The Northrop YF-23 Made a Flawless Flight Over the Aircraft Carrier | Edna Mello

Any fans of the YF-23??? The YF-23A competed in the late 1980s/early 1990s against the YF-22A in the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program. During the late 1970s, a new generation of Soviet fighters and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) prompted the US Air Force to find a replacement for the F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter. In 1986, the USAF awarded demonstration contracts to two competing industry teams—Lockheed-Boeing-General Dynamics (YF-22A) versus Northrop-McDonnell Douglas (YF-23A). The

Even in a competition between giants, there is always going to be a party that loses out. Such is the story of Northrop Corporation’s YF-23 aircraft, of which only two prototypes were made, lovingly known as the Black Widow II and Grey Ghost. Today most people have forgotten about this phenomenal aircraft, and even those who remember it have placed it as a footnote of history, as the aircraft that lost out to the mighty Lockheed Martin’s YF-22, now known as the F-22 Raptor. But, the aircraft tha