Home > YF-23 Black Widow II

The Northrop/ McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Black Widow II was a prototype fighter aircraft designed for the United States Air Force. It was passed over in favour of the YF-22 that has entered production as the F/A-22 Raptor.

The YF-22 and YF-23 were competing in the USAF's Advanced Tactical Fighter program. Conceived in the early 1980s, contracts for the two most promising designs were awarded in 1986, with the YF-23 delivered in 1989 and the evaluation concluded in 1991.

The YF-23 was designed with stealth as a high priority and was a highly unconventional-looking aircraft with diamond-shaped wings and a V-tail. Although the precise results of the evaluation are not yet public knowledge, it is often claimed that the YF-23 was faster, more maneuverable and stealthier than its competitor, but the USAF chose the YF-22 due to ease of production, maintenance, and potential for future development. On the other hand, some say that the YF-22 was chosen for its superior subsonic maneuverability due to thrust vectoringThrust vectoring is the use of a jet aircraft's main engine(s) to provide a variable amount of thrust in a direction other than parallel to the aircraft's length. Rotating nozzles or vanes are used to deflect the exhaust stream from the engine to achieve, and the YF-23's comparatively flawed weapons release mechanism. Regarding the latter: missiles were stacked on racks, and a weapons jam of a lower-positioned missile could prevent the firing of the missile above it. In any case, the decision is still widely debated.

Two aircraft were built. One is now an exhibit at the Western Museum of Flight in Hawthorne, CaliforniaHawthorne is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 84,112. Hawthorne is known to rock and roll fans as the home of Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys. The Wilson brothers' and the other at the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum at Edwards Air Force BaseEdwards Air Force Base is a base located on the border of Kern County and Los Angeles County, California in the Antelope Valley, northeast of Lancaster. It was home to many of the 20th century's most important and daring research flights and many of the w.

In late 2004, Northrop GrummanThe Northrop Grumman Corporation is an aerospace and defense conglomerate that is the result of a 1994 merger between Northrop and Grumman. Major components were added later with the acquisition of Logicon, Teledyne Ryan, Litton ( Ingalls, Avondale), Newp proposed a YF-23 based design for the USAF's interim bomber requirement, a role for which the FB-22The FB-22 is a proposed United States Air Force (USAF) bomber aircraft, designed as a derivative of the F/A-22 and intended to fulfill a USAF requirement of an interim bomber to replace the B-1B Lancer and precede a next-generation strike aircraft enterin and B-1R are also competing.