Northrop F/B-23 Rapid Theater Attack aircraft

flateric said:
I am surprised that for all that time on forum you never tried to get some starting knowledge of [combat] aircraft design like effects of engine spacing on roll inertia and maneuverability.
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Isn't every design decision a tradeoff? What are they paying for here?
 
What specific variant of the FB-22 was used in your comparison drawing Archipeppe? It does do a good job of showing how huge the FB-23 is compared to its parent design. The FB-22 was constrained by the desire to use as much of the existing F-22 production line as possible, but the FB-23 wasn't limited by similar constraints, and it shows. In many respects I think it would have been an ideal strike/interdiction aircraft for the long ranges of the Pacific that planners are still worrying about.

If anyone wants to get pedantic over designations, FB-23 wouldn't have been proper since it would have had so little in common besides for the basic aerodynamic layout. Then again, neither FB-22 nor FB-23 were official designations as far as I am aware. In fact I don't think the 'FB' designator is even supposed to exist going by the rulebook. I think the FB-111 only got it because they were for Strategic Air Command, and they wanted everyone to know those F-111s were theirs.
 
Colonial-Marine said:
What specific variant of the FB-22 was used in your comparison drawing Archipeppe?
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Honestly I don't know, I exploited the only one available here:


Regarding the designation maybe you're right but I've also found the two aircrafts designed as "FB-22" and "FB-23".
Since both of them reamaind at proposal stage, is hard to say what would be their real designation if one of them would be introduced into service.
 
flateric said:
Question was about FB-22 side profile. I believe we have an official one here in later bigger wing iteration leaflet.
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I realized such profile for the late Steve Pace's last book:


It was an FB-22-4 single seat iteration already described into the same SP section you've pointed out.
At that times Steve provide me some details about it, but today I don't remember really that much (imagine that I've realized hundreds of artworks from 2016 to now).
 
Colonial-Marine said:
If anyone wants to get pedantic over designations, FB-23 wouldn't have been proper since it would have had so little in common besides for the basic aerodynamic layout. Then again, neither FB-22 nor FB-23 were official designations as far as I am aware. In fact I don't think the 'FB' designator is even supposed to exist going by the rulebook. I think the FB-111 only got it because they were for Strategic Air Command, and they wanted everyone to know those F-111s were theirs.
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FB-x is, technically, a valid designation - for a bomber modified to the fighter role. As there was never a B-111, and the B-22 and B-23 comfortably predate the 4th generation aircraft, those specific designations aren't strictly appropriate.

On the other hand, the F-117 and B-21 exist.

Strictly, the FB-111 should probably have either been straight F-111(D?), BF-111 (which isn't valid, but could easily be made so!) or B-1, and the FB-22/23 might reasonably be B-3 or just F-22/23, depending on how much fighter remained.

In the case of the 'F/B-23', I think it's pretty clear that there's as much YF-23 in there as there is ham in a hamburger.
 

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