Welcome to my F-23A blog!  This blog mainly about my odyssey of building a scale flying replica of the F-23A; i.e. the jet Nothrop/MDC would have built had they won the ATF competition in 1991.  This blog is also about the F-23 in general and may branch out to include military aviation in general from time to time. 

The most obvious question I'm sure you have is what differentiates the F-23A from the YF-23? Well there are many changes to the basic design much like what LM did as the F-22 design progressed during the EMD phase after they won the contract.  As you can see below, the main changes were to lengthen the forward fuselage so that a small weapons bay for AIM-9s can be added ahead of the main weapons bay, cleaning up the aft deck of the fuselage, slimming down the engine bays (the thrust reverser requirement was dropped), bringing the engines closer to the center line, different inlet geometry and a larger radome.

A comparison to the YF-23 can be found here.  The YF-23.net site is a great F-23 resource. Another great source of interesting discussion is the secret projects forum and finally Scott Lowther's work in the form of his Aerospace Projects Review periodical is a fantastic source of information including plans and drawings. 

My plans for building a flying model are two fold. First step is to build a 1:22nd scale profile version out of 6mm depron with a 50mm EDF. This will allow me to get my feet wet in designing and building a model out of depron and getting a feel for the control set up and the CG.  I've been told that a RC model's CG is well forward so getting this accurate is essential before I put a lot of effort into a larger more detailed model.

After I complete and test the profile jet, I plan on building a 1:12th scale twin 70mm EDF jet out of depron. This one will be scale with a built up structure with bulkheads and skin out of depron with some key areas out of light plywood and carbon fiber spars.  I plan on light fiberglass application to give the skin rigidity and damage resistance.  Since the it will be a "belly flopper", i.e. no landing gear, certain areas on the bottom will have heavier glass reinforcement.  I'm hoping for a AUW in the 6-8lb area and shooting for twin changesun 70mm ten blade units that should give me 8-10lbs of static thrust.  If I can keep it light it should be a real rocket, just the like the real thing!

All for now, stay tuned for (hopefully) regular updates!

Fox