San Diego's forgotten lightweight naval jet fighter

In the early 1970s, the US Navy took heed of the fact that the unit cost of each F-14 was high and that a lightweight jet fighter comparable to the F-16 and YF-17 to complement the F-14 could be cheaper to buy in quantity. With the requirements for what became the Lightweight Fighter (LWF) program preparing to be formulated, the Convair San Diego Division of General Dynamics along with Vought decided to take a serious look at a carrier-based jet fighter in the same weight class as the F-16 and YF-17.

Drawing of a 1/15th scale wind tunnel model of a Configuration 23 design with canard deltas

The carrier-based lightweight jet fighter design studies conceived by Convair San Diego from 1970 to 1973 were internally known as Configuration 23 (sometimes incorrectly dubbed "Model 23"). Technical data for the Configuration 23 is wanting, but the Configuration 23 itself resembled the F-16 in having a chin air intake, a single vertical stabilizer, and two fairings for automatic guns below the wing roots, and it had a gross weight of 26,000 lb (11,974 kg). One Configuration 23 iteration envisaged by Convair San Diego sometime in 1973 had delta canards situated just ahead of the delta wing, and it underwent wind tunnel testing as of November 1973. Based on dimensions of the wind tunnel model, the canard delta Configuration 23 design was probably 46 feet 2 in (14.1 meters) long with a wingspan of 27 feet 8 in (8.4 meters). Armament for the Configuration 23 designs probably comprised two Sparrow or Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, perhaps mounted below underwing pylons. 

In the end, the Convair San Diego Configuration 23 design studies never saw the light of day, but General Dynamics would utilize some features of the Configuration 23, including the single jet engine, delta wing, and chin air intake, when jointly designing the losing Model 1600 submission for the Navy Air Combat Fighter (NACF) competition with Vought in the mid-1970s.   

References:

Buttler, T., 2007. American Secret Projects: Fighters and Interceptors 1945 to 1978. Hinckley, UK: Midland Publishing.