Effects and causes of YF-23 being accepted instead of the YF-22?

IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?
 

SsgtC

Banned
IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?

Considering the US is still the only country in the world with operational 5th Gen fighters, not much. Boeing is probably a little better off. We likely don't see the F-15SE Silent Eagle. There's less concern about the St Louis fighter line getting closed. We maybe have more F-23s than we do F-22s (thinking ~250vs OTL 189). Very minor differences overall. I don't think we'd see a real difference until the US gets into a war with a peer or near peer state. And even then, the maneuverability issue only comes up if BVR engagements are prohibited
 
IIRC, the black widow/grey ghost were cheaper, faster and more stealthy, but lacked as much maneuverability. How could this change history?

So the USAF was willing to sacrifice conventional air to air combat performance for stealth etc. This might mean that the F-35 would be required to make up the difference. The F-35 putting a bigger emphasis on being a dogfighter would change that design in various ways, and if the F-23 is cheaper it might also be more numerous, the USAF originally wanted 750, then said 450 would be adequate.

They now have less than half that.

So a cheaper and more numerous high end stealth fighter, matched with a low end stealth fighter with poorer stealth but better conventional fighter performance. That might have resulted in the all stealth airforce that was originally the point of the exercise.

And a better F-35 for the forces -including the USN & USMC - that won't be getting the high end fighter. A LOT of airforces are getting just the F-35 and expecting it to be their high end fighter after all, so changing it has a major international effect.
 

Ak-84

Banned
@SsgtC J-20 is operational.
F-23 would be a big problem like the F-35. Since it sacrifised performance for stealth as the later plane did. F-22 sacrificed stealth for performance.

The YF-23 was built as a stealth plane and then had fighter attribute added. YF-22 was built as a fighter and then had stealth added.
 
So the USAF was willing to sacrifice conventional air to air combat performance for stealth etc. This might mean that the F-35 would be required to make up the difference. The F-35 putting a bigger emphasis on being a dogfighter would change that design in various ways, and if the F-23 is cheaper it might also be more numerous, the USAF originally wanted 750, then said 450 would be adequate.

They now have less than half that.

So a cheaper and more numerous high end stealth fighter, matched with a low end stealth fighter with poorer stealth but better conventional fighter performance. That might have resulted in the all stealth airforce that was originally the point of the exercise.

And a better F-35 for the forces -including the USN & USMC - that won't be getting the high end fighter. A LOT of airforces are getting just the F-35 and expecting it to be their high end fighter after all, so changing it has a major international effect.

According to this (http://nationalinterest.org/blog/th...h-fighter-vs-the-lethal-f-22-raptor-who-14461) the yf23 was faster, more stealthy had longer range but was more expensive, which runs contirary to what I've read before.
 
I think the difference between the two aircraft in terms of agility is being overplayed here.

Yes the 22 was more agile than the 23 but not dramatically so IIRC.

The reality also is that once you are at "knife-fighting" range you have lost all the benefits either offers over the Eagle or the Falcon.

To my mind, anyone who believes the decision was made on merit is sadly mistaken. IMVHO it was a purely business/political choice that was made.
 
Might the X-32 then win the JSF comp? As the safer choice.
AFAIK the X-35 was more mature, for example the X-35B could go straight from VTOL to supersonic, while the X-32B could not, to go supersonic it had to remove the VTOL system, plus the X-32 needed a major redesign of the tail to meet maneuverability goals. So likely the F-32 would have a longer, more troubled development history than the OTL F-35
 
The X-32 does not look very stealthy to me but apparently it is. Honestly looks like a corsair 2. I wonder how they did that?
Basically what happened was that Boeing designed a really good, cheap, stealthy conventional strike fighter as the conceptual successor to the A-7, which is what the JSF CTOL and CV versions are. They then tried to figure out how to shoehorn in STOVL capability, which is where it really fell down. The Boeing STOVL solution had a lot of shortcomings, and heavily compromised their aircraft - it actually wound up with a more powerful engine than the X-35 but less vertical lift capacity.

The Lockheed Martin bid had plenty going for it, but what gave them the edge was the lift fan. If you'd split off the STOVL requirement into an ultra-Harrier, then the competition becomes a lot more competitive. Especially because McDonnell Douglas's bid is back in the running - it was disqualified very early for having a separate lift engine in the STOVL version, because the gas driven fan they were assigned as 'their' STOVL technology didn't work. Come to think of it, Lockheed's victory was guaranteed when they were allocated the shaft-driven fan technology to research back when X-32 was going to be three different aircraft....
 
AFAIK the X-35 was more mature, for example the X-35B could go straight from VTOL to supersonic, while the X-32B could not, to go supersonic it had to remove the VTOL system, plus the X-32 needed a major redesign of the tail to meet maneuverability goals. So likely the F-32 would have a longer, more troubled development history than the OTL F-35
What I read it seems they have fixed those stuff but was too late for the comp. the mock up of the production has the tail etc.
 

Ak-84

Banned
I still think the real reason the X-32 lost was since by god, it was ugly and the brass knew fighter jocks would have to be ordered to fly the thing at gunpoint.

Plus Boeing knew that Lockheed was lying through its teeth when it said that its proposal was a base aircraft for the USAF and modified versions of it for the Navy and Marine as opposed to Boeing "three separate aircraft". Fast forward 17 years and voila, Lockheed claims that "please be patient since it's really three aircraft". I presume the 2001 decision makers and executives executions were long drawn out and painful.
 
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