Where is the F-23 (PAV-1@Dayton PAV-2@Northrop?)

In my opinion, this pic sums the elegance, beauty and sheer menace of the YF-23.

I mourn its demise still to this day.

Im lazy today but im partial to the one where both (1 black the other grey) are flying in formation over the high desert outside of Edwards.

Also found an image of 801 @ WMF in June of 2004 with the wing removed. It appears that at that point Northrop had already started refurbishing it which then appears to have been completed in 2006.




[edit on 23-7-2008 by Canada_EH]

So, if it was completed in 2006, early 2007 and looks almost perfect, where is it?

Would be nice to be able to email Northrop... in fact, i'm going to dig an addy out and send them a quick begging letter.

[edit on 23-7-2008 by Dan Tanna]

reply to post by FredT

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upload.wikimedia.org...

for you fred

although i do like

www.bugimus.com...

I was told that I would find PAV-2 on show in an outdoor area at Northrop Grumman's production facility in El Segundo, California.


So I google earthed it. Indeed it is sat there.

Yep Sir we sure as heck found it. Heres a superb smart view of it from another angle.





Virtual globe

Theres the link for it to go have a peep for yourselves.

One of them is at Tonopah according the my wife Intelgurl. Alojng with some accompanying airframes that she can not discuss - (Northrop has the NGB contract in case you didnt know... this is not common information)

top work all - well done to dan and bios , both the aircraft have been located , and sadly not being used as a test bed for the bomber.

reply to post by Dan Tanna

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A star and a gasp.

Nice pic and cool find, Detective Tanna.

That's a pretty clear shot even for GoogleEarth. Got the coords?

Duh, never mind, it's Virtual Globe.

Neat.


[edit on 24-7-2008 by Badge01]

Well, I am certainly no aeroplane buff, but I can appreciate a grand looking (and obviously well designed craft) when I see one!

Some of the images remind me of the aeroplanes in the Clint Eastwood film set at the height of the Cold War, where Clint's character has to get into Soviet Russia, and steal their most advanced fighter jet - as I am sure you have guessed, I have forgotten the name of the film... But from the side, and front the images of this plane defintiely remind me of the one in the film.

Amazing though, to think that these things would ordinarily have been scrapped and forgotten, but because a few individuals care enough, we can preserve and admire the wonders built by previous generations...

The movie's called Firefox!

There's a 23 parked in a yard in NM, which has been on Google Earth for a long time now. Which one is this?

reply to post by Snoogans

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The RCS mock up I am led to believe. However, after reading what Bios posted in his above comment.... damn I am excited.

Finally ATS is alive again.
Good work guys

Umm one issue with that Bios. PAV-1 is @ Wright Pat museum for restoration and PAV-2 is located out side of the Northrop facility what airframe is at Tonopah?

Also nice to see Bios and Dan get credit for a good amount of work I did as well ......

jokes I do have to agree that this hunt so far has been a great change of pace from the crawl that the forum has been through as of late. Great work all lets keep it up.

Also Dan can you confirm that you got an email from Northrop stating that PAV-2 is still located at their facilities. (maybe post a small section of the email up here?)

reply to post by Dan Tanna

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Found a link with the story here:
geimint.blogspot.com...





Very neat stuff but with 2 years gone by the site marked is worth a revisit.

**After going and looking at the site on google it appears to still be there. Anyways of knowing when the image was took?

[edit on 24-7-2008 by Canada_EH]

I have an old flight sim pre-dating this aircrafts existance, that is also called "ATF", and the design of the jet in that sim is strikingly similar to this!

If I can get an old PC up and running, I'll get it going and shall take photos of the screen. The game was written around 1994 IIRC (it was for DOS).

This project has been around for a long time....

The chance of a game developer coming up with that before the real thing appears I think is astronomical. They must have known something.

[edit on 24-7-2008 by mirageofdeceit]

Well got an email back from the Wright Pat Museum. I'll post it here.



So from that email it wold lead me to believe that they never had 800 taken away at anytime by Northrop. Does this match up with the story so far? From what I had heard both airframes had disappeared for some time during the early 00s.

Thanks for posting.
Now to just clear things up the Advance Tactical Fighter (ATF) program was started in 1981 when it was decided that a replacement for the F-15 needed to be started and found as they where expecting a long lead time in development. The actual request for proposal RFP was issued in 86 and a 50 months long test phase was started between Lockheed and Northrop. This finished in 1991 with the Lockheed bid of the 22 beating out the 23 from Northrop.

Now after that history lesson here is the low down. With sketches and concepts released to the public through out the development phase it no surprise that the gaming industry was able to put a plane in a game that was similar to the yf-23.

Also to be clear are you could be talking about any of these games
en.wikipedia.org...(video_game)
pc.ign.com...
www.gamespot.com...

If you have any further questions just send me a PM so as to not derail the thread. I'd be more then glad to get you any answers I can find.

[edit on 24-7-2008 by Canada_EH]

At one point in time an f-23 was sitting in the desert out at White Sands Missile Range, and you can still see it on google earth.