On July 1, 2023, the official Lockheed Martin Instagram account posted an interesting story on the social network to celebrate the 80th anniversary of its famous advanced project division, Skunk Works.
Among the aircraft silhouettes shown, there is one that really caught everyone’s attention: that of an unknown aircraft, which could be the Lockheed Martin project for the NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) or some other secret program.
+ See the video with the leaked image
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In May of this year, the Public Relations Secretary of the Air Force announced that the Air Force Department had begun soliciting proposals for the 6th generation NGAD fighter that would replace the F-22 with the intention of awarding a contract in 2024.
The platform intends to have capabilities to attack air and ground threats to achieve air superiority and support the Joint Force. The next generation of aircraft will also cooperate with unmanned autonomous aircraft, being developed as part of the dedicated Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program.
According to Secretary Kendall, the US Air Force should acquire 200 NGAD fighters along with 1,000 CCAs, autonomous drones that will cooperate in the role of “loyal wingman” with sixth-generation combat aircraft within a “system of systems” that sees fighters cooperating and interconnected with other assets (including F-35s), satellites, a secure combat cloud network, air defense nodes, and so on.
At least one full-scale model of the NGAD has been secretly flying at least since 2020. Then, in 2022, The War Zone spotted another tailless delta wing aircraft in satellite images of the Area 51 that may be related to the NGAD program. There are also a series of interesting sightings in the US observed in 2014 that have not yet been explained.
In terms of shape and layout, this 6th generation design is similar to previous designs released by Lockheed Martin, showing a tailless design (considered ideal for achieving low radar signature) with a diamond-shaped wing plan with straight edges ahead and to the right.
The engines are fully contained in the fuselage, with only two bumps denoting their position in the upper fuselage. Like many low-signature projects, the exhaust is located on the upper surface of the rear fuselage, almost completely shielding the infrared signature from the diamond-shaped two-dimensional nozzles.
The air inlets are not visible as they are mounted below the fuselage, flush with the junction between the wing root and the fuselage, as could be seen in an older front rendering of the nearly identical design.
Based on the silhouette shared on social networks, the video creator and DCS World gamer AD_FOX2 (@aviationdesigns_mg) created the interesting rendering that you can find above.
+ See the video with the leaked image
Source: theaviationist.com