Independence Day (1996) - (Y)F-22s and thrust vectoring. Would they have made a difference in the final aerial battle?

I appreciate this a thread about a film rather than actual alleged aliens/UFOs lore. But thought it would be interesting to discuss.

 

Here is the first battle and second battle from ID4. The wiki page for the alien attacker goes into a good amount of detail about their capabilities (hence why they're termed agile fighters). In Independence Day, they easily dominated the air space and even without their shields still had quite a bit of an edge in speed and manoeuvrability over the F/A-18s which are multirole not air superiority fighters afterall.

 

In real life the YF-22 (its prototype designation) didn't first fly until 1997 I think. If a few were available, would they have made for a more even match against the alien agile fighters? The F-22 is an air superiority fighter, is fast and crucially has thrust vectoring for much greater manoeuvrability.

 

The YF-23 was in competition with the YF-22 but obviously lost. Would it have made a difference with its faster speed? It's an incredible design in many ways but it couldn't carry as much of a payload nor had thrust vectoring hence why it lost. The Stealth Diamond - YF-23 Gray Ghost & Black Widow II is a superb video by the Dark Skies YouTube channel about the YF-23's history which I'd highly recommend you watch.

Submitted December 09, 2020 at 09:42PM by EsotericTerran https://ift.tt/3oBOMl0