was taken from ~1 mile or less, right. A WVR image of a jet in full afterburner is going to have a dramatic signature. A frontal image/side image from 100km, on the other hand, isn't going to be visible.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

The F-22 is not in afterburner. It's IR sig is still less than Typhoon or Flanker from the same range when they are not in Afterburner.

[zero-one]

Heres the B-2 in a close range IR shot, the YF-23 borrowed a lot of the same technology
Nothing is IR stealthy from extreme close range

[SpudmanWP]

Weapons: Here is one overlooked aspect of the program. the YF-23 only carried 5 missiles, (3 AMRAAMs and 2 Sidewinders) where as the YF-22 carried 8 missiles. the Production F-23 would have been lengthened to accommodate more, how this would affect range, speed and Stealth, I don't know. Using a magazine type weapons bay, once one missile jams under G load or something, then thats the end of that.

Just as the YF-22 had it's bay designed around the AIM-120B, so did the YF-23. It's "5 weapons" was based on the large-fin AIM-120B, not the clipped-fin AIM-120C3. While there is no way of knowing what the final production layout for the F-23 would have been, I'm sure it would have taken good advantage of the space savings from the clipped-fin AMRAAM just as the F-22 did.

One of my favorite concepts was the stacked AMRAAM idea. I completely bends the KISS principle over the table, but hey "go big or go home".

It's shown with AIM-120Bs so the C3 should have allowed for 3 of these packs, side by side, which would give you 9-12 AMRAAMs depending on height clearance.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

That's the same idea as what allows the B-2 to carry 80 500# JDAMs

[sferrin]

That's the same idea as what allows the B-2 to carry 80 500# JDAMs

B-1B is somewhat similar albeit it's racks can move a bit.

edit: Actually, never mind. Looks like each rack pivots out of the way as it drops it's bombs.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

go to the 1:00 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdzJWciha4A

[SpudmanWP]

I think the AMRAAM has to be "ejected" and cannot safely rely on gravity alone.

[sprstdlyscottsmn]

Absolutely! You need to be able to fire while inverted or negative G or rolling or ... I was only observing that the AMRAAM rack looks similar to the JDAM rack in the B-2.

[SpudmanWP]

Got it, that's what I figured.

[mixelflick]

But that's not what you said. " the longer and thus heavier" You're implying it would get heavier if it got longer.

I'm just really convinced it will.
The F-22 actually got shorter and still gained 10,000 lbs.
The F-23 getting longer and getting lighter or maintaining weight will be nothing short of an engineering miracle

How much weight did the thrust reversers add?

Because those were supposed to come off in the F-23A. Possible weight savings there. And internal fuel? That was reduced in the F-22, I assume the same would be true of the F-23A. I agree though that the additional weapons capacity, avionics and other goodies packed into a longer F-23A would probably have been heavier. Can't think of one fighter type aircraft not growing heavier with time..

[f119doctor]

How much weight did the thrust reversers add?

Neither the YF-23 nor the YF-22 had thrust reversers installed. The YF119 engine nozzle was designed to incorporate a thrust reverser that was similar to that used on the F-15 SMTD demonstrator, but the reverser doors / louvers and their associated actuators on the top and bottom of the nozzle structure were not installed. However, this design was significantly heavier and more complicated because of the thrust reverser concept. The production F119 engine nozzle does not incorporate any thrust reverser provisions.

I don't know if the YF120 engine nozzle had any design provisions for thrust reversing, but it also did not have a functional thrust reverser during Dem/Val flight test.

[johnwill]

Thrust reverser?? Maybe you are thinking of thrust vectoring.

[disconnectedradical]

This "comparison" is honestly laughable. Where to begin...

Stealth: Due to the exposed fan blades (see picture) the YF-23 would have had worse VLO characteristics from certain angles particularly from the front. This could have been redesigned in production models but that could also likely affect the YF-23’s performance advantages over the YF-22.

Neither YF-23 nor YF-22 was used for evaluating stealth because both are "tech demonstrators" without any actual details for VLO. They used specialized pole test models of EMD design for that. The F-23 would use a DSI which hides most of engine face.

https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.2514/4.867910
If you read this book you wouldn't get so much wrong information in your post. One of the book authors Col. Piccirillo was the program manager of the ATF.

Range: Estimates vary from 750 nautical miles all the way to 900 nautical miles for the YF-23. The YF-22’s radius is not all that bad coming in at just below 700 nautical miles. weather or not the 23 would maintain this range gap once the fuselage was redesigned to accommodate more weapons remains to be seen.

If you look at EMD F-23 drawings and compare to YF-23 you see that F-23 does not lose much volume while F-22 lost a lot more volume compared to YF-22 especially by the engines. That's room for more fuel in the F-23.

Maneuverability: Even Northrop’s executives admitted that the YF-22 was the more agile of the 2. However this was not just simple low speed air show maneuverability. A critical requirement was supersonic maneuverability where the traditional control surfaces are not as efficient. Compound that with the fact that the 22 had twice the number of control surfaces as well for instances where TVC is not used.

How does number of control surface even factor into supersonic maneuverability? Also, it doesn't matter if it's "traditional" or TVC, you compare numbers like C_Lalpha for lift induced drag numbers and also tail volume. It's not just size or number of control surface but also how they're placed. F-23 can fly at 60 AOA too, but probably transitions slower without TVC.

Speed: Though commonly said to be faster, YF-23 test pilot, Paul Metz said that they never flew beyond Mach 1.85. And he said if they kept doing it they would run out of canopies due to excessive canopy cracking at those speeds. This advantage is also nullified with the redesign applied to the production F-22 that matched or maybe even exceeded the YF-23's speed advantage at the cost of even more range .

YF-23 was not pushed to the limits and dem/val is also not about pushing the prototypes to the limits but to show how well contractors can verify requirements. Again, read this book so you can actually understand what point of dem/val is.
https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/book/10.2514/4.867910

Reliability:
YF-22: 74 flights, 91 flight hours
YF-23: 50 flights, 65 flight hours

What's the point of comparing technology demonstrator "reliability" when they are both one off machines so different from the actual production design?