Northrop N-102 Fang

The Northrop N-102 Fang was a lightweight supersonic fighter design created by Northrop Corporation and proposed to the United States Air Force in 1953. It answered growing concern about the weight, size and cost of fighters, and the design team was headed by Welko Gasich. It had a shoulder-mounted delta wing, a small all-moving tailplane and a single turbojet in the aft fuselage fed by a variable-geometry ventral inlet, with the Pratt and Whitney J57, Wright J65, Wright J67 or General Electric J79 considered. The Air Force chose Lockheed's CL-246, which became the F-104 Starfighter. Northrop built a mock-up and kept studying the idea, but stopped work in 1954 because one large engine kept it from being light or cheap. Studies with two small J85 engines became the basis of the F-5 family.