If the US Navy had not terminated the NATF program, would it have been easier to adapt the YF-22 for aircraft carrier operations than the YF-23?
During the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Northrop YF-23A and Lockheed YF-22A competed with one another. The US Air Force (USAF) needed to replace its F-15 Eagle air superiority fighter due to the threat of new Soviet fighters and Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) in the late 1970s, which is when the ATF program began.
In 1986, the Advanced Tactical Fighter went into the Demonstration and Validation phase. Late in 1990, the prototype aircraft (YF-22 and YF-23) completed their first flight. Extensive flight testing revealed that the YF-22 was more agile, while the YF-23 was faster and stealthier.
The YF-23A, also known as the Black Widow II, was designed with stealth in mind. Northrop chose not to use thrust vectoring for aerodynamic control, as they did on the Lockheed YF-22A, in order to save weight and improve stealth. Northrop built two YF-23A prototypes.
After deciding that the YF-22 was the best design, Lockheed/Boeing was given the development contract in 1991, and work on its engineering and manufacture started.
Although the US Navy had abandoned the Navalized Advanced Tactical Fighter (NATF) by fiscal year (FY) 1992, the press speculated that the Lockheed team’s design was also adaptable for the NATF.
But if the Navy had not terminated the NATF, would it have been easier to adapt the YF-22 for aircraft carrier operations than the YF-23?
‘I can answer that because I was involved in an analysis to determine the answer to exactly this question,’ David Tussey, former US Navy A-7E Corsair II, says on Quora.
‘The F-22 is the only design of the ATF program that could have been made carrier-capable. Even then, it would have involved a major, expensive, and risky re-design. It would have, for example, swing wings such that it was compatible with carrier approach speeds, and lots and lots of other changes. It could happen, but it would have been a real stretch and expensive.
‘The F-23 was simply too long for carrier operations; it would not fit on any of today’s carriers. The length of the aircraft was such that it would not fit into the space between the catapult and the JBDs (Jet Blast Deflectors). The JBDs protect the other aircraft and flight deck personnel from the exhaust of a jet in full afterburner before catapult launch and takeoff. Putting the F-23 on a carrier would have required a redesign of the catapults and JBDs on every carrier… a total non-starter.’
Tussey concludes;
‘Neither candidate in the ATF program was really suitable for Navaoperations, ns and no such requirement existed in the ATF program. I do think, however, that a contributing factor to the losing YF-23 was the fact that it was non-compatible with carrier operations. Just a hunch…
‘Here’s a picture of the JBD at work, just prior to a catapult launch.’
Photo by Lockheed Martin and U.S. Air Force