After the ground-breaking GUSTO 1 and 2 programs DARPA committed to funding full-scale flying test beds to demo state of the art in stealth the DARPA XST program. Lockheed’s facetted design, HAVE BLUE, would become well known while the leading losing competitor from Northrop would fade into partial obscurity. However, the Northrop signature team was at least nearly equal to Lockheed’s albeit hampered by internal siloing due to classification. This near-winning concept inspired me, what if Northrop took the facetted approach Lockheed did and what if the Northrop team was not as hindered by internal siloing? Maybe Northrop’s design would have ended up something like HX-9 Night Shade! Or at least that’s what I told myself while CADing on a couch with a beer while my 3 yr old ran around making his diecast metal planes dogfight…apparently Iron Man now flies a F-14 Tomcat. Who knew! Anyways, enjoy this striking diamond, the shaping begs for a highly specular paint finish.

This model is roughly a 1/72 scale airplane, 5.9” long, designed around a posable Hogwerks 1” pilot figure and/or other 1” posable figures like from the Jazwares Micro Galaxy line. Night Shade also features a movable canopy as well as swappable landing gear. To complete you will need: 1> A resin printer, try FDM at your risk 2> CA glue 3> 1mm x 1mm magnets 4> 0.52mm steel piano wire 5> For a clear canopy and sensor window: clear resin + high gloss quick shine floor finish or other high gloss clear coat; the more it can self-level the clearer the finish can be! 6> I recommend wet sanding for all resin printing, less dust and can get real smooth finishes! 7> Misc small modeling hand tools such as xacto knife, sprue cutters, pin drill (hand or powered) 8> Lack of friends 9> A proclivity for airplanes, really an obsession. Probably an obsession for airplanes that encourages your loved ones to wonder if you should be diagnosed with autism, or really already have said neuro divergent tendencies towards flying machines. Aren’t airplanes cool? Seriously. Probably the coolest. You should stop reading this now and just start building one of these! Maybe even 2!