If you plunge headlong into the period of the design formation of the 5th generation American tactical aviation, rooted in the early 80s, you can pay attention to the fact that the promising ATF ("Advenced Tactical Fighter") program, which largely determined the vision of the leading world aerospace corporations, research institutes and development bureaus for the appearance of next-generation multifunctional fighters, can boast not only such a crown of creation from the state-owned company Lockheed Martin (in cooperation with McDonnell Douglas) as the stealthy tactical fighter F- 22A "Raptor" (flight demonstrator / prototype index YF / A-22). After even 27 years, the almost forgotten competitive race within the ATF, won by the Raptor, continues to be accompanied by the “shadow” of a unique car, which dropped out of this race by the end of 1990. This is a 5th generation F-23 “Black Widow II” stealth multi-role fighter (YF-23 flight prototype index).
This machine, developed by Nortrop Corporation in 1990, entered the competition under the Advanced Tactical Fighter program a month before the first demonstration flight of the YF / A-22 Raptor. The Black Widow took off on 27 August, while the Raptor took off on 29 September. A little later, the second prototype of the YF-23 - "Gray Ghost" ("Gray Ghost") took off in the air. From that moment on, a fierce competitive battle ensued between the main contenders for the role of the world's first serial fighter of the 5th generation and a "strategic asset" in the implementation of covert electronic and electronic intelligence in the US Air Force, represented by a series of tests aimed at testing fly-by-wire control systems, systems deviations of the thrust vector (in the case of the YF / A-22), as well as the identification of deficiencies in the aircraft's flight performance.
Due to the absence of a thrust vector deviation system for the Pratt & Whitney YF-119 and General Electric F120 engines, the Black Widow and the Gray Ghost (YF-23) were inferior to the future F-22A in the angular rate of turn in the plane pitch, had a larger bend radius, and also could not perform such aerobatics as "Pugacheva's Cobra" and "Frolov's Chakra"; Similar figures were mastered by the "Raptor". At the same time, the YF-23 flight prototypes, which have not only an integrated airframe, but also a "diamond-shaped" wing in plan, as well as a high-performance computerized fly-by-wire control system, had much better controllability at low speeds and at high angles of attack, a dangerous stall effect overtook these machines much less often than the prototypes of the early Raptors. They were not inferior to the YF-23 in terms of supersonic cruising flight speed without switching to afterburner operation: at maximum (without afterburner), a speed of 1700 km / h was reached, which at that time was an excellent indicator. In the meantime, the US Air Force Evaluation Commission gave preference to the YF / A-22 (F-22A "Raptor"), after which the project YF-23 from "Northrop" was immediately closed.
According to various sources, the refusal of the US Air Force from the "Northrop" brainchild has several reasons at once. First, it is the extremely futuristic appearance of the F-23 "Black Widow II" airframe. Apparently, the "diamond-shaped" wing, as well as the presence of only two tail all-turning empennage elements with a camber angle of about 90 degrees (instead of the standard pair of vertical stabilizers / rudders and a pair of horizontal elevators) frightened the conservative representatives of the Air Force, accustomed to the F-15C machines The Eagle, with its innovative design, resembling the glider of a fancy high-altitude fighter from a science fiction movie. Secondly, this is a more unfavorable economic situation at Lockheed Martin at the beginning of the 90s, which required injections from the US Congress in the form of funding for the purchase of a large series of F-22A, while the Northrop Corporation had already received an order for the serial production of strategic bombers B-2 "Spirit", which adequately filled the "wallet" of the company. Third, the maintenance of future F-23s would require the US Air Force to create a new, even more complex and expensive service base.
Meanwhile, the official winding down of the YF-23 project does not mean at all that the unique design features and element base of the first two prototypes of this machine will not be partially embodied in promising projects of next generation tactical fighters from other manufacturers on the Eurasian continent. This was confirmed by the news about the provision of RFI (Request of Information) information by the headquarters of the Northrop Grumman corporation in the interests of the Japanese program for the development of the 5th generation F-3 fighter. We remember well that the project of the ATD-X twin-engine stealth fighter, which reached the stage of creation and the first flight tests of the demonstrator, was frozen by the Japanese in November 2017, which was justified by the huge costs (about $ 40 billion) for organizing high-tech facilities and building a series of several dozen machines. Moreover, despite the lengthy development of the ATD-X project, the specialists of the Japanese company Ishikavagima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. ("IHI Corporation") have not been able to master the design of a modern nozzle with a thrust vector deflection system for the nationally developed XF5-1 engines.
The demonstrator was equipped with fancy 3-leaf controllable nozzles of antediluvian design. Now specialists from the Japanese Technical Research Institute (TRDI) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have focused on obtaining ready-made technological developments from Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. And it is "Northrop" that has an important trump card among this American "aerospace trinity" in the form of unique developments for the YF-23 project. Thus, in the Japanese ATD / F-3 program, this American company can finally take revenge on Lockheed Martin, which is trying to promote its F-35A Lightning-2 everywhere, which is notable for its poor maneuverability and a range of only 1100 km. Experts from Northrop can offer Japanese developers such unique technological features of Black Widow II as:
And this is just a small part of the entire list of technological "bells and whistles" and "goodies" that the American company Northrop Grumman is ready to provide to the Japanese to take revenge from Lockheed Martin for the fiasco in the ATF project and gaining prestige in the Asian arms market.
