Pretty cool for the 60s. Even more impressive if they released RCS numbers to compare to the SR-71 and F-117
My first thought is it looks like a cross between the X-47B [0] and the RQ-4 Global Hawk [1]. Interestingly, both of those came out of Northrop Grumman years later.
Yes and what is strange is it isn't faceted like the F-117, which Lockheed was making during the same era. As far as I can recall Ben Rich said that he had stumbled on a paper by a Russian scientist regarding how to defeat radar using various angles. But their limited computation capability led Lockheed to create a faceted design instead of a round one. One has to wonder why Boeing didn't do that.
Was it just guess work? Or was it some information-sharing between the two groups and Boeing simply took a different, yet better approach?
Well, the Hopeless Diamond (F-117 model) was 15 years _after_ this plane. This plane clearly had some of the early thoughts on lowering RCS though, similar to the SR-71 Blackbird.
There were no facets on this plane because that really only came about after Ufimtsev's paper described how to calculate RCS. Computers at the time of the Hopeless Diamond/Have Blue/F-117 couldn't run those calculations on curved surfaces. Which meant Ben Rich's team used the flat surfaces (I don't recall exactly who suggested it, but it's in the book).
I'd also be curious if Boeing had any thoughts in the areas of radar absorbtion/dispersing paint in the 60s. I recall the SR-71 Blackbird had some of those properties in it's paint (though the paint was mainly used for cooling).
As mentioned in the article, Boeing did this work two years before Ufimtsev even published his paper. It was also a full ten years before Lockheed even started designing the F-117.
I went to an air show in the 80s that had a stealth fighter on display. Or rather a plane-sized empty area of tarmack roped off with a sign describing it as such.
Wow, if the design that resulted in those now-well-known aesthetic qualities goes back that far, I wonder what they're thinking is new and cool these days.
I actually liked the way the x-32 looked. If Disney made a movie like 'Cars' but called 'Jet Fighters', I always thought the X-32 would be a candidate for the protagonist.
One question, in case anyone here knows: if the "1948 'Key West Agreement' (PDF) that put jet fixed-wing aircraft purely in the domain of the Air Force" is a thing, then how come the Navy runs the Blue Angels? https://www.blueangels.navy.mil/
It's mainly a poor summary of those agreements, of which the Key West Agreement was only the first. A better way to put it would be that the Army is not allowed to have fixed-wing aircraft, and the Air Force is not allowed to have helicopters. The Navy is just restricted to air operations that support a naval campaign.
These days it seems that anything that contains an embedded link is "blogspam". Never mind if TFA provides additional information, analysis, insight or context, if it's not "the real thing" then it's spam. Or so you would believe from reading the comments around here.
My first thought is it looks like a cross between the X-47B [0] and the RQ-4 Global Hawk [1]. Interestingly, both of those came out of Northrop Grumman years later.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_RQ-4_Global_H...