Northrop / McDonnell Douglas ATF - YF-23 and EMD F-23

If you want to see the 'compass blue' YF-23A it is visible on Google Maps at "Spirit Avenue, El Segundo".
 
NG will not return PAV-2 to WMOF, according to my correspondence with museum officials. Anyway, after moving to a new place, WMOF still has a bunch of interesting stuff like YF-17 and F-20.
 
Interesting to note, how official F-23A drawings match 1990s Koku-Fan one, except some minor differences.
Also note - Koku-Fan has much more detail on weapon placement...hmm...
 
Thanks so much for that image which shows a beautiful plane. I actually do not like the YF-23 that much (i found the engines bays far too large and the proportions of front fuselage to wing area not so good) but the F-23 is far sleeker and better looking.

So bad we can't see any 3D drawing and even more that the plane didn't make it to the win.
 
flateric said:
Interesting to note, how official F-23A drawings match 1990s Koku-Fan one, except some minor differences.
Also note - Koku-Fan has much more detail on weapon placement...hmm...
Click to expand...

Yeah, I noticed that as well. But you have to remember, we only have one page of what may have been a multiple page set. I can't read it that clearly, but does it read "4" in the title block? If so, I'm willing to bet one of the other pages had the weapons bay/weapons system info. But you can kind of tell where the missle bays are on the drawing we have, based on the fuselage break you can see on the side view and the open areas in the section view. Although, it would have been nice to be able to see the weapons bays door configurations in this drawing. ;)
 
Mark or Overscan, I am still very much looking forward to see a higher rez of this drawing if possible.
Thanks!
--Luc
 
Easily in the top five of most awesome files I saw on this forum. Thanks :D
 
It is such an inspirational airplane..as an aerospace engineer, that thing has been my benchmark plane (and F-20) all along. Thanks for sharing. Now I need to find drawing for F-5/F-20..ha.

--
JH
 
Thanks for the full size image guys! ;D
 
overscan said:
High res copy here: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/YF-23%204%20View.gif (1.35mb)
Click to expand...
Hi guys,
I am having problems opening this high - res pic. Is it something with the link having gone bad or is it my computer?
Thanks!
 
Your computer. Link is fine. Its pretty huge though - try right clicking the link, save, and then open from your computer into an image viewer.
 
Taking that one down to the print shop, get an A1 copy printed up and mount it on my wall! Great stuff.

Interesting to note that the engines are canted inboard about 2 degrees.
 
AeroFranz said:
Frankly I think it's just that spelling is not exactly given a high priority in the US educational system. It doesn't help that compared to other languages, in English there is less correspondence between how you pronounce words and how you write them (hence the common mistakes of using 'to' when you really mean 'too', or 'then' when you mean 'than'...and the list goes on).
I cringe every time i read 'Northrup' :mad:
Click to expand...

Nothing to do with any perceived failings of the US educational system, most likely it is because there are folks who spell their name Northrup and others who spell it Northrop. The divergent spellings are considered variations of a single name.
 
This guy at milviz says the drawing just posted by Mark is a fake by Matej at this site. Based on people I know and other information I've been able to acquire, this drawing seams to match what I know. Besides, I didn't know Matej knew how to calculate area distribution plots and as good as Matej's drawings are, I've not seen anything like this from him. ;)

Any thoughts?
 
I sincerely doubt that the F-23A drawing provided by Mark Nankivil is a fake. It matches those drawings found in this power point presentation by Burt Dicht, former Northrop lead engineer on the YF-23A program:

files.asme.org/asmeorg/Governance/KnowledgeCommunity/8800.ppt

The drawing is also credited to the ‘F-23 Team’ the commercial entity designing the aircraft for the USAF. Northrop was a part of this team (though lead) and it also included McDonnell Douglas. Seems like this Milviz guy is just another idiot on the internet...
 
Its not a fake. Perhaps he's confusing it with Matej's earlier drawings based on the Koku-fan drawing.
 
Sundog said:
This guy at milviz says the drawing just posted by Mark is a fake by Matej at this site. ....
Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

I've seen other drawings in the same series... and they back up the claim that this drawing is legit. If it's a fake, it's quite an elaborate one, involving a whole bucket of effort for little percievable gain.
 
Thanks guys, that's what I thought as well. Based on what I've heard and read it matches the production configuration quite accurately.
 
Let's leave MilViz guy at his own forum with his rather strange conclusions.

I can't understand his strange depreciative attitude to Matej drawings - remember, that he made them based on 1990s Koku-Fan 3-view that he didn't ever pretend to be ultimate truth.

Once more, I wonder how 19 years old leak close to real F-23A drawings, even showing weapons placement (that much more detalied drawings do not, BTW)
 
Matej, now that we have all seen the F-23 EMD dwgs, I take your drawings more seriously. You were very very close.
Hats off to you. ;)
I was surfing the net on the 23rd, and I stumbled across the dwgs here for the EMD.
23, 23. ;)
A big thankyou to Mark, you must feel really guru right now.
How long have we waited?

I'd like to cut a deal with Matej:
Matej, if you would be willing to upload a scan of the KokuFan FSD dwgs (orig, not your copies) and any diags showing more info
in the weapons bay of the YF-23 (protoype), I will post something here that will prove that Mark's upload is not fake.
:)
 
you can proceed without all these. i will post original Koku-fan drawing in the evening
we know for sure that what Mark has posted, is not a fake

all we still know nothing of weapon launch system on YF-23 (Matej, Lantinian, me and bunch of other hard YF-23 nuts)
 
Well, this guy was working on his interpretation of F-23 for four (?) years and now comes the drawing, that can prove that he is in many details wrong and must 1. delete his hard work as inaccurate 2. repair all the inacurracy. So I think that to say it is fake is a natural defence reaction. But I do not care, he can think what he want.

supacruze: Here it is. Regarding the weapon bays of the YF-23, I am reffering to my reply no 39 in this thread and I think that it is the closest thing we were able to find till now.
 

Attachments

  • Koku Fan F-23A.jpg
    Koku Fan F-23A.jpg
    103.1 KB · Views: 750
BTW, Matej, have you comapred the sizes on Koku-Fan and Northrop's drawings?

And, once more, sincere thanks to Lantinian who has discovered that Northrop's patent for me and other world.
 
interesting. yes? japanese magazine knows EMD design 18 years earlier than other white world
no other edition went further than verbal description

and if we to believe it in other details, definitely launch system wasn't that one shown in patent
 
flateric said:
interesting. yes? japanese magazine knows EMD design 18 years earlier than other white world
no other edition went further than verbal description

and if we to believe it in other details, definitely launch system wasn't that one shown in patent
Click to expand...

This patent?
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=WQI8AAAAEBAJ
 
No, that patent appears to be by the Northrop "White" team, of people not cleared to work on ATF, as described by Bill Rogers here:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,185.msg35725.html#msg35725

The weapons bay patent is here:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=bBA8AAAAEBAJ
 
overscan said:
No, that patent appears to be by the Northrop "White" team, of people not cleared to work on ATF, as described by Bill Rogers here:

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,185.msg35725.html#msg35725

The weapons bay patent is here:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=bBA8AAAAEBAJ
Click to expand...

That makes more sense, thanks. The patent had some... odd ... names on it.
 
supacruze, your turn now to spill the beans...
 
There was a program that aired yesterday called "Hitler's Stealth Fighter". It is about the Ho-229. I haven' seen the full program myself, but there are some interesting footage of the facility where they test RCS. You can see some fragments of the base on the video here:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/hitler-s-stealth-fighter-3942/Overview#tab-Videos/06887_00

The video that shows the base is at the far end with the text in the yellow box "The modelers have created...". So, my question is: I guess Yf-23 was tested at this base? I think i remember seeing a picture of Yf-23 (i presume it is full scale model, not the PAV-1 and -2) on the pole, somewhere. (not even sure if it was here) Any more info on that?
 
Movie shows Northrop Grummann staff at the place, so the RCS range can be Tejon Canyon (I'm not sure, at the meantime, that NG still uses it). And yes, RCS test range at Tejon Canyon was the place, where full scale YF-23 model was tested.
 
unknown/unknown size marble ball for X-band = unknown
 
I only saw that F-23A drawing just now - fantastic :eek: Thanks for sharing!
 
I must have been on the other side of the moon for a while to miss this....

Excellent stuff guys. I am seriously thinking of making that A0 wall poster and putting it beside the awesome Flight International F-22A cutaway on the wall.

The date on the Full F-23 drawings does show 12th Dec 1990, so it must have been what Northrop submitted as an EMD proposal. Had they won the contract however, I bet there might have been some more small changes. The F-22A design was frozen sometime on 1992 in my recollection and additional redesign was done again in 1994 (reducing panel edges and JDAM integration).

It's interesting to note how the EMD designs highlighted even more the company ATF philosophy. F-23 was longer and sleeker than YF-23 to emphasize even more Stealth and Speed, while F-22A had reduced length and wing sweep to improve maneuverability.

Now that we have found the shape of things that could have come, all we need are those XXX in the drawing.
 

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