YF-23 test and evaluation

MikeD

MikeD

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If you have an hour to kill, this is a very good video from the Western Museum of Flight at Torrance/Zamperini airport from 4 years ago, with two of the test pilots from the YF-23 program. The YF-23 lost out to the YF-22, which is currently in service. Many however, thought the YF-23 to have been the better aircraft of the two. The small Western Museum there at TOA has one of two existing YF-23's ever built, with the other one located at the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson AFB. Both YF-23s were kept in storage at Edwards AFB until 1996, when they were released to these two museums.

Sad that all the YF-23 test reports and data, all Top Secret classified, have all reached their destruction date(s) and have been destroyed, as they likely couldn't be declassified due to likely tie-ins to other technology which remains classified.

 
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wow, my old boss from the line service days was mentioned in the video. I knew he had worked on the 23 somehow but was at McDonnell Douglas.
pretty interesting video. I had no idea the Horten had early "stealth" technology.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
I’m just north of TOA Sirport. Is the museum worth checking out?

I took my family to the Santa Monica Airport museum and that was meh.
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It's a small museum, but free and worth the look. Can crawl all over and inside an F-5 in the hangar. YF-23 is definitely worth the look.......you'll never see one anywhere else unless at the AF Museum.
 
trafficinsight said:
I mean... They have a YF-23....

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk
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And a YF-17

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bimmerphile said:
wow, my old boss from the line service days was mentioned in the video. I knew he had worked on the 23 somehow but was at McDonnell Douglas.
pretty interesting video. I had no idea the Horten had early "stealth" technology.
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Yep indeed.

 
@Cherokee_Cruiser the best part about many museums is talking to the curators. Often they have better stories to tell than the sign posts or trinkets.

I remember visiting that museum about 10 years ago. Very small and underwhelming, but chatting with the folks there is pretty interesting, if they’re still there.
 
Nark said:
@Cherokee_Cruiser the best part about many museums is talking to the curators. Often they have better stories to tell than the sign posts or trinkets.

I remember visiting that museum about 10 years ago. Very small and underwhelming, but chatting with the folks there is pretty interesting, if they’re still there.
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The restoration team was all car restoration gurus with zero airplane experience, and a few former air force pilots from decades ago. They thought I was a high school kid volunteering for the first month I worked with them. "This is an aileron, it don't step on it".
 
MikeD said:
If you have an hour to kill, this is a very good video from the Western Museum of Flight at Torrance/Zamperini airport from 4 years ago, with two of the test pilots from the YF-23 program. The YF-23 lost out to the YF-22, which is currently in service. Many however, thought the YF-23 to have been the better aircraft of the two. The small Western Museum there at TOA has one of two existing YF-23's ever built, with the other one located at the USAF Museum at Wright Patterson AFB. Both YF-23s were kept in storage at Edwards AFB until 1996, when they were released to these two museums.

Sad that all the YF-23 test reports and data, all Top Secret classified, have all reached their destruction date(s) and have been destroyed, as they likely couldn't be declassified due to likely tie-ins to other technology which remains classified.

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reminds me of:


I could watch Huell all day.
 
Supposedly, the head guy who picked the F-22 over the YF-23 (can’t remember his name) did so because Lockheed already had the plans drawn up for a navalized version, whereas Northrop did not.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Supposedly, the head guy who picked the F-22 over the YF-23 (can’t remember his name) did so because Lockheed already had the plans drawn up for a navalized version, whereas Northrop did not.
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I thought it was they didn't want to give the same company the contract for the a stealthy fighter and the stealth bomber.
 
Adler said:
I thought it was they didn't want to give the same company the contract for the a stealthy fighter and the stealth bomber.
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Don’t forget the program was originally supposed to be for a joint AF/Navy fighter, and the Navy had a say in the selection. The Navy’s program was dropped in ‘93.

Edit: apparently Northrop did have plans, or at least “a” plan for the YF-23 which involved canards and the Navy hated it
 
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The YF-23 is one of my favorite airplanes, and I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It’s by Paul Metz, the Northrop chief test pilot for the program, and goes into amazing engineering and systems detail. Despite the flight test reports being destroyed like @MikeD said, there are quite a few of the original engineering drawings and blueprints in this book, and an amazing level of technical detail. For the 1980s, the airplane was truly ahead of its time.

Northrop YF-23 ATF (Air Force Legends): Paul Metz: 9780989258371: Amazon.com: Books
 
I had a really good book back when I was kid about the 22/23 selection process. That was 1995 and written after the fact. Hard to believe the F22 spent a good 20+ years in development before its EIS.
 
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