The F-105 may have been impossible to catch if it was hauling one nuke on the centerline as the original design envisioned, but when loaded down with over a dozen 750lb bombs its performance wasn’t anything to write home about. The F-111 for all of its flaws had better performance when carrying such heavy ordinance.

It may sound “boring” but definitely the F-15C. Even if its only armed with AIM-7s instead of AIM-120s. My second choice would be the F-14A+ (F-14B).

F/A-18C wouldn’t be a bad choice although MiG-29s will definitely be tough prey.

I thought Su-34 was intended as an interdiction aircraft similar to the F-111, F-15E or Su-24. The armor for the crew has me rethinking that however. Just what was it designed to do? The Russians have done their best to confuse everybody about the thing, even back when they referred to as the Su-32 and photographed it on a carrier landing approach even though one could see it lacked the modifications for that.

All in all, I would concur that the F-22 was considerably more conventional in configuration and therefore less risky and expensive. Even if we assume Northrop had successfully negotiated the potential pitfalls, the F-23 would still have been quite a bit larger than the F-22 (about J-20 size) – another cost driver. In any case the F-23 would hence have made a bigger target for budget cuts. Ironically, the likely larger fuel capacity would have been something the USAF would no doubt appreciate – 8200kg internal fuel in a 19700kg airframe with two powerful ‘leaky turbojets’ (F-22) is not exactly generous.

Somewhere along the way the from YF-22 to F-22 the design seemed to have lost a substantial amount of internal fuel capacity. However the fact that a figure of 20,650 lb of internal fuel shows up in many sources has me wondering if there was some space in the aircraft not utilized for fuel that could have been. I do recall they managed to find room for an extra 2,000 lb or so of internal fuel on the F-15C versus the original F-15A.

The F8U was a Navy design which first flew *after* the F-100 had already entered USAF service. By the time the F8U entered service the USAF already had the F-101, F-102, F-104, and F-105 in development.

The F-23 would have been an outstanding fighter but it there was just as much of a chance (or perhaps even more of one) that it would have been cancelled. As far as I know it has never been confirmed that the YF-23 could fly faster or higher than the YF-22. The production F-23 probably would have been stealthier than the F-22 but that doesn’t change the fact that the F-22 is still an incredibly capable aircraft.

The mistake wasn’t that we selected the wrong design, the mistake was that we cut back production to a mere 180 or so aircraft and cut several capabilities planned for the aircraft. You can blame short-sighted national leadership for that.

The B-70 would have been useful over North Vietnam, it would have been immune to enemy air defenses. Yet against its intended opponent the USSR it would soon be vulnerable to newer SAMs and then you’re stuck using it as a cruise missile carrier (which the B-52 can do) or once you reach Soviet airspace you fly it at low level (which means going hardly any faster than a B-52 would).

No the B-1A would have been a much more suitable bomber for our needs. Of course the Carter administration cancelled that although the Reagan administration did get us the B-1B which has served us well. However I do wonder if trading some performance to reduce radar cross section were worth it in that case.

I’m of the opinion that all aircraft should be brought up to 3F standard even if they are to be used for training just so pilots can fly the aircraft without any of the performance restrictions that were there on those early blocks.

I’m still a bit disappointed that there was no restart of F-22 production but it’s very good to see the F-35 continue to move ahead with fewer and fewer road-bumps being encountered each month. It seems like the biggest challenge from now on will be the endless battle with the bean-counters and Congress to actually buy more of them. Now I just wish we’d get moving on an AMRAAM successor.