YF-220 and X-273 ?

Hello everyone, I hope you are all doing well.

As found by the member "Smythers" on the forum "dreamlandresort", there is a biography of a USAF Colonel that has some interesting mentions.
He became test pilot in 2007 and from 2012 to 2017, he occupied different post in some classified assignments.

On his list of aircraft flown (more than 40 types), we can see some interesting mentions including the F-117, YF-220 and X-273.

Of course the topic of this thread will be : what could be those YF-220 and X-273 aircraft?
It reminds a lot of the "YF-24" leaks from another test pilot.
So could it be a typo ? It seems unlikely, because I don't see any aircraft that I know of (I don't know them all though), that could fit.

I obviously don't have any answer concerning what it could be, on his original post "Smythers" he mentioned his name was known as "he was instrumental in the effort to get AI into the air-to-air arena."

So it seems he found something interesting and that some new designations are in the wild. That being said they could totally be public designation to cover the "real" ones.


Now the link for the PDF of the biography :

www.afotec.af.mil...


I wish you all a good day !

Ghoul

To my thinking, an X plane would be something akin to the X-15 or any other type of sub orbital aircraft. Be nice if it was a scram jet that sounds like a bulldozer taking off and leaves ring shaped contrails not that I've ever heard of anything like that from a free lance computer programmer that worked at a out of the way base with lots of super duper security wherein employees were required to be in a windowless hanger when said aircraft took off or landed.

I would assume that the YF-220 is actually the YF-22.

a reply to: billxam

The YF-22 did it's last flight before this colonel was even pilot in the air force so that seems extremely unlikely lol.

If you are interested this gentleman was a guest on this episode of the fighter pilot podcast concerning DARPA.
I can only recommend you this podcast.

youtu.be...

a reply to: billxam

An X plane can be anything. The Quiet SST being worked on is an X plane. So is the BWB NASA and Boeing flew. All it means is that it’s an experimental platform.

a reply to: Ghoul

The Air Force posted that bio in March 2021. Since that time, I have been unable to find any additional information on the YF-220 "classified prototype" or X-273 "X-plane" (demonstrator). There was some sort of stealthy airplane that had its first flight sometime between 2014 and 2016, during the time when that test pilot was involved with "data masked" assignments. Did that predate NGAD flight testing? We don't really have a clear timeframe, but Congressional sources suggested there might have been an NGAD first flight in August 2020. Of course, various companies were apparently making first flights in the couple years prior to that, as well. Multiple NGAD candidates perhaps, or maybe unrelated projects. Lots of stuff going on in the "black world."

a reply to: Ghoul

Unmanned/virtual cockpit fighter?
I've seen "220" used as a reference to the DARPA CRANE project, and a lot of the Drones/UAV's have 3 digit designators. I could see experience with the F-22 being a plus from the virtual cockpit of, for instance, a EADS Barracuda.

a reply to: RealDealer

Don't read too much into the YF-220 designation. The numbers don't really mean anything. They are not part of any sort of orderly or logical system. These are merely innocuous alphanumeric designators in MDS (mission/design/series) format that can be used on unclassified documentation to represent classified aircraft. This was first done in 1968, using the designation YF-110B to stand in for MiG-21. By that time, three-digit designations were no longer being allocated by the Department of Defense. Before the change, the highest number had been given to the F-111 and the F-110A was re-designated the F-4C. The USAF Phantom II prototype had originally been known as the YF-110A Spectre.

Classified exploitation of Soviet fighters was carried out using the old numbering system, but with random numerals that would never be assigned to production aircraft. So, there was the YF-110B (MiG-21F-13), YF-113A (MiG-17F), YF-114C (also a MiG-17F), and so on, as needed. Other classified prototypes and one-of-a-kind demonstrators also received these odd designations (YF-117A, YF-118G, etc.) but never in any orderly sequence.

a reply to: Ghoul

I was wondering about that after seeing his photo.

originally posted by: billxam
To my thinking, an X plane would be something akin to the X-15 or any other type of sub orbital aircraft. Be nice if it was a scram jet that sounds like a bulldozer taking off and leaves ring shaped contrails not that I've ever heard of anything like that from a free lance computer programmer that worked at a out of the way base with lots of super duper security wherein employees were required to be in a windowless hanger when said aircraft took off or landed.

I would assume that the YF-220 is actually the YF-22.

Recall that YF-117D and YF-118G were allocated as cover designations for the Northrop Tacit Blue and Boeing Bird of Prey technology demonstrators. It's possible that X-273 is the NGAD tech demonstrator because the resume of Colonel Dan Javorsek mentions "high-priority next generation air dominance flight tests of unique experimental aircraft", but mentions nothing about classified prototypes.

Kendall announced recently that one of the NGAD demonstrators was given an X designation.