SECRET REVEALED! YF-23 First Appearance on the World Stage 

My father worked on this project, and he told me that the biggest challenge was designing an aircraft to be beyond state of the art, because it wouldn’t fly for at least 10 years, and they have to still be the best in the world for 20 years after that. The F-15, which he also played a role in developing (avionics), is going to have the newest model in service for possibly another, 20 years, which will give it nearly 70 years of service! And, it’s still a badass plane that can blow most enemy fighters out of the sky with relative ease. Still holds time to climb records that no plane today can match. Still undeafeted in arial combat. Then, there’s the Super Hornet....

@@jananney Did your dad ever work at Groom Lake?

@@Skydivingkittens if he did, he never told me about it. But, those guys took their clearance seriously, and he never mentioned very much of anything. He did spend a lot of time at Edwards AFB, and at Wright Patterson. I found out far more about the 23 years after he passed. It’s sad for me, because I didn’t realize how important his work was till after he was gone. Even things related to the F-15 that were mind-blowing, and he couldn’t tell us about it at the time. The fact that the F-15 is going to end up with a service life of more than 70 years when it’s all said and done is amazing, IMO.

@@jananney that's awesome, your dad sounds like he was an awesome dude =)

It hurts me to know the Pentagon let itself be smooth-talked by Lockheed.

Got a question are y’all doing any more planes like this or a new design I know you obviously can’t speak for it or anything but dang I sure would love to know or at least hear something about it lmao thanks

David M. . Ask your Dad if remembers Hector R. at Northrop?

Sorry to read about your family's tremendous effort in the YF 23 program I think this plane would've taken things differently then the F 22 , the government should've kept a couple of squadrons of the YF 23. I heard Japan is interested, and many other countries, and are they allowed to be sold abroad? Cheers

@@WilliamRodriguez26 Japan has been offered technology and help from Northrop and may get a more modern version with up to date electronics .

He should be proud though.

LazyScoutJace Do you not know anything about the 23 but just it’s looks? There are charts and drawings out there of what the production 23 would have been like. It would have been even bigger and they changed it’s inlets because of how exposed the engines were from the front. The added the length because the 22 could carry more weapons than the 23 so they added a weapons bay under the cockpit to make up for the 23’s lack of firepower compared to the 22 and the inlets ended up looking a lot more like the B-2 inlets.

I've said the exact same thing for years . I found pictures of an artist rendition of the 23 if it made it to where the 22 is at today .

@@zabercrombie24 www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/24911/this-is-what-a-northrop-f-23a-wouldve-looked-like-if-lockheed-lost-the-atf-competition

@@thefreeman8791 You talk freakin shit.

@@thefreeman8791 The YF-23 was the winner but the YF-22 was cheaper. The YF-23 could carry more and had a longer range then the YF-22. And YF-23's design is more stealthier.

Tam0de SwaG it obviously doesn't have any place in today's military

Not me. It was a good aircraft but the people that like it go by aesthetics and conspiracy theories not what we know for sure. Like people say that the 23 was stealthier. The info on the RCS of the 23 and 22 are classified so those that act like it was stealthier are just conspiracy theorists. We do know plenty about both platforms but people always throw around things like they are absolutely true when they are just conspiracy theories.

Your profile picture doesn't match your comment

@@thefreeman8791 you're spouting conspiracy nonsense.

Camera's were analog back then and only did standard resolution unless you had some of the super wild proprietary ones and even then you couldnt see them at true resolution because tv's and monitors only did standard.

in my opinion , it the yf 23 would have received an arestor hook , an improved landing gear and other modifications , it would have made am excelent stealth air superiority naval aircraft and it would have been a better replacement for f14 than the fa 18

This plane was so good that I seriously doubt it was trashed. I think it was assigned for further development. Who knows? It may even be the f22's future replacement, with just a few modifications like scramjets and lasers.

The general design of the airframe it's self has been trashed. Once the F-22 was chosen, all tooling and instructions to build the YF-23 were destroyed. They did however take certain things that they learned from testing and recorded them for future application.

anonymus99 boss It would not have made a good Naval aircraft. It was huge and when you are talking about a carrier with very limited space then that is a big deal. And the 22 did totally deserve to win. The 22 had comparable speed, unlike what most people say, and it was much more maneuverable, especially at high altitude, and the 22 could carry more munitions and the 22 was completely all original and the 23 scavenger as many parts from other aircraft as possible and it was still more expensive. The 23 had a much better range and that is true but that is the only area that we know of that the 23 was decidedly better.

@@thefreeman8791 the only flight regime the 22 had an edge over the 23 was the post stall due to the thrust vectoring. Which is comical in itself considering flankers and raptors still get killed in simulated combat despite having thrust vectoring. TV is not the end all be all. Even the x-31 with multi axis TV was killed in situations by f-14/15/16/18 and that aircraft could literally sit and hover on its butt via TV.

Glad you enjoyed it!

The Black Widow II would have probably been too big for the elevator on-board the carrier. The U.S. Navy has a weight and maximum number requirement for the elevator. I believe that it's 90,000 lbs. So in the case of the F-35B/C, two aircraft on the elevator at a time and fully loaded minus fuel would have meant no more than 45,000 lbs. each aircraft. Which was one of the reasons for the costs overruns and why Lockheed Martin was having trouble with getting the weight of the B (Marine variant) and C (Naval variant) models down under the wire. Well, not only is the Black Widow II (minus fuel) weighing in at 51,000+ lbs. but her length is in excess of 67 feet and her wingspan is out to more than 43 feet. She's really huge! Most likely only one, if even that, on the elevator at a time but it wouldn't be very efficient or practical in a "crunch time" scenario.

+rooster teeth You know Pak Fa was made last week . . . paint is still wet . . .

+rooster teeth Yep. Pak Fa is a Fuk Pa. 5th gen fighter coming out in 2010's... lol!

+rooster teeth Funny how we show off the F-22's at airshows claiming no other aircraft are capable of such maneuvers. When those who have been paying attention have been watching the Russians doing stuff like that for 20 years. It's all perspective.

Nicolas Halseth And now everybody is wondering why F23 was banned . . . and how F22 was superior . . .

Funny is that America does not have live project of stealth aircraft as the Russians begin production of PAK at a cost of 60 million per plane now...

Minus the F35, it's a turkey and needs to be scrapped.

Nope, F-22 was more maneuverable and more stealthy, which is why it won. Don’t know about relative speeds or range, but since they used the same engines, those were probably the same or close.

@@5133937 Nope. The Grey Ghost F23 had the GE 120 engines and was faster. The F23 was more stealthy. The F22 was more maneuverable at slow speed but F23 was just as maneuverable if not more at other speeds throughout the flight envelope. The F23 had better electronics and they eventually ended up on the F22.

@@altonwilliams7117 the 'F-23' would have been a completely different looking version though, the F-23 was Going to be the Official Service Craft in the Military with Much Alterations I think

@@mrandrossguy9871 ......and more expensive.

sab287Leporidae Came here to post this, LOL! I just watched Firefox and this plane is so Firefox!!

That's invalid as they went to the moon over half a century ago yet ULA failed to enter lunar orbit. The YF23 appears to fit the NGAD requirements better than the F22: bigger and longer airframe for more fuel and higher speed, as well as maybe better stealth.

altered trajectory you are 100 percent correct!

As many aviation enthusiasts can testify -- he did a great job!!

Looks pretty 2000s to me

It can also pull Gs like no human can.

sab287Leporidae yeah and that’s about all it had going for it.

The 22 also.

Couldn't become a bomb truck or carry enough fuel. Hey fools the 22 has thrust vectoring only to get off the ground with a heavy load, fuel and weapons. It was fixed. The 23 was an experiment for the future.

Good thing I have a Filipino buddy in love with aircrafts...😁 Stay safe at laging mag ingat lods:)

same hahaha

Unless it was updated completely it would lose to a F15 and F18. The F22 today would destroy this thing because the F22 has been tested, used and updated. Pilots have 1000s of hours in all the planes I mentioned so no the YF23 would not instantly be the best.

I doubt that very much... ATF prototypes were not unveiled until 1990 and C-17 first flight was September 1989. I built it and tested it.

@Angelo > YOu are full of crap. I was at MD for the first C-17. You may have seen the YF-15 in 1980 but I guarantee you did not see the C-17

The one *plane* stupid bitch

@Robert Ranciato The plane was fine, the expensive crap was caused by the CCP's US Puppet govt. 86'ing the whole thing.

Actually the top cat had a replacement of it's own called the F-28 aka the Super Tomcat II. Stupid ass government declined it.

The 23 was lacking in it’s weapons payload. Where do you people get that it had such a massive payload? The 22 could carry eight missiles and the 23 could only carry six. In their final proposal they did decide to add a weapons bay beneath the cockpit to add two more missiles but that added three meters to an already very large fighter. And they did find a good replacement for the F-14. It is called the F-18. Whether you people like it or not I don’t care. The F-14 was a bad naval aircraft not because of what it could do in the air but because it was a hanger queen. My father in law worked on F-14s and had a 23 year career in the Navy and civilian fields as a mechanic and he said the F-14 was the worst aircraft he ever worked on for the Navy. A platform being combat affective has a lot to do with how easy it is to work on and the F-18 is so much better at that than the F-14.

Daniel Campbell trump is more interested in stuff that makes him and his friends money. He doesn't care about the country.