Fokker D.XXIII

History

One of the inherent problems with flying single-engine, propeller-driven fighter jets in the 1930s was the natural "pull" of the fuselage to one side or the other due to torque (caused by the rotational motion of the propeller blades). Pilots are often forced to manually compensate for this and have found that only adding a second engine to compensate for this drag is the best solution.

In the Netherlands before World War II (1939-1945), Marius Beeling was working on a new type of single-seat twin-engine fighter, trying to solve the problem in a different way - having two engines in series along the The fuselage, one to "pull" the aircraft through the sky and the other to "push" it.

The resulting aircraft was the Fokker D. XXIII, which first flew as a prototype on May 30, 1939. Her general form consisted of a centrally located fuselage "pod" that contained the engines as well as the cockpit and avionics. A wing main plane was added to this, mounted under the fuselage and stretched straight with rounded wing tips. A tail boom extends from the leading edge of each wing and extends to the rear of the aircraft.

These appendages are then connected by a common horizontal stabilizer spanned at both ends by small faceted circular vertical fins. A fairly modern tricycle landing gear, fully retractable for ground operation.

As tested, the aircraft is powered by 2 Walter Sagitta I-SR 12-cylinder air-cooled piston engines, each producing 530 hp, driving three-blade propeller units in the front and rear of the fuselage. Specs listed include a top speed of 326 mph, a range of up to 522 miles and a service cap of 30,000 feet.

The proposed weapons are 2 x 13.2mm heavy machine guns and 2 x 7.9mm medium machine guns.

With a deceptively robust design, good overall performance, and well-equipped for the time, the D. XXIII was a promising single-seat fighter that could fly into wartime.

To advance the testing phase, the prototype was fitted with a thick wooden wing main aircraft, while the production-quality fighter would feature an all-metal construction. Tests have shown overheating issues with the rear-mounted air-cooled engine, which is only natural given its location in the airframe (and lack of direct airflow). The Dutch prototype fighter was only tested for about four hours before the German invasion in May 1940, dashing all hope that it would contribute to the Dutch defense.

The program was not revived during the war or in the postwar period, making the D. XXIII a footnote in WWII aviation.

Specification

Basic

Production

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Performance

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