WI: US Airforce Choose YF23 Black Widow

Awesomeness would ensure, it is much cooleer than the F22. However unless it was a good deal cheaper, got into service earlier or was produced quicker than the F22 it will still get canned at 170 odd planes.
 
Actually production could have been begun in OTL in 1994 but Congress kept delaying so to add more features to the initial model greatly increasing costs per unit and of the over all program.
 
Oh, its alright if the Govt fucks the contractor around just as long as the contractor doesn't fuck the govt around.
 
It never gets built. The reason the YF-22 was chosen was it was less technically challenging. By picking the more ambitious design you are basically guaranteeing that it will fall victim to the peace dividend.
 
The YF-23 was marginally faster in max, and supercruise speed, and had longer range, with a larger fuel fraction, and a larger, deeper and more versatile weapons bay. The RCS and IR stealth aspects were better, particularly in the tail aspect. The manoeuverability was largely similar, with the YF-23 beinga better airframe but without the thrust vector, a sacrifice for the aforementioned stealth superiority. The Northrop company is a perrennial loser in Government contracts, with M/D being Cheneyed over the Avenger debacle. Most importantly, the trough offered by Boeing was much longer, and the political importance of a long trough is always the most important, although the production difficulties this entailed were one of the F-22's most serious drawbacks.
 
Oh, its alright if the Govt fucks the contractor around just as long as the contractor doesn't fuck the govt around.

Basically correct it happened on the B-2 and the F-22 government shenanigans are far more responsible for delays and cost overruns than contractor mismanagement.
 
Instead of YF22 (later F22) Raptor as their latest stealth fighter aircraft?

Thanks in advance!

Obviously the F 22 has been a mistake. The plane cannot be used for low level attacks because it is vulnerable to small arms fire due to a very thin skin. It cannot carry external ordinance without compromising stealth and it has a short range that can only be compensated for by refuelling tankers that can be attacked easily by any power that has a big enough airforce (ie Russia and China).

Finally I read an article that said that it requires 30 hours of maintenance for 1 hour flying and that one of its operational systems has a 'critical failure' once every 1.7 hours.

The F23 seems to be not much better but we will never know because it was not taken beyond the prototype stage.

The Americans became trapped into building overly expensive weapons systems that absorbed increasingly scarce resources.

The result is that America has a huge defence budget with diminshing power and an inability to fight a major war against a well equipped foe for more than a few weeks before its weapons are down for maintenance and its expensive limited ammunition is used up.
 
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