Best Plane never Made.

Originally posted by ghost
YF-23 Blackwidow II

you speak the truth ,you speak the truth.
tis a beatiful plane. mabye the RAF should just buy that and say SC*EW YOU to the EF

I agree - the YF-23 was a monster of a plane.

Avro Arrow was a nice one.

How about the Super Tomcat?

Or the SR-71 interceptor with the Pheonix missle system.

Originally posted by devilwasp

Originally posted by ghost
YF-23 Blackwidow II

you speak the truth ,you speak the truth.
tis a beatiful plane. mabye the RAF should just buy that and say SC*EW YOU to the EF

That would be cool If there was any other airforce in the world I would want to have a plane like the YF-23 besides the USAF it would be the RAF.

The EF site would have to redo that chart they have for the YF-23

the RAF can barley afford the EF without a working cannon you think they could afford a plane like the Yf-23 which would cost around 100-120 million a piece yea right they might be able to afford half a plane

I like what someone said in their post about an SR 71 interceptor equipped with the phoenix missile system, wow that would be the ultimate interceptor. no jet could beat it.

KNOCK it off, the RAF can afford the EF / Typhoon, although a very odd decision not to buy round for the thing you must remeber that all the planes will have the cannon and the the main source the rounds is BAe.

The problem is that the YF23 is ready and the F22 "STILL isn't ready" if we got some YF23'2 we would be talking 10 years dev time. O look that when the FOAS is due into service well ish.

The FOAS will be a mixed force of cruise missiles manned and UCAV's I'll bet the BAe will take the best ideas from the YF23 and make some really cool. The YF23 is an excellent strike platform and that's what's needed.

Also westpoint in the 90's we spend �4-5 billion on a system that's effectively pointless! (TRIDENT D4/5)

I love planes and all, BUT...Even if the F-22 isn't ready, we really don't need it right now. 10 yeas from now might be different story.

Shadow XIX says:

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

Oops! Actually, I work for The Boeing Company, but, at the time of the competition, worked for McDonnell Douglas (which had not yet merged with Boeing). McDonnell Dopuglas was a member of the YF-23 team.

And when it comes to awarding contracts, who knows? I have been involved in defense procurements for lo these many years, and I know that there are tremendous amounts of thought that go into making such decisions.

For example, in some places, Lockheed Martin has a reputation (and I cannopt say whether it is valid) of being a great designer and a not-great program manager. The latter is every bit as important as the former in a major defense procurement, since you don't want the billion dollar 2012 system to cost $2 billion when it's delivered in 2015!

Cost, schedule, and technical are three equally important considerations when it comes to awarding a contract -- usually.

However, there is one exception tht comes to mind: The A-10 Thundebolt II (or "Warthog"), designed as a flying GAU-8 cannon, was procured for the Air force, who actually didn't want as many as it got. (Every A-10 added to the Air Froce's inventory meant something else was taken away, and the USAF, after a while, saw less and less use for it in their (the Air Force's) warfighter role.

Yet they kept on getting them!! Why?

Easy! The aircraft was built by the Fairchild Republic Company of Bethpage, New York, which just happened to be the home district of Rep. Alphonse D'Amato, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Happy Factory Workers with a big back order tend to vote for the incumbent who got them those jobs in the first place....

I grew up in cheshire,England and our house overlooked British Aerospace Woodford,i always remember being in total awe of the Avro Vulcan,it gave me goose bumps,it still does now(even though theres none flying at present) It was an awesome aircraft and very nearly dropped the bomb on cuba, as the brits main nuclear long distance bomber,i wonder if its development could not have been pushed further? also the B.E Lightning-and the unfortunate B.O.A.C comet-as always typical to the brits,invent something that works and then give it for free to the world and moan about how we could have really made it work if we wanted.

Originally posted by optimus fett
i wonder if its development could not have been pushed further?

- Look up the enormous phase 6 winged B3. Six Skybolt ALBMs were it's planned maximum load.

But then the eggs got placed in the SLBM basket, IMO rightly but for all that the proposed B3 version was pretty impressive.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
the RAF can barley afford the EF without a working cannon

- What's up Westy? Have you lost the ability to read (this nonsense of yours was corrected in this very thread) or are you just into promoting you own brand of ignorance?

RAF EF Typhoons will have a fully functional cannon fitted. They just aren't bothering to load it. Big deal.

you think they could afford a plane like the Yf-23 which would cost around 100-120 million a piece yea right they might be able to afford half a plane

- Pretty as the YF23 was why the hell do you think we would be in the least bit interested in exporting vast amounts of our capital to the USA for a plane that doesn't fully meet our requirement, is or would be at least 2 or 3 times the price of the one we made ourselves in our own factories with our own workers?

If I remember correctly, isn't there an organization around trying to get an AVRO Vulcan up and flying privately?

I work across the street from Falcon Field, which has a Confederate Air Force (now "Commerative" Air Force -- my, my; aren't we PC?) and a great flight museum. I do know we have "Sentimental Journey", a Douglas-built B-17, as well as a bunch of others, including (I think) a couple of Vulcans. I will check further and let you know. They're the delta-wing medium size bombers, right?

Yeah, they were the RAF's standard long rang medium bomber from 1956 to 1982, the Falkands War being both their combat debut and their swansong, indeed some already retired Vulcans were hastily re-activated for the conflict and the Black Buck raids carried out by them were at the time the longest range bombing missions ever carried out.

The group that is trying to put one of these into the air again is the 'Vulcan 558' club, so named because the aircraft they are concentrating on is XH558 which was both the first and last Vulcan B.2 in RAF service.

The Vulcan was revolutionary as the first big delta bomber in the world, it was the biggest Delta yet built when it flew in 1952 and was just as impressive a sight 30 years later, a real beauty.



[edit on 16-9-2004 by waynos]

Talking of the Vulcan has reminded me of another candidate for a greatest plane never made, it was the intended replacement for the Vulcan, the Avro 730, which was scrapped in 1957, one of many advanced projects that were killed off due to a very ill advised white paper that said that the RAF would require no more manned aircraft.

In some ways it foreshadowed the design of the Blackbird family except, of course, that this was to be a strategic bomber and recconaissence aircraft with a mach speed of 'only' 2.5.

Sometimes I wonder if we redesigned the Vulcan using carbon fibre nick a couple of the fly by wire sets from the Typhoon (EF) have bae reconfiger the software and re-engine the thing wounld we have a good strike plane.

Carbon Fibre = Light, EF electronic and avonic's fit = Cool, Vulcan = Massive range and payload. Westpoint NO cannon!

Vote must go to the TSR2

Originally posted by American Mad Man
I agree - the YF-23 was a monster of a plane.

Avro Arrow was a nice one.

How about the Super Tomcat?

Or the SR-71 interceptor with the Pheonix missle system.

For the Record the Interceptor version of the Blackbird was called the YF-12

Tim
ATS Director of counter-Ignorance

Originally posted by ghost

Originally posted by American Mad Man
Or the SR-71 interceptor with the Pheonix missle system.

For the Record the Interceptor version of the Blackbird was called the YF-12

And it was not the Pheonix missile. rather the precourser to it. Just some food for thought.

Originally posted by FredT
And it was not the Pheonix missile. rather the precourser to it. Just some food for thought.

Yep, the good old Hughes GAR-9/AIM-47A air-to-air radar-guided missile (max speed Mach 4).

Kinda sad that the missile wasn't too much faster than the launch platform itself.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street


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.

I am pretty sure the F-5 is closer to the F-20 than the T-38 which both were developed from. It is a real shame they were not sold to anyone. If I were rich, they could sure sell me one.

The YF-12 was in a way much like the Avro Arrow, it would have done a magnificent job, but we tend to see things in a revisionist way. The Arrow was too much of a point design, go out quick, shoot down bombers from high altitude, come back. Pretty technologically advanced, fly by wire, titanium metallurgy in the engine, planned to have active homing radar missiles, the cancelled Sparrow 2. Which was then replaced by conventional Falcons aka F-106 fire control system. Too much airplane, too little vision for the future from the Deifenbaker government. But still flawed in its lack of versatility. The YF-12 is arguably worse! It took so long to prep the Blackbird family of aircraft they would have been totally unpractical as interceptors unless they had a couple hours warning. As a general rule they needed also to be refuled after takeoff as they could not take a full load off the deck.