Avalon airshow.

[PimTac]

This airshow doesn't get the notoriety like some of the bigger names but a couple of things put it in the news. First, Boeing announced its new unmanned wingman fighter that was developed for the RAAF. It is something well will see more of in the future.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-drone-for-australias-air-force-tomorrow


Then, in today's news a C-17 Globemaster from the USAF ingested a large bird while on the takeoff roll. The takeoff was aborted successfully and some good video of the incident is here.

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...g-bird-on-takeoff-at-the-avalon-air-show

 

[tenderloin]

The F-23 ...that lost out to the F22..

 

[Snagglefoot]

That was a whole lot faster than trying to deep fry a turkey.

Glad no one was hurt.

 

[WyrTwister]

Yes , thank God all the personnel came out OK . And it seems , most of the aircraft came out OK .

 

[Astro14]

Originally Posted by tenderloin
The F-23 ...that lost out to the F22..

In many ways, the YF-23 was the better airplane.

Faster, lower radar cross section, longer range.

The YF-22 did some maneuvering in flight test that went beyond the requirements. Show-boating the high AOA and thrust vectoring, frankly.

It worked.

The YF-23 was capable of the same AOA without thrust-vectoring, but the YF-22 combination of more conventional design (rudders and tails), a perception of better maneuvering capability and a political climate in which Northrop was being criticized gave Lockheed the edge.

Interesting that Boeing has gone with the YF-23 configuration for big V tail - since the UAV won't be doing the high-alpha maneuvering, they can get the better range and higher speed that the configuration promised 25 years ago during the ATF competition.

Incidentally, Northrop lost a lot of money on the YF-23 bid when it didn't get selected. The subsequent 1994 merger with Grumman was a consequence of that.

I always thought the USN should've gone to the combined corporation after the merger. A company that built the better of the two fighters and had extensive carrier experience and requested a proposal for the NATF (Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter), which was killed by Navy Brass in 1991.

But the need for a new, big fighter and a company that was smarting from the loss of a competition might have been a match made in heaven...