YF-22 comes home to stay

F-16.net ^ | 6/17/2010 | Stephen K. Robinson)

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

A prototype YF-22 Raptor fighter plane that was built in Palmdale, Calif., flight tested here, and put on temporary display at the National Museum of the Air Force in Dayton, Ohio, returned to Edwards AFB where it will stay for Air Force Flight Test Center Museum visitors to see. With approximately 100 military and civilians in attendance, Maj. Gen David Eichhorn, Air Force Flight Test Center commander, welcomed all to the AFFTC Museum for the dedication of the Raptor June 11.

"This aircraft is a great addition to our museum out here and commemorates what Edwards is all about," General Eichhorn said. "It was built as part of the competition to determine which aircraft was going to be better; this one or the 23. You're looking at the winning design, and Edwards played a significant role in its success."

The Raptor prototype spent a few years in residence at the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, but was transferred back here when the Wright-Patterson museum acquired an F-22A for its display.

"This very aircraft has flown 43 times under its own power and is a marvellous testimony to Team Edwards; not only during its test phase, but also in getting it back home here where it belongs," General Eichhorn said. "Now, we just have to get it outside the gate where anybody can show up at just about any time and enjoy our great heritage," referring to the planned museum relocation and expansion efforts underway by the non-profit Flight Test Historical Foundation.

Looking as though it just rolled off of the assembly line in Palmdale, it is hard to imagine the transformation this Raptor has gone through once it arrived back home.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Ping

[valkyry1]

I still like the F-23 better, but nobody asked me.., sigh.

[Yo-Yo]

..., but was transferred back here when the Wright-Patterson museum acquired an F-22A for its display.

Whoa! We will only have 187 of these puppies. Why are we putting one on static display? It had better have been a static airframe fatigue test item or something.

[Yo-Yo]

I agree with you, BTW. The YF-23 was much more stealthy, but less maneuverable partly because of its lack of vectored thrust.

[tanknetter]

Whoa! We will only have 187 of these puppies. Why are we putting one on static display? It had better have been a static airframe fatigue test item or something.

It was one of the initial flight test airframes. Not designed to carry the full-up weapons/missions systems, but rather all sorts of flight flight-test related equipment and sensors.

Converting it into a production-standard Raptor would be cost-prohibitive. The only recent time this sort of thing has been done is with the first - and last - B-2A, which was upgraded to combat-capability. Then again, a B-2 costs somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 Billion (largely a factor of so few being built), so in that case it was more cost effective to rebuild the test aircraft to production-standard than build a new one.

NASA didn't even do it with Enterprise (OV-101), choosing to first upgrade a static test frame (STA-99) into Challenger (OV-099), and then build Endeavour (OV-105) around a bunch of pre-built, stockpiled structural spares.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

The museum at Edwards is absolutely beautiful. It will be among the great X-Planes of aviation history. They even have the original test B-52 there. I go there every time I have a chance.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

If you ask nicely, they might take you to the original Minuteman missile testing site