Most everyone that follows military aviation likely knows about the competition between the YF-22 and the YF-23 for the U.S. Air Force "Advanced Tactical Fighter" program in the early 1990s. But before the competition was whittled down to the designs from Lockheed and Northrop, there were also two other contenders....one from McDonnell Douglas and one from General Dynamics. Today I would like to focus on the General Dynamics proposal.



Out of all the ATF entries, I perhaps find this one most interesting of them all for a couple of reasons. First, though it is obviously a stealthy design, it has a much more conventional overall appearance than either the YF-22 or YF-23. But what interests me most is that the basic design seems much better suited to carrier operations than any of the other ATF proposals. The large wing area, the lift body design of the fuselage and the leading edge extensions would have likely combined to make the GD entry have very favorable carrier approach speeds and good low speed handling, especially with use of the thrust vectoring nozzles. In many ways, it looks like a more stealthy version of the Eurofighter Typhoon or Dassault Rafale (with also some obvious F-16XL inspiration thrown in), but with leading edge extensions rather than canards found on the Euro designs.

Some artist renderings of this aircraft in an operational navy role:







Just based on the images of this concept, it would appear the General Dynamics entry would have exhibited exceptional agility. But the Air Force didn't particularly like the single vertical tail. Being rather large and oriented straight up/down rather than canted, it offered less all aspect stealth than the competing designs. The sensor pods built into the wings were also supposedly another undesirable trait. And the rather small size of the nose/radome suggest it may not have been able to house a radar on par with the APG-77 that ultimately ended up in the Raptor. However, all three of these shortcomings could have been corrected easily enough.

In the end, the Air Force ended up selecting the top two designs (YF-22 and YF-23) to compete for the ATF role. Those two designs best met their needs. That said, I think the General Dynamics design had the most potential as a carrier based platform and it would have been interesting to see how the Navy would have viewed it had it ended up as one of the finalists. With a few tweaks to the basic design (like in the image below), it could have had some real potential as a NATF.



Ah well, just another interesting "what could have been" in military aviation.

Interesting

Strikes me as the love child of a F-16XL and a F-22. That trailing edge design is funky.

I know absolutely nothing about fighters......but I got wood.......BUILD IT!

Was about to say.  

 

deltas have terrible energy bleed, no?

That wing's trailing edge is a fucking mess and would be a nightmare to keep in RCS spec.

That basic zig-zag pattern has been used effectively on other aircraft.

True.   However:
That proposal has each of the flaps with the saw tooth facing each other.
That makes the 45* reflective edge a variable in the RCS geometry as the hinges wear out.

The B2 is a considerably simpler design and bigger to boot. Making RCS maintenance much easier.

Were any ever built, or was it just theory?

I've seen a few YF-23's in museums.

No prototypes of this concept were ever made, as it didn't make the final cut.

So that's what was seen flying around near White Sands and Groom Lake.  It was known as the "Flying Artichoke" in reports I read.

Supposedly General Dynamics could never get it to fly in its original tailless configuration and the tail had to be added, which cost the design a lot of stealth capability.

FIFY

Supposedly a couple of sub-scale prototypes were seen flying at both Groom Lake and White Sands.

That vertical stabilizer looks too tall for a hanger deck.

You fold the tail.

Here's an A-5 Vigilante all folded.

Stealth F4D Skyray.

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Good find, OP!
Thanks!