YF 23 black widow II

the American desert a vast desolate space a land of extremes where survival is by instinct and life itself can hang by a thread but nature is not the only force that has left its indelible impression so has man it's here where some of his fiercest creations are born tested and discarded in a venerable boneyard a junk heap of metal machine and ragged glory one special aircraft narrowly escaped this fate it was never fully commissioned by the Air Force but was one of the most advanced tactical fighters the world had seen designed to be the fastest smartest and the most lethal and for a glorious moment it briefly flew over the land where it now rests this is a factual account of human ingenuity pride and sacrifice by an elite team which designed and built this seemingly invincible weapon and who only recently have been granted clearance to discuss their work we were trying to make a fighter airplane be invisible a small bunch of people in an isolated environment set off to pursue an adventure that's what the yf-23 was Northrop corporations yf-23 Black Widow - has been highly classified until now the Cold War 25 years ago the threat of mass destruction from a nuclear holocaust was possible and quite probable with two superpowers embroiled in an invisible conflict of arms escalation and air superiority at that time we had that fearsome potential adversary there was a very real possibility that we would find ourselves in a terrible shooting war against an extremely heavily armed adversary in the middle of Europe with a four to one military advantage belonging to communist forces in Eastern Europe there were legitimate concerns for the West's defense systems and to the region's political stability Thomas B Jones was at the time CEO of Northrop the competitor of course in military was the Soviet Union and they had a lot of good design teams many of them working on fighter aeroplanes the Soviets could develop fighter planes were capable of defeating hours in the sky and that was enough for the Air Force to say we better take a bold step forward with the next airplane while the aging American f15 Eagle held on to a slim advantage in controlling the skies the potential threat in the air by a Swifter Soviet bill fighter like the mig-29 and su-27 posed a massive problem if it was to counter the threat from the east the United States and its aging air fleet needed a shift in aerial strategy the first plan of action was the gathering of intelligence and spy information to analyze the threat and the threats at that time were long-range very capable ground defense radars and ground defense missiles through an agency known as DARPA or Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency the development costs to counter the threat were shared between the government and America's aerospace industries DARPA Spain priority was to implement force multiplier concept a force multiplier is any technology that permits one man to defeat ten men Steve Smith is the former program manager for the Advanced Tactical Fighter program at Northrop to give a single pilot the power of 10 other pilots you had to be aware of the other enemy first and shoot first the Pentagon's ultimate strategic goal became low observability the ability to fly undetected now known as stealth low observables became the mantra of the force multiplier technique the b2 is going to go in and tag bridges and other transportation hubs to prevent the tanks in coming forward into western Germany the vast tactical fighter was to take out their interceptors who could attack the Pentagon's plan was in place and the race for air superiority shifted into Top Gear in the early 1980s the Air Force began a concept development investigation requesting proposals from the leading airframe companies for design concepts for an Advanced Tactical Fighter or ATF in 1983 seven companies responded but only two proposals were chosen by the Pentagon in 1986 the winners Northrop and Lockheed were contracted to develop two prototype aircraft which would compete in a fly off for a multi-billion dollar government contract the Pentagon also encouraged the other bidders to team up with Northrop or lockheed for 50 years author and california-based northrop had been a bold developer designer and supplier of high-performance aircraft such as the f5 and it's legendary b-2 stealth bomber northrop teamed up with mcdonnell douglas their longtime partner on the f-18 program and a dominant fighter manufacturer supplying the f4 phantom and the f-15 eagle always an innovative company burbank california based lockheed have been responsible for some of the most brilliant designs in the industry including the first jet fighter the p80 the u-2 spy plane the sr-71 and the f-117 stealth fighter Lockheed now teamed up with two formidable partners Boeing the giant commercial jet manufacturer and General Dynamics whose divisions designed submarines and tanks as well as jet fighters Thomas Jones envisioned a trailblazing opportunity for his company from the top you just send the message his fellows innovate be bold because only by being bold in your concepts can you be conservative in the detail that's one of the spirits of Northrop that spirit could be attributed to its founder aircraft pioneer designer and innovator Jack Northrop who launched the company in 1939 Jack Northup as an innovator was a very creative person he was like an artist in his field he didn't have a hard academic background it was instinctive one of Jack Northrop's revolutionary innovations and one true passion was the flying wing his YB 49 would later become the inspirational blueprint for the northrop built b-2 stealth bomber the histories of Lockheed and Northrop have been intertwined ever since Jack Northrop began his career with the Lockheed brothers in 1916 when he left to form his own company the rivalry began which continues even today we may have had difference in philosophies but we had respect for each other's technology with more than two billion dollars at stake the capital risks were gigantic to proud rivals locked in a contest to produce the most advanced tactical fighter the world had seen lockheed yf-22 and Northrop's yf-23 you directives from the Pentagon were simple yet required unprecedented advances in technology first the Advanced Tactical Fighter had to be more maneuverable than the enemy the ability to maintain the turn and burn or yankin Bank or maneuverability that Northrop had been so famous for that's the key element of a fighter aircraft the ATF had to fly supersonic without using a gas-guzzling afterburner the afterburners are nothing more than a device which pumps a huge amount of fuel behind the engine prior to that time fighter planes would only fly supersonic for brief periods to either catch up with an enemy that they were trying to shoot down or to run away from one that was trying to shoot them down the ATF had to be no observable or invisible to enemy radar it primarily means building the airframe in such a way that the radar energy that hits it goes in some direction other than the direction it came from the ATF also had to be reliable and maintainable in adverse situations this remarkable machine could be maintained by a bunch of 1820 year old Air Force technicians out in Europe somewhere up in the cold of Alaska with about half of the requirements that an f15 squadron would take at the same time the other directives being met would ensure the final requirement survivability the motivation was to make an aircraft that would allow the pilot to perform his mission with a very high degree of safety a very high probability that he could return to his family and to his home base in good condition the requirements on the f23 were far in excess of anything we designed to in the past if we could get the technology for supercruise stealth and maneuverability in one package it would be a quantum leap in fighter design we'd had experience in design of supersonic aircraft we've had experience in design of using radar systems for detecting the enemy and from our b2 program we had the experience of stealth you try all these different combinations until you find just the right combination or compromise that makes it work their job was made even more complicated by the Pentagon's insistence that work would be designated top-secret special access required sensitivity to national security required it to be a black program code-named senior sky on a black program by definition is like a black hole that is that anything that enters into a black hole never comes out there were 45,000 people working on the b2 in the United States and nobody know that they were not one the best way to keep something secure is to have no one know about it so they won't try to penetrate it people who know don't talk and people who talk don't know Dell Jacobs was appointed as Northrop's first ATF program manager for the preliminary design phase and swiftly formed a special team to meet the challenge Bob Sandusky was assigned as chief engineer and principal architect of the yf-23 we started this program with just four people myself my secretary aerodynamicist and a structures engineer drafted from the b2 division to head the yf-23 technology team was expert physicist you ping Liu but not the date was lost and we were designing technology for p2 and atf together that I saw daily we moved him into a building which had no windows in the walls no sign on the front of the building looked like a abandoned supermarket we put it in the middle of a lot of other production programs and there was no parking lot so that a satellite could not see when the program increased its personnel or decreased him just getting through the entrance of the building getting past the security guards etc required special badges special access you are isolated it really isolated in buildings that had no name and no windows and had double doors you go into it for days and you don't know whether it's raining or sunshine outside some of us worked for ten years without ever seeing a window one of the characteristics of working in the black world is that the more you know the more deeply you have to bury what you know you would go home in the evening and it's very stifling you have all this emotion in this enthusiasm and it's trying to bubble out and you've got this built-in filter that says I can't let it bubble out my wife's a very honest and understanding he she knows I enjoy my work and she knows I was involved with something very special because she can tell from eyes she would say to me and what did you do today and I'd say I can't tell you I said I was busy building an airplane dear yet despite their cloak-and-dagger secrecy those working in the black world developed an unexpected camaraderie it did make everyone feel that they were a member of a family and became very close-knit surprisingly close-knit everybody had this common interest and we felt like we were David taking on Goliath myself personally I worked 14 hours a day seven days a week on this airplane for nine years I was he almost every day 6 - pattaya sector security it was the only thing I thought of I put it in front of my family I put it in front of everything I woke up in the morning I was thinking about the airplane when I went to bed at night I was thinking about it again - as team spirit flourished the contest had just begun to take shape we knew from day one that we were up against a fierce competitor Lockheed wasn't is fantastic stealth and fighter design organization Sandusky's team knew that their design would have to defeat the most potent weapon that can be used against the fighter radio azimuth detecting and ranging signals commonly known as radar ever since 1940 when it was first effectively utilized by the British against the German Luftwaffe radar has been evolving into far more sophisticated forms there is only one way to hide from radar it's called stealth stealth is the ability of an object or weapon to appear invisible to all enemy sensors it's the art of deceiving the enemy through either active or passive countermeasures to defeat the sensors that can be played against an airplane top secret research in ways to avoid radar detection has continued for decades it was Northrop and Lockheed which developed the first experimental versions of stealth aircraft Lockheed's have blue program was the forerunner to the f-117 stealth fighter Northrop spaces for their b-2 stealth bomber was the tacit blue program this intelligence-gathering aircraft was the first stealthy aircraft with curved aerodynamic surfaces and was developed in a program that was so highly classified that for many years the Pentagon did not even acknowledge that it existed [Music] the two competitors follow different paths in designing their own ATF versions Lockheed's design followed in the tradition of their have blue and f-117 creations with sharply angled surfaces northrop's ATF design took on the distinctive characteristics of its stealth heritage the b-2 bomber the b2 is the most beautiful technical state-of-the-art answer to a problem of long-range strategic bombing that I could ever imagine the b2 with its flowing organic lines radar deflecting profile and flying wing design has a strategic advantage over its opponents but its specialised ability to handle only bombing missions required the Air Force to demand an ultimate stealth fighter throughout the eight-year development of the yf-23 stealth techniques were being continuously tested and refined one characteristic quality of a stealth aircraft is to have a smooth unbroken surface if it's smooth and flowing and aligned properly it will be very hard to see when you look at an airplane closely will have windows it will have access doors it'll have landing gear doors even where large panels have skin meat there'll be little discontinuities those discontinuities are alike floodlights when when radar signal hits them the shape of the plane was determined by radar and wind tunnel tests during one type of radar tests the aircraft model was placed on a pole and its cross-section illuminated with various high-frequency radar signals its radar cross section or RCS was then measured and the data utilized in the design process these tests were conducted at night at a secret location in the California desert under cover from overhead satellite surveillance we had a building that was a million cubic feet on a rail that housed this airplane during the daylight hours so it couldn't be seen by satellites and at night the building roll out of the way and the radar was shot at the at the model early in the program during one such RCS test the yf-23 first acquired the name black widow we realized that the radar signature from the leading and trailing edges of the wing and the wingtips formed an RCS pattern that looked exactly like a spider and I don't remember who it was as said it but said Black Widow - it has to be the original black widow northrop p-61 was built during World War two it was a night fighter fitted with the first ever radar guided gun system painted gloss black to deflect enemy searchlights according to the books are red shot down six airplanes before the Northrop rep even got down to South Pacific to teach the pilots how to fly it since that time the black widow has become legendary among aviation enthusiasts my dad was a supervisor on the first black metal and I was very proud and passionate to be a production manager on the Black Widow - in 1990 some fifty years later two separate prototypes of the yf-22 and of the yf-23 were built for the ATF program these prototype air vehicles were designated pav 1 and pav 2 pav 1 was powered with the Pratt & Whitney engine and General Electric supplied the engine for path to the 2 engine companies were locked in their own fly-off competition for engine selection their goal to build an engine that could fly at sustained supercruise speeds the noise from the engines during idling was something that you could feel it vibrate against your chest the two massive engines produced 70,000 pounds of sea-level thrust which at maximum flight speed produced more than 40,000 horsepower nearly that of a Navy destroyer there was hot gas coming out at something between three and four thousand degrees with that heat that turbulence that noise level you would destroy almost anything else you put back there the jet exhaust was also vulnerable to heat-seeking missiles to lower the heat signature an ingenious exhaust liner was designed which cooled engine emissions from detection the liner tiles while similar in purpose to those found on the space shuttle were far more complex and labor-intensive each one was meticulously installed by hand so many different tiles so many different techniques we had to do to install it and it was quite complexing we're talking several hundred tiles per engine bay all the operating functions were controlled by the Black Widow twos unique avionics system we developed a new computer technology capability on that airplane that had essentially super computers in the air not in a big building the supercomputer or core processor performed numerous avionic functions including radar navigation performance data and situational or combat awareness another important function was flight control the central computer made the necessary flight corrections as the pilot flew the aircraft a technique called fly-by-wire weight fly-by-wire aircraft you move the stick and you tell the computer this is what you want the aircraft to do pull back on the stick you want the aircraft to climb now the computer figures out how to make the aircraft do that the core processor was the yf-23 central nervous system it was regarded as the most advanced for its era because it provided all the data in real time performing an astounding five to six billion operations per second compared to an IBM mainframe running at a mere 400 million operations per second at that time we flew an airplane that had more computing capability than probably the rest of the company had in all their large computers the development of an airplane is really a packaging problem the challenge for the engineering team was to integrate the computer system and its auxilary components into the black widow two's overall design package without affecting its maneuverability the ability to super cruise or its stealth signature it's the same problem that the supermarket has and how many pork chops can you put in the package to ensure its smooth flowing design the Black Widow 2 was actually built from the outside in which in effect was like building a plane backwards to reduce the airplanes weight covering the airframe was a unique graphite based composite material lighter than aluminum and capable of sustained supersonic flight while Northrop pioneered the use of composites they hadn't been used this extensively until path1 though Northrop and McDonnell Douglas produced the airframe they relied on a network of specialized subcontractors who created the internal components like the computers actuators and radar systems we got 49 or 50 or 60 suppliers on contract in about seven months and a very small group of people did it and they were late-night sometimes we were negotiating with suppliers till 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning there were now 10,000 people in 30 different states working in complete secrecy on the project the ATF program was an immense undertaking building the plane from scratch generated a massive amount of test data calculations statistics and reports the paperwork alone was colossal and the standing joke was that when the weight of the paper equals the design weight of the aircraft were probably pretty close to being finished with the job when a fighter is not in combat it is still vulnerable to natural hazards that could destroy it as effectively as an enemy missile one single bird flying into a pilots canopy could result in disaster early in the astronaut program one of the astronauts was flying somewhere in Texas and a snow goose penetrated the canopy and killed him instantly bum deal to alleviate this problem Northrup turn to their specialists subcontractors the challenge was to fabricate a specially coated radar deflective canopy which was thin enough to be optically perfect yet thick enough to withstand a bird strike at 400 knots the common method of testing the canopy is to fire a four pound raw chicken from a high velocity air cannon at it high-speed test footage shows the catastrophic failure when the object penetrates a windshield but a 3/4 of an inch thick unbreakable polycarbonate canopy absorbs the awesome forces of impact to drill a plexiglass and not to crack the glass was very time and consuming for us there was no processes that we were using at that time and we had to develop a cooling fluid to do it and the we accidentally stumbled on the soap in the bathroom that worked the best cooling before the assemblies were installed in the prototypes the major systems had to be tested this was accomplished with the iron bird a metal frame where the electrical and hydraulic systems could be laid out in exact detail and verified we hooked that iron bird up to the flight simulator so that when the pilot was performing missions we came as near as possible to give him the feeling he'd have in the airplane at the controls were veteran test pilots Paul Metz and Jim Sandberg the pilots were in the simulator developing the control laws telling the engineers how to design the airplane our job is to be both an engineer and a pilot we're all trained as as engineers we're not training ourselves how to fly the airplane we're working with the engineers to make the airplane fly well but Metz faced a problem the first time he operated the simulator I went over to the dome and they had a joystick and they said here fly the ATF unflyable I crashed first I'm out Metz was to crash 75 more times in the simulator before the design was perfected Metzen Sandberg like most test pilots were a breed apart test pilots our separate breed a noted for lack of emotion particularly in high-stress times they have to be ready and prepared for any emergency they have to know the system better than any system engineer they have to plan for every contingency know what to do in each condemned see when something's going wrong you don't know it mean their their voice doesn't change their pulse doesn't change it's amazing tend to be a cocky bunch but I think I'd be cocky too if I was able to do that the simulator program was in many respects the most costly part of the ATF budget utilizing computer models the test pilots simulated war games and recreated combat situations pitting the computerized version of path one with the best Soviet MiG's and American fighters and path one beat them all hands-down but the success was overshadowed by a new set of problems there were 1500 engineers on the program at that point at that point we were spending a million dollars a day so you felt guilty going on going to bed at night with that kind of money riding on after three years the financial stakes brought new pressures but the team pushed on on the average I don't think anyone worked less than 50 hours and many people work 70 or 80 hours I remember it as being like an e-ticket ride you got on and once you figured out what you were supposed to do you really didn't have the time to be overwhelmed by it you just were in a race with 20,000 hours logged in the simulators the test pilots and engineers felt they were now ready to take their show out to the desert where new hidden dangers were lurking 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles on a desolate dry lakebed lies Edwards Air Force Base home to more historic aviation tests exploits than any other test facility on the planet the base was named after captain Glenn Edwards a test pilot killed while flying northrop's original flying wing Chuck Yeager smashed the sound barrier here in 1947 and it has also served as test headquarters for the successful b-2 stealth bomber program one end of the Edwards flight test facility is a test pilot school and the whole trick and that words is to try to get from one end the flight line to the other end without getting a street named after you because if you're killed during flight test that's normally what happens they name a street after you in secretive nightly operations to elude overhead spy satellites huge sections of the aircraft were hauled under armed guard to the base they're a 125 member flight test crew assembled and tested while thousands worked in support two days before the scheduled rollout chief engineer Bob Sandusky found a way to give path one it's unofficial insignia crawling under the narrow wing space he came across a sharp edge by the air vent I said you know that's dangerous and we really ought to paint that sharp point there red crew chief Dave Maurice had a can of red spray paint handy so I painted the inside of it red so that you'd be up see it a little bit and try and get a little bit of warning all of a sudden it turned into an hourglass like on the belly of a black widow spider path one at last bore the symbol of its namesake in the early hours of June 22nd 1990 the Black Widow 2 was finally completed the lead up is always a time of great tension but now the excitement really starts to build and we just couldn't wait to have the world see this wonderful thing that we had developed but moments before the scheduled roll out Bob Sandusky was forced to apply some stealth interference of his own when an Air Force general wanted to carry out a last-minute inspection and a night literally threw my body in front of him and pointed him off to another part of the airplane so he wouldn't see the hourglass on the bottom of the airplane before the rollout a few minutes later the black world secrecy that had shrouded the ATF program for the past eight years was about to be lifted a few moments you'll see an airplane it's no longer paper list of specifications or an artist concept but a modern miracle representing the world's most advanced technologies and engines avionics and materials and now I am honored on behalf of the entire team to present the yf-23 the first prototype of America's Advanced Tactical Fighter [Music] although you knew it was a product of man it didn't feel like it should have been it felt like something far greater [Music] for several weeks following the successful rollout f1 was given a variety of taxi tests during one of the very first tests the flaps and tail surfaces automatically began to activate the flight control system was sensing the bumps in the tar strips on the taxiway and was really trying to compensate and fly the airplane so it applies smoothly and not have these bumps in the flight the computers sensitivity was adjusted to correct this anomaly during the taxi tests pilot Paul Metz had his first opportunity to experience the aircraft's true capabilities that's your first chance to get a feel for the airplane in motion and take a look at the brakes and some of the aerodynamics what happens when the flight controls the rudder activated at this stage of the AEF competition Lockheed had yet to roll out their plane and Northrop was at last ready to fly [Music] at 3:30 a.m. on August 27th 1990 excited employees congregated in Hawthorn boarded a fleet of buses in darkness and headed out to the desert we were going to finally get to see it fly then it was incredible people singing having a good time Edwards Air Force Base meanwhile was a pulse of frenetic activity engineers specialists and the flight test crew were busy making final preparations for the big event attention just kind of builds and builds of course they're very cautious on a first flight taking time they're checking everything they're checking everything just before we got in the airplane for the first flight Paul Matz our test pilot came over to me and said is it ok that's all he said is it ok and I thought back through the thousands of hours of wind tunnel testing the testing of the composites for their strength and thought about all of the things that could have gone wrong and some of the things that had gone wrong and we had found and fixed and I took a deep breath and I said yeah Paul it's ok [Music] we think that we have checked and double-checked and triple-checked but until that thing actually lifts off the runway and begins to fly you're never quite sure we're going I ride your right way to take the runway and that's for when I'm clear for takeoff runway two one so pulled out on the runway and did the final checks I can still remember thinking that for years we've been working with those same people and today was their day as much as it was my day to fly the airplane that was about the first time I realized that we were really going to do it so I pushed the power up and release the brakes [Music] when the airplane took off it's about as close as a man can come to giving birth is to see an airplane that you put so many gears in to take off and and fly people just went crazy just hollering jumping up and down hugging each other the sound was better than the orchestra's it was the best thing ever heard to suddenly see it get airborne if there's nothing like it there's nothing in the world that was in the control room I just could not wait I would I went out of control I want to see if I it is just an unbelievable experience I mean your heart starts to pound I really don't think I exhaled for that hour when it passed over was when you see the real beauty of this airplane that first time was just ingrained in my brain there is an image that will remain for a long time I distinctly remember thinking this is probably the peak of your career and as I look back on it it was a photograph of pav ones first flight proudly displaying Bob Sandusky's black widow signature appeared on the cover of the next Aviation Week in response orders quickly came from above to have the hourglass immediately removed [Music] as soon as the historic first flight was over the on-ground celebrations began with a ritual first pilot first flight soaking of test pilot Mets the traditional so Kings would continue for the five test pilots who first flew paths one [Music] on august 29 1990 two days after paths ones first flight lucky triumphantly rolled out its yf-22 now the contestants were dueling wing to wing it was cleared us that we had the beautiful airplane they had a kind of stodgy airplane and so this led us to blaze that we were we were head we were winning over at Northrop Jin Sandberg was behind the controls for the first flight of path 2 however this time an unforeseen problem occurred after we got airborne and epaulet joined up with me we raised the landing gear under the butt good Paul gave me a call and said everything's up and closed and then we lowered and the right landing gear never came down yeah by now JA so we just talked about it a little bit with Mission Control and it was decided that we would raise the landing gear and try it again well the few times I ever like to hear somebody say try it again we put the landing gear down they stayed down and then we conducted the remainder of the flight with the gear down path to safely touchdown without any further incidents fortunately Sandburg pioneering spirit wasn't dampened [Music] a month later Lockheed flew their own airplane for the first time the ATF competition had entered the final round we could see that they had made some decisions that were very different from the one that we had made we felt that ours was going to be a lot stealthier they on the other hand had decided that theirs was going to be more agile so the race was on the agility speed and the avionics brain of the Black Widow to met the government requirements the Pentagon's ten to one force multiplier became a reality well I think that performance of the airplane is something that is really different about this class of machines and that that sticks in my mind very vividly even to this day being able to accelerate out to supersonic speeds and never touch the afterburner they've got accelerating me I'm going Turner got to foil I've never flown a better flying airplane and I don't think that I ever run this airplane was truly a joy to fly my favorite recollection of test flying this airplane was a performance flight one day when we had to do some turning performance supersonic I think was at 35,000 feet in 1.3 Mach and I was impressed so this airplane would really turn well for the record the unclassified official top speed of the Black Widow - at supercruise was nearly 1.5 Mach without afterburner and 1.8 Mach at maximum power any speed above that remains classified it was really fast it went much faster than the yf-22 but I can't tell you how fast it actually went it was a very fast airplane other performance details are still to this day highly classified I don't believe I'm at liberty to tell you now I can now come in on details know perhaps the ultimate satisfaction for the team occurred when have one and path to made their momentous formation flight [Music] seeing two aircraft in formation is an exponential thrill compared to see a single fighter and and to see the two coming in together was was just beautiful it's a beautiful scene it's an exciting scene it's a thrilling scene [Music] and one and it's flight test crew now faced one of their biggest challenges and exercise known as search day from dawn until dusk six separate sorties were conducted each one of these sorties that was blown whereas actual tests or airplanes to pause conducted flight tests that we required whether they're for the engine for the flying qualities and then came back and landed and changed out the crews all them very successful in the airplane stayed together beautiful extremely reliable and good flying sweet flying machine fastest ATF guy on April 23rd 1991 the Pentagon made the decisive telephone call identifying which company would recoup their 650 million dollar investment a few of us gathered over in Tom Murray's office Tom Rooney was a program manager at the time of the announcement I was outside the door and I decided not to get in there because I was afraid be too emotional and the call came through we got the second phone call and so we do at that point that it wasn't us and of course that was the world came crashing down tamil only came up I saw his face I knew it solver so I did not even receive the word I just left it was a very very sad very very quiet moment I said the I could not stand I don't want to talk anybody so I actually cried by myself we were crushed there's just no other word for it I went to the beach I went to the down the beach I was by myself I walked on the beach for about couple hours and I was crushed because we knew the numbers we knew the rcs numbers they accomplished compared to ours and there's no reason we we will lose so I will not accept the fact so I I was I'm on the beach by myself pacing down the beach on the sand for two hours for two hours yes it it was for me it was the opposite it was a personal personal blow I I felt that I had let the team down and I just didn't want to be around anybody so I I went home absolute disappointment to this day I think they made the wrong decision if the criterion was the best airplane possible for the mission that's what I believe oh yeah how I felt that's how I felt soon after the announcement was made the yf-23 black widow to program was dissolved along with the hopes and dreams of the Northrop and McDonnell Douglas team that had worked on it the classified components of path 1 and path to the engines and instruments were removed the interiors disemboweled and sealed by the Air Force all that remained were the empty shells waiting to be destroyed for the sake of secrecy by their creators at one point when they said well if we lose we're going to have to destroy the aircraft I told him I said well you're probably going to have to find somebody else to chop this sucker up because it ain't gonna be me there's a lot of hard work a lot of blood sweat tears involved in this baby so there was no way I was going to cut it up in winning their respective contracts Lockheed and Pratt and Whitney would continue the development and production of their yf-22 now called the Raptor the f-22 program goes on and it will be a good airplane but ironically the Cold War became an issue of the past the threat that was there 10 years ago when we first started the effort was gone the USSR collapsed Russia redefined itself and suddenly the look down shoot down threat didn't exist anymore as for path 1 and path 2 they remained at Edwards Air Force Base for five years anonymous icons to a lost government contract desert denizens collecting dusts and memories it was wrong to have these wonderful examples of our very best American technology just deteriorating out in the desert because man and machine have for centuries shared an indomitable spiritual connection on one memorable morning in 1995 Dale Brownlow Angela hall and Gary MacNeil traveled to Edwards Air Force Base to bring path to back home for restoration we saw the airplanes with two inches of dust around it and cobwebs all over a bird's nest and it's pretty discouraging you know we took the wings off put it on a truck and move it down here upon its arrival back in Hawthorne California path 2 was restored to its former glory by some of the original team who built her ironically the restoration occurred in the same hangar building in which she was first built path 2 can be viewed at the Western Museum of Flight at Jack Northrup field in Hawthorne path 1 is displayed permanently at wright-patterson Air Museum in Dayton Ohio [Music] the yf-23 did some things that have never been done before that legacy is still there for our the stimulus to push on forward [Music] I think the people the times the effort and the product we came up with was such a team effort such a coming together of the talents parts souls so many people that there's a little piece of everybody in that airplane [Music] for a fleeting moment the yf-23 black widow to sword the desert skies a visionary imprint of technical invention stealth superiority and human endeavor a bold icon for future generations to follow [Music] you you

Channel: Western Museum of Flight

Views: 3,703,891

Rating: 4.7562642 out of 5

Keywords: yf-23, Northrop YF-23 (Aircraft Model), web of secrecy yf-23 black widow ii declassified, advanced tactical fighter, stealth fighter

Id: PYLiMYGBE2Q

Length: 51min 12sec (3072 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/mph199]

Yeah, I had a lot of fun with it playing JetFighter II on PC way back when...

​

But if it's any consolation, the Raptor has been *SO* good and *SO* capable that even to this day no enemy has been ballsy enough to directly challenge one.

[u/THEPOOPSOFVICTORY]

Easily my favorite plane in the series (though the F-15 S/MTD is a close second), but I feel like Project Aces just kind of leaves it in a "meh" state in every game to make the F-22 stand out, yet they seem to really put a lot of care in to all of the high-ter Sukhois.

[u/redzaku0079]

24 minute mark. this is a weapon we need in ace combat. how can we not?