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From: wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: NEW stealth unveiled!
Message-ID: <1990Jun27.021129.1686@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 27 Jun 90 02:11:29 GMT
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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From: wb9omc@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Duane P Mantick)

In our local paper on Saturday was a photograph (and article about) of the
Northrop YF-23, which is that company's entry in the bid for the ATF
(Advanced Technology Fighter) contract.  Lockheed also has one called the
YF-22, no photograph seen YET - expect it soon.

ATF is claimed as being a successor to the F15.  The ATF *IS* supposed
to be a supersonic fighter with some Stealth characteristics.

The photograph shocked the heck out of me because with only a few variations,
it looked VERY VERY much like the Testor Corporations model of their
so-called F19 Stealth Fighter!  (odd too that F-19 is very close to
F-22 or 23 in the scheme of things - coincidence? Or possibly good
contacts at Testors....) While Testors had the vertical stabs. angled
IN, the Northrop plane has them angled OUT at what appears to be close to
the same angle.

I have no way of knowing if the photo was retouched or not, but if not,
the wing planform of the YF-23 looks also very much like the Testors kit.
The body shape is, in a sense, reminiscent of the SR71 in that there
appears (perhaps, how much can you really see in a newspaper photo?) to
be a semi-cylindrical core for a fuselage and something resembling the
SR's chines attached to it.

Now for the fun.  The thing supposedly costs $51 million EACH, as in, 
PER PLANE!  Boy, the congress is going to have a field day with that one!

I can't wait to see the Lockheed YF-22.....will it be a "lineage" type
of plane that could be considered a descendant of the aforementioned
SR-71?  (or perhaps more accurately, the YF-12a?)

Hmmmm......

Duane