The Fokker D.XXIII

An unusual design, that is what the D.XXIII, developed by Marius Beeling in 1937, can be called.
A low-wing fighter with twin tail booms extending from the wing rearwards, powered by two Walter Sagitta air-cooled 12-cylinder (hanging) V-engines of 530 hp each.
The front engine, in front of the cockpit, provided the tractive force and the engine behind the cockpit provided the thrust.
The aircraft was equipped with fully retractable landing gear and could be fitted with two fixed Browning-FN 7.9 mm machine guns in the nose and two 13.2 mm Browning-FN machine guns in the wing.
Anthony Fokker urged that a mock-up be built as soon as possible after the design phase of the D.XXIII.
The highly detailed mock-up, including engines, was realized and attracted much attention at the 16th Paris Air Show in 1938.
On May 30, 1939, Fokker's test pilot Gerben Sonderman made the first flight with the D.XXIII.
During the test flights it became apparent that the rear engine had poor cooling and this problem was never solved.
During the testing phase, a number of changes were also made to the D.XXIII, including to the rear of the fuselage.
The D.XXIII made only eleven flights for a total of less than four flying hours.
On April 11, 1940, the landing gear was damaged and the D.XXIII program was stopped, partly due to the threat of German invasion.
So it remained with the production of one (proto)type.

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