Hellcat V, naming scheme question.

Re: Re: True Dat

Originally posted by Meson

(...)
The worse fighter has been, is, and always will be the Epee. Period.
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Sorry, can't resist: No, she wasn't. She was fast, maneuverable and had good guns.

The worst fighter ever is the Phantom from Armada or the Hellcat from WC3. :p
 
Originally posted by Hoops
I got this from http://www.area51zone.com/aircraft/f22.shtml

How the YF-22 beat the YF-23

The YF-23 from Northrop vs. the YF-22 from Lockheed Martin. The YF-23 should have won, and it is a better plane, in stealth and in speed. The only thing it was worse at was low-speed handling. That wasn't why it lost, though. It lost because, while Northrop's B-2 bomber was late and suffering cost overruns, Lockheed had developed the F-117 Stealth Fighter on time and under budget, which made the jugdes favor Lockheed. Northrop felt the loss greatly, because it didn't have enough experience with fighters.
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IIRC Northrop built the F-5 and Lockheed built the F-104. They didn't have much experience with fighters outside of these. Also Northrop had partnered with McDonell Douglas, which had built the F-4, F-15 and the F/A-18. So Northrop-McDonell Douglas should've had more experience with fighters as opposed to the Lockheed-Boeing partnership.
 
Not entirely true.
Northrop also built the F-20. Admittedly, it never went into production (beyond the prototype), but from what I've heard, it was fairly well-liked by a number of military people (just not the right ones).
Northrop just doesn't seem to do too well in the US fighter industry. Maybe they should try designing another cheap export fighter - a second generation F-5 if you will.
 
Originally posted by Penguin


IIRC Northrop built the F-5 and Lockheed built the F-104. They didn't have much experience with fighters outside of these. Also Northrop had partnered with McDonell Douglas, which had built the F-4, F-15 and the F/A-18. So Northrop-McDonell Douglas should've had more experience with fighters as opposed to the Lockheed-Boeing partnership.
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Lockheed and Boeing were also joined by General Dynamics in the work on the YF-22. GD, as we know, built the F-16, arguably the most important export fighter in US history.

A further point in this matter is that Northrop was not doing well financially at this point. There MAY have been some concern over the viability of the company.

However, this all said, I feel that WHO built these prototypes had less of an impact than a change in desire from the USAF. And none of this takes away from the fact that the YF-23 was clearly the better fighter overall.
 
Originally posted by junior
Not entirely true.
Northrop also built the F-20. Admittedly, it never went into production (beyond the prototype), but from what I've heard, it was fairly well-liked by a number of military people (just not the right ones).
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Yeah, like flight instructors. :D

Northrop just doesn't seem to do too well in the US fighter industry. Maybe they should try designing another cheap export fighter - a second generation F-5 if you will.
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I believe that WAS the Tigershark. :)
 
Junior: The F-20 Tigershark was the 2nd generation F-5. But it lost out to F-16s, F/A-18s and Mirage 2000s in the export market.

OriginalPhoenix: I'm not so sure. Although superior dogfighting attributes contradicts the first look, first shot, first kill theory, no pilot can safely discount the possibility of a dogfight. Besides is the YF-23 really that much stealthier and faster than the F-22?
 
Originally posted by Penguin
OriginalPhoenix: I'm not so sure. Although superior dogfighting attributes contradicts the first look, first shot, first kill theory, no pilot can safely discount the possibility of a dogfight. Besides is the YF-23 really that much stealthier and faster than the F-22?
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Noticeably.

And while the possibility of a dogfight cannot be discounted, neither should that possibility drive the acceptance of one fighter which is in every other way inferior to another.

Besides, the YF-23 was no slouch in close either. :)
 
Hey Phoenix since the whole YF-23 came up what do you think of the F-117's competition ( the name and number of which escape me right now) I remember seeing a model of it once from Testors
 
Originally posted by Thymerlord
Hey Phoenix since the whole YF-23 came up what do you think of the F-117's competition ( the name and number of which escape me right now) I remember seeing a model of it once from Testors
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The F-117 really had no competition. When it was developed, there was no basis for stealth technologies and the like. Thus the government didn't want to pay for a direct competition. In fact, much of the F-117's development costs were covered by Lockheed themselves, as move that could have spelled doom had the concept proven to be a failure.

The precursor to the F-117 program was Have Blue, which looked similar and was used as a testbed.

The model you refer to from Testors was in fact a conjectural look at the stealth fighter (thought at that time to be the F-19), before it made its actual public debut. It turned out to be quite inaccurate in all manner of ways.
 
Af, "F-19", that was my favourite flight simulator. And boy, what a manual, it's rare to get such quality today.

Say, did the "F-19" ever leave the drawing board?
 
I remember always trying to reach space through constant climbing. I got pretty far, the sky turned already purple IIRC. Hey, I was pretty young... ;)
 
In EF2000 the effect was very good, you climb, and the skies goes darker and you can see the stars.
 
I don't think there ever was an F-19. I'm certainly not aware of anything that actually used that particular number (other than the conjectural fighter). On the other hand, the fact that the military skipped a number is a little odd...
(iirc, F-21 is the designation given to a few Israeli Kfir planes the USAF acquired, and while I can't remember what it was, I'm fairly certain there's an F-17 out there).
 
F-14 Tomcat

F-15 Eagle

F-16 Falcon

F-17 never reached operational status. The designation was assigned to the precursor of the F/A-18 Hornet as YF-17, which squared off against the YF-16 for a lightweight complement to the F-15. While the USAF decided to go with the Falcon, the Navy preferred the two-engine design, and moved forward with the YF-17 concept. Ultimately, the aircraft changed enough to warrant a new designation number, and thus the F-17 never reached production.

F/A-18 Hornet

F-19 was the logical number the F-117 Nighthawk WOULD have gotten. However, given its secrecy, such was not the case, and as such, the was no F-19 in teh true sense.

F-20 Tigershark

F-21 is indeed the designation given to the Israeli Kfirs used primariliy by the Agressor squadrons at Top Gun and the like.

F-22 Raptor

YF-23 Black Widow
 
The F-17 was a Northrop design, iirc. They called it the "Cobra." They only built a couple prototypes in the early 70's. The Navy went with the F-18 instead.

Doh! Took to long to reply. Darn job, keeps getting in the way of posting :)
 
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