I know its I before E in believe my spell check hasnt been the greatest lately.

The F-23, a sexy beast that turned heads and made you go hmmm, will always be number 1 with me. As for the F-22, it looks like the result of a one night stand between an eagle and a hornet( I'll admit it is a good plane too). All kidding aside, i beleive as long as politics has a hand in the process and the mind set of some of the top brass in the military as a determining factor in what we have, we will have to make the best of what we are given to play with. Although it would be nice to let us military grunts,(pilots, mechanics, etc), choose what we have in our toy box from time to time. F-23 powered by GE for the win.

Yes the F23 was a better choice but issue now is to get enough F22's into service 183 is to small. 600 is what is needed. The F22's are over streached in service. The JSF is not a F22.

Problem is those assholes in washinton think they know better than pilots, being one myself. I actually flew this fine aircraft and it's better than anything I've flown. It looks a hellofalot better than the F-33 that's for damn sure!!

One thing that everyone here might find humorous: While both YF-23As were fflyable after the fly-off, neither of the YF-22As were. I know that one of the YF-22As had a hard landing on the lakebed and forced the main landing gear up through the wing. My memory is a little fuzzy on the other one but I seem to recall that it was lost when a major system failure cropped up in flight and the pilot had to escape the aircraft. I could be wrong on the second one.

A friend of mine, Cal Jewett, talked with Paul after the first in-flight afterburner test on the YF-23A. Cal said that Paul was actually frightened at the acceleration. He had given the F-15 chase-plane a few seconds head start and shortly thereafter blew by him like he was standing still. We, at the B-2 CTF, decided that the contract for the ATF was awarded on the basis of politics, not capability. The YF-23A truly was the superior aircraft.

To all: There are several books, videos, and other resources available for personal research. Thus, you can draw your own educated conclusions about why one jet took the contract and the other did not.
To summarize my own findings, the YF-22 was faster(initial top speed testing), more manueverable (in part due to its use of thrust vectoring and smaller size), and was cheaper by approximately $800,000 per copy. It was considered to use more reliable and conventional technologies. YF-23 was considered more "cutting edge" in terms of design and construction technologies, but the Air Force considered these technologies "riskier" and less proven. YF-23 posted substantially better RCS (stealth) numbers, had greater range (due to internal wing volume area) and a lower drag coefficient, even though it is a larger aircraft. Both Lockheed and Northrop engineers agree that (had further testing been approved)the YF-23 is the inherently faster design. And while the YF-22 canopy was one single piece with no framing obstructions, the YF-23 pilot sits much higher on the plane and has absolutely unparalleled visibility around his aircraft. Northrop chose to use a weapons bay mock-up demonstrator, whereas Lockheed actually built a working weapons bay into their prototypes.
Yes, the YF-23 unveiled and flew more than a month before the YF-22. Yes, the YF-23 is a much more sinuous and better looking design. Overall I believe the YF-23 is dollar for dollar a superior and more capable aircraft.
I believe Lockheed was more politically savvy and greased more palms with the Air Force, who took the cheaper and less radical design choice due to old school stick-in-the-mud conventionalist status quo mindset thinking.
Short version: I gotta agree with Dennis Husted. Your tax dollars at work.

I remember working on the airplane during the f-22 and f-23 competition. The F-23 was superior in many instances, and the prototype was finished several months ahead of the f-22. The competition was held-up waiting for lockheed to finish the f-22. Quite frankly, the F-23 lost due to Northrop's poor relationship with the Government.

Oh know I left of an ly while typing .... I must go kill myself now for my bad typing

To the people that are worried about spelling issues. Have you ever considered that they were typing issues. Get a life.
But then again it is always a good way to divert from actual discussing an issue.

i think that northrop grumann will turn around and sell it to the airforces that buy frm EADS (now that would be funny to see the best jet fighter in the world owned buy a country other than the U.S.).

Does the yf-23 still fly for testing purposes or does it have to be scrapped?
It would be nice to see it at an airshow but i doubt the government will let that happen.

As the one guilty of the "aircrafts" incident, I find it interesting that over a year later there are still posts to this blog mentioning the error, and seemingly becoming more and more hostile. Please forgive my ignorance, and my horrific error. I had no idea that such a mistake would cause such an incredible reaction. On the other hand, I won't mention the fact that your post also included spelling errors, because my mistake is due to my being an imbecile, whereas yours is simply a mistake, I'm sure.

Also, don't lump me in with those who feel as though the 23 should have won because it was a better looking aircraft. It should have won because it was a better fighter in most every way, and matched up better to the requirements set forth by the airforce. Of course, I am somewhat prejudiced since my father was the chief engineer on the ATF 23 for McDonnell Douglas. However, I think the majority of independent military strategists would agree that the 23 was the more capable vehicle.

Thanks again for your continued interest and commentary on my spelling error.

Gareth, I share your concern about the poor spelling exhibited here. In addition, although you failed to mention it, I am certain you share my aversion to poor grammar. Therefore you will also understand that I must correct the following (corrections are capitalized): "but not as surprised as I am by uttely appalling spelling and grammer of almost everybody here.", should be expressed as "but not as surprised as I am by THE utteRly appalling spelling and grammer of almost everybody here." Thank you so much for raising the bar, my friend.

I was surprised that the F-23 did not win, but not as surprised as I am by uttely appalling spelling and grammer of almost everybody here. "Aircrafts" "loose" not "lose", water "vaper". Didn't any of you people learn English at school? It's also amusing to note that so many of you imbeciles feel that the prettiest aircraft deserved to win the contract.

I've been to the Air Force Historical Research Agency at Maxwell AFB and tried to find information about the YF-23. It remains classified to this day. I have heard it was far faster than the YF-22 but the figures are classified. Bear in mind though that the airplane was being produced by the Northrop/McDonnell Douglas team and at the time there was fear that McDonnell Douglas couldn't produce the airplane at the contract price and on time. McDonnell Douglas's reputation contributed to the demise of the YF-23, but later they regained it by producing the C-17 at contract price and on time.

Someone said the F-22 is 15 years behind schedule... more like 2. The only problem is that the F-22 has had to change a number of components, adding to the original cost, thus pushing back the program and creating a reduction of the total production. If cost was the initial factor for choosing the YF-22 over the YF-23, by now the numbers would have been negligable. YF-23 anyday!!

I think both are awesome and yes yf23 has the better specs that the f22, like some of you guys are saying "politic" or maybe there are things that we don't know why they choose f22 over f23 besides the politics. it maybe less expensive that the f22 but is it easy to be upgraded.think about this, when they bild the AH-64A and it was battle tested and so many confim kills, but they wanted a newer model and thats why the made the AH-64D..from looking at the picture you can see a little diff..but there's more into it and made an upgrade from AH-64D lot 1 to now the most or shall I call it super apache the AH-64D lot 9...why didn't they do that to the Alpha model..who nows

I think McDonnell's Douglas builds really good planes such as the Hornet,Harrier,Phantom,and many many more. ^_^

yf23 was actually the better aircraft,but lockheed got the contract,politics. all spec's of yf23 vs.yf22,tell you that,what a shame

After reading all these comments I think I've found the answer to everyone's dilemma. Why not buy Sukhoi aircraft and build them in the USA?
Cheaper, less than half the price of any American fighter in production.
Faster than any American aircraft.
Flies just as high fully laden as the F-23 will empty.
Flies much further than any US aircraft.
Turns inside all US aircraft.
Similar avionics and weaponry.
Too easy!