Years ago, actor/comedian Christoper Walken performed a sketch on Saturday Night Live, one in which he played a so-called sophisticate speaking to the camera as if there was a supposed woman in his apartment. Decked out in a smoking jacket and likely living in a simple and unremarkable one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan, the performance struck a note with me. In fact, I oftentimes try to mimic his daffy performance for anyone who is willing to give me a moment of their time. Anyway, I’ve always been struck by that skit, both for its comedic value, his range as both an actor and comedian and its application in real-life.

USAF Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Air Dominance Fighter – 87-0781, Dave Maurice, “Gray Ghost”, PAV-2, 412th Test Wing, Edwards AFB, California, 1990 [Low-Vis Scheme] (1:72 Scale)

Which leads me to the point of this blog post. Last week, we finally got in our batch of Hobby Master 1:72 scale Northrop YF-23 air dominance fighters, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity for the shipment to reach our shores. When we put this item up for sale on both our web site and on eBay, I couldn’t believe how quickly it sold out, even when we nudged up the price a bit to throttle sales. As you might imagine, the first batch is now gone and we obviously under-anticipated demand for this model and its legacy as a potential aerial platform.

We’ve since placed a large re-order with our distributor, who claims more are expected in November. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if we never see another piece as they get gobbled up by collectors worldwide. I know they made quite a few of these models and even with the tariffs imposed on product coming in from certain countries still managed to break our sales records with inquiries about its availability still filtering in.

USAF Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 Air Dominance Fighter – 87-0800, “Black Widow II”, PAV-2, 412th Test Wing, Edwards AFB, California, 1990 (1:72 Scale)

Anyway, we’re leaving this model up on our web site and are still accepting orders should they indeed materialize for the holiday rush. Just as importantly, however, is the second release of the YF-23, known rather surreptitiously as the “Black Widow II”. Painted in matte black, we believe this version will also sell like hotcakes, possibly even breaking the first model’s sell-through rate which, as I’ve already pointed out, may have been our fastest selling aircraft model in our 25-year history. Food for thought if you don’t mind waiting a bit, have space set aside for this beauty and have your heart set on what many believe should have been our nation’s fifth generation air dominance fighter.

Update: If sales are any judge of a model’s success, then I think we can safely assume that Hobby Master’s initial release of the YF-23 will be hailed as the 2025 model of the year, perhaps usurped by the dark grey/black follow-on release expected by year’s end. We don’t acknowledge runaway “runway” hits all that often but it certainly appears as if the YF-23 may indeed receive these honors when the year is out. We did mention to Hobby Master that a navalized version of the YF-23 was planned by the aircraft manufacturer back in the 90s, featuring, among other things, more robust landing gear, canards and other external improvements so there’s a possibility that they may examine its feasibility as a potential model come the new year. What follows is some information on the at-sea version, excerpted from, you guessed it, Wikipedia.

A proposed naval variant of the F-23, sometimes known unofficially as the NATF-23 (the proposed naval variants were never formally designated), was considered as an F-14 Tomcat replacement for the U.S. Navy. The original HSF configuration of the F-23 was first considered with the initial DP500 design but would have had issues with flight deck space (it was to be no longer than the F-14), handling, storage, landing, and catapult launching, thus necessitating a different design. By 1989, the design was narrowed down to two possible configurations: DP533 with four tails and DP527 with two V-tails and canards. DP527 was determined to be the best solution. The NATF-23 design was submitted along with the F-23 proposal for full-scale development, or engineering and manufacturing development (EMD), in December 1990. However, by late 1990 the Navy was already beginning to back out of the NATF program and fully abandoned it by FY 1992 due to escalating costs. A wind tunnel test model of DP527, tested for 14,000 hours, was donated (with canards removed) by Boeing St. Louis (formerly McDonnell Douglas) in 2001 to the Bellefontaine Neighbors Klein Park Veterans Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri.