Fighter Funday!
By 
The Navy and Northrop Grumman are still trying to make the F/A-XX a thing…
Nearly three decades ago, the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor beat out the Northrop Grumman YF-23 Black Widow in the competition for the US Air Force’s first stealth fighter (the F-117, despite its designation, is an attack aircraft). As with many competitions of this sort, recriminations over the decision continued long after the production run of the Raptor ended.
The F-22, being a real aircraft in the real world, suffered from teething problems, cost overruns, crashes, and all of the other issues that afflict real airplanes. The Black Widow suffered from none of these problems, and thus led a fruitful career as an imaginary alternative to the Raptor.
The YF-23 bears a superficial resemblance to the latest artistic depiction of the F/A-XX, not completely surprising given that the two aircraft share a designer and most mission requirements. There’s undoubtedly a touch of irony in two designs of such similar appearance facing what may be an identical fate. But convergent engineering is nothing new to aviation science.
Airplanes, man. Can’t live with them, um… something. Anyway, here are some other natsec themed links:
- Spain and Switzerland rethinks notwithstanding, Europe is going to collectively have a lot of F-35s.
- Significant reforms to China’s Central Military Commission…
- The era in which China could be described as substantially behind the US in military aerospace technology has now passed…
- The changing face of Russian mercs in Africa…
- Turkey’s armament ambitions…
- I’m still not quite sure what’s going on between Thailand and Cambodia?