National Security Journal on MSN

The stealth fighter that got away: Why the YF-23 Black Widow II lost to the F-22 Raptor

Lockheed’s YF-22 wasn’t the inevitable winner of the Air Force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter contest. -Northrop’s YF-23 “Black ...
The National Interest

How Politics Killed America’s Greatest Fighter Jet

The Pentagon funded the YF-22 over the cheaper YF-23 when they knew it was a far more problematic warplane—purely out of a desire to keep Lockheed Martin alive. The late United States Air Force ...
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The Fighter Jet Haunting The US Air Force

Does the Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 "Black Window II" demonstrator built for the US Air Force's Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) competition still haunt the Air Force? No, not really, but that ...
The National Interest

F-22 vs. F-23: Why the Ultimate Stealth Air Duel Won’t Happen

“Interestingly the YF-22 and YF-23 had exactly the same trimmed AoA of 60°. The YF-23 could do it without thrust vectoring. Those V-tails were very powerful especially when coupled to an unstable ...
The Aviationist

Raptors Unleashed: A Look Back At The F-22’s Initial Combat Operations Against ISIS

Looking back at its first combat operations against ISIS, the F-22 proved it could do much more than dominate the skies, delivering precision strikes and sharing critical data with allied platforms ...