Warbirds Thread

[The Whispering Monk]

Did they ever say why they weren't going to produce the F-23?

Went with the F22 instead.
Both were in competition for the contract.

 

[Sailor.X]

Went with the F22 instead.
Both were in competition for the contract.

In my opinion the Northrop plane was the superior aircraft.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

In my opinion the Northrop plane was the superior aircraft.

Yes and no. While it's very true that the Air Force blatantly favored Lockheed and put its finger on the scales to guarantee that the F-22 won the ATF competition, it's also still true that there was a lot more technical uncertainty with the Northrop plane. It could have been better, but it could have also been much more of a lemon. And Northrop had a legitimately very, very bad track record for troubled development programs that were massively behind schedule and over budget.

The deep internal bay on the YF-23 would have definitely been better for a multirole design, but the ATF program was absolutely clear-cut in being a stealth air superiority bird to follow the F-15.

 

[Agent23]

The F-35 is not an export knockoff of the F-22. The F-35 is a multi-role strike fighter, a completely different role from the pure air superiority F-22. And development of the F-35 started all the way back in the 1980s, so it is likewise completely false to say that it was "conceived and developed" to bully minor threats.

As for the European fighter industry, the Eurofailure Typhoon fails just fine without any supposed American conspiracy -- the Rafale and the Gripen already utterly humiliate it in terms of technical excellence and efficient performance, the F-35 is merely the fifth-generation cherry on top.

Is a mix of crushed cockroach dust and soy and lent a replacement for beef steak?

To normal people, no.

That doesn't mean that it is not a replacement in the monds of those that won't eat it.