Best Plane never Made.

I think some of the greatest leaps in technology could have been made by planes that never went into production. I can think of several planes that would still be flying now that could have been spectacular...

Avro Arrow
TSR1
F-8 super crusader
YF-12
YF-23
XB-70

Those are the ones I can think of off th top of my head. Of those, I think that the XB-70 was potentially the greatest, simply because of the innovation in it. The Soviet Union might have dried up fiscally years earlier trying to stop AND match it.

How about the NAWs A-10 (two seater)...? It was capable of larger payloads. I actually had the opportunity to climb all over this thing....it's an enormous aircraft. Bigger and badder. Too bad it never hit the production line.

My vote, albeit after very little though, goes to the Hawker P1127. After all the tail sitters from the USA and France, after all the inefficient lift engine designs from the USA, UK and others, here was a prototype jet fighter that could lift itself vertically upwards, accelerate to the speed of sound and then decelerate to a vertical landing, all in the horizontal plane and all done on the power of one engine. When it first appeared in 1960 it was miraculous.

Consider my earlier thread on Burnelli Aircraft.

www.abovetopsecret.com...




Comment: Lifting body aircraft have been know since 1920 at least. It is a superior design in safety, lower takeoff and landing speed, as well as cargo capcity.

I also posted without reading the title properly, oops. Ill think again.

The japanesse turbine powered fighter thatwere almostput to production in JUl-ago 1945....

Thatwould have been awesome

I'll change that choice as it is the greatest never built, not 'ever built', sorry again.

Actually its very closely linked, it is the Hawker P1154, This was a twin jet Naval fighter and land based attack aircraft whos performance was going to be in the F-4 class, but it was basically a BIG Harrier! It was to use PCB afterburning in the front nozzles (placed to avoid incinerating itself) and was an awesome prospect. In case you're wondering, it was scrapped in the same round of defence cuts that killed the TSR 2 in 1965 and the RAF and RN both got the aforementioned F-4 Phantom in its place, but only after we ruined it with Spey engines replacing the J-79's!

PS, claim to fame time. I was born on the very day the TSR 2 was cancelled! OK, I know its not really a claim to fame but I thought it was quite a coincidence with me being aeroplane mad as well!

ok, here are some of my best-never-built(went into production)-planes

Tu-360 Supersoninc Bomber


and Tu-2000 - two-seat experimental 6th generation air/space-craft


[edit on 13-9-2004 by titus]

XB-70
A-12 Familty of Planes esp the M21-D-21 combo
SU-37
YF-23

I would say some of the best ever built that went into production

SR-71 or A-12
B-2

Plane that had greatest impact on future designs

Messerschmitt Me 262A-2
Bell X-1 plane

Best plane that never went into Production

YF-23


titus that 6th gen. space plane is cool looking

[edit on 13-9-2004 by ShadowXIX]

imagine the XB-70 in service... immune to enemy fire... cant be intercepted...
the US would have dominated the world by now!!!

but, how about the Israeli Arie?
it even had some stealth capabilities!!!

The aircraft i'd choose would be...

1) Avro Arrow
2) XB-70
3) YF-23

I really like those planes a lot. Especially the Arrow

And of course, the wonderful planes developed but never mass produced just before the end of WWII

good planes that never went into production.
YF-23
XB-70
A-12

and Titus drawings and sketches don't count only planes that had a prototype build, I can draw a plane that can go mach 50 and is invisible but it don't count as a good plane that never went into production, only ones with prototypes.

Well, an an employee of the builder of the YF-23 (whcih lost, of course, to the Lockmart design), I have a warm spot in my heart for the 23, but the customer believed that, even with Lockmart's less-than stellar reputation as a major systems program manager, the F-22 Raptor was the better aircraft, and I'm not going to argue with them.

I think the best plane never built (or that never went into service) was the Northrop F-20 Tigershark. Here's what a report says:

"Northrop developed the F-20 Tigershark in response to a U.S. Government call for the private development of a tactical fighter specifically tailored to meet the security needs of allied and friendly nations.

The first flight of the Tigershark was made August 30, 1982. The Mach 2 class F-20 Tigershark's basic single-seat configuration was formally designated the F-20A. The F-20 combined propulsion, electronics and armament technologies with improvements in reliability to sustain high sortie rates in adverse weather.

The F-20 incorporated a combination of advanced technology features. The F-20 could carry more than 8,300 pounds of external armaments and fuel on five pylons. It could carry six Sidewinder missiles on air-to-air missions. For air-to-ground missions, more than 6,800 pounds of armament could be carried. Two internally mounted 20mm guns were standard equipment on the Tigershark.

The avionics system features a General Electric multimode radar, Honeywell laser inertial navigation system, General Electric head-up display, Bendix digital display and control set and Teledyne Systems mission computer.

The F-20 is powered by a General Electric F404 engine, with 17,000 pounds of thrust. The F404 is recognized as one of the world's most reliable advanced technology engines. It is also used to power the U.S. Navy/Marine Corps F/A-18A Hornet strike fighter.

Once airborne, the F-20 pilot utilized his multimode radar, which could detect and track targets at ranges of up to 48 nautical miles "look up" and 31 nautical miles "look down." The F-20 mission computer coordinated the aircraft's weapons systems. The head-up display placed critical weapons, target and flight data at the pilot's eye level. This allowed him to fight without having to look down. Northrop designed a new panoramic canopy for the F-20 that gave the pilot a 50 percent increase in rearward visibility over previous Northrop fighters. An improved seat and headrest design combined to substantially expand over-the-shoulder visibility, which is critical in air-to-air combat.

Aerodynamic features of the F-20 included an enlarged leading edge extension to the wing, which generated up to 30 percent of the lift maneuvers. The "shark-shaped" nose allowed the F-20 to maneuver at much higher angles of attack than current operational fighters. The F-20 airframe could withstand nine G's.

The F-20 was reliable and easy to maintain. Based on comparisons with the average of contemporary international fighters, the F-20 consumed 53 percent less fuel, required 52 percent less maintenance manpower, had 63 percent lower operating and maintenance costs and had four times the reliability."

But no one bought it, because the United States didn't have them, and international customers wanted to take advantage of the lower non-recurring costs of an airplane already in US service (which is why we try to sell so many AH-64Ds to international customers).

And it wasn't that the United States didn't like the plane; but they'd already invested a pot of money into the logistics tail and support infrastructure of that hideous General Dynamics "Lawn Dart", the F-16.

So the F-20 died the death and the closest you'll ever see to it is the T-38 trainer version, still one of the prettiest airplanes around.

Meanwhile the Lawn Dart, now owned by Lockmart, is sold everywhere and the non-recurring costs are so low you can practically get a couple of them with three boxes of Rice Crispies.

Q: How do you get an F-16 for $50,000?

A: Buy fifty acres of desert twenty miles from Luke Air Force Base -- and wait.

So you work at Northtrop Off_The_Street cool I had a relative that worked there during the B-2 production.

Why does it seem that Northrop gets screwed out of contracts by Lockheed? The B-2 and YF-23 clearly show that Northrop can build more stealthy planes then Lockheed.


Lockmart

YF-23 Blackwidow II
XB-70
YB-49

These three planes pushed the state of the art for their time. Yes, they may have been risky because they were very advanced, but I firmly believe, if they had been developed into operational aircraft and feilded, the whole science of Aerospace might be 25-30 years ahead of where it is now.

Politicians always know how to take a good idea and waste it!!

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

I'd forgotten all of about the F-20, and I had a poster of it on my wall growing up, no less. It would have been the west's answer to the MIG-21. Cheap, Rugged, and deadly.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
and Titus drawings and sketches don't count only planes that had a prototype build, I can draw a plane that can go mach 50 and is invisible but it don't count as a good plane that never went into production, only ones with prototypes.

Before work was stopped in 1992, some development work was completed: a wing torque box of nickel alloy had been built, as well as fuselage elements, cryogenic fuel tanks, and composite fuel lines.

does that count? it was partially built until 1992.

PS: space launcer version would go mach 25

The P.1154 I nominated never made it as far as the prototype stage despite the huge amount of development work that Hawker Siddeley put in before the axe fell. The title of the thread is 'best planes never made', so of course they count, its what the thread is about. The greatest technological leaps by aircraft that never made production, a V/STOL Mach 2 fighter in 1965 would have been quite a leap!