Did the right bird win?

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>>31837040
No
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYLiMYGBE2Q

>>31837040
Yes.

>>31837058
/thread

>>31837040
It really depends. In my opinion, despite my absolute love of the YF-23, the F-22 was the correct choice, and here's why.

The simple fact of the matter is that stealth has far reaching consequences. The YF-23 may have been able to supercruise faster. It may have had superior avionics. It may have been more stealthy. It may have been by far the superior interceptor. However, while these metrics are important, there is one problem- what happens when stealth aircraft proliferate? Looking into the future from 1991, no one had any idea how far stealth would advance, and how quickly they would be produced. Remember, the Soviets are still around at that point, albeit in their death throes. Two opposing stealth aircraft fighting one another quite probably wouldn't be able to have usable weapons tracks against each other until they were stupidly close. Hell, they had a good idea that was going to happen, considering the stealthiness predicted for the two ATF offerings. Further, stealth aircraft's only weakness is if another aircraft gets in close, regardless of that aircraft's stealth characteristics. I mean, a MiG-29 getting close enough to the chosen aircraft would have a decent chance of killing it. If a fight would be decided at close range, likely in a knifefight, they needed the aircraft which would perform that role better, even if that meant it was somewhat inferior by other metrics. That meant foregoing the YF-23 and choosing the YF-22. And as we well know, the F-22 is no slouch in everything but dogfighting either. Even though allegedly lesser than the YF-23 in these other areas, the F-22 was superior to any other plane in existence by far. Thus, they chose the option that would most ameliorate stealth's one vulnerability.

So yes, they made the correct choice.

>>31837826
The YF-23 was an excellent dogfighter and exceeded the program's requirements.

As for the larger questions, it is impossible to say.

>>31837040
Yes.

Or is a plane that's twisting itself apart as it flies really a good idea to you?

>>31837866
I'm not saying that it wasn't. I'm saying that the F-22 was the better one.

fuk dis. imma still mad about tigershark not even getting low vol orders as another low option for the AF/export

I saw an F-22 do a routine at Fleet Week in San Francisco about ten years ago. The pilot went vertical, and the two exhausts looked like stars- just piercing white. He went up to about 15,000 feet, leveled off, then came straight down with the speedbrake out.

I grew up watching F-106's, and the Thunderbirds every summer in my home town, and this was like nothing I'd ever seen- though an F-106 on full AB is a pretty amazing thing.

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>>31837040

The YF-22 was picked for several reasons:

1. The Navy wanted an aircraft that could be adapted into a carrier-based fighter, and the YF-22 was seen as being easier to adapt into being a carrier-based fighter.

2. The YF-22 had working weapons bays at the start of the contest, whereas the YF-23 simply had a hollowed out empty space where missiles would eventually go. Consequently, the Air Force was able to do certain kinds of weapons testing with the YF-22 that they could not do with the YF-23. This contributed to the feeling that the YF-22 was the safer pick because it was closer to being a complete aircraft.

3. There were concerns that the YF-23's wing structure was less strong compared to the YF-22's more traditional wing. The Air Force believed that this would mean the YF-23 would have a shorter service life. The YF-23 would require more maintenance and it would need replacement wings more frequently, contributing to an overall higher lifetime cost for the aircraft.

4. In terms of aerodynamic performance, both aircraft were very impressive, but in slightly different ways. The YF-23 was said to have better acceleration whereas the YF-22 could climb and turn faster thanks to thrust vectoring.

>>31838016
>the YF-22 could climb faster

bullshit, the 23 had a much higher TWR.