Would-be Lockheed F-19...

This strange aircraft appeared in a slide presented during a conference by controversial aviation author Michael Schratt, as well as an illustration that was circulated on some forums and reproduced below right (more about this here [link]).

The originality of the design is the fold-out tail fins, the purpose and operation of which isn't quite clear. What struck me immediately was how dated the fins seemed, compared to the rest of the design... like some 1940s Douglas airliner tail grafted onto a flying saucer!

Hamzalippisch wanted to modelize it in CGI form but wasn't too sure about the exact shape of it. I chanced the diagram in red as a starting point for him to work. You have to understand that at the time, all I had at my disposal was the rear view in flight, so I was pretty much playing it by ear...

Later on Hamza managed to obtain another capture from the conference video in which the real profile of the aircraft was revealed... As you can clearly see in the compared view, my interpretation shared as many similarities as differences with the real thing! Trial and error, they say...

• merci enormement (Hamza)

Hope this helped a bit... for a short while...

I'd definitely have to redraw this one to conform it to the actual profile view. We'll see...