Northrop release image of possible new stealth cargo aircraft.

[Oldman1]

The DEW Line
NASA two years ago challenged three aircraft makers -- Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman -- to design a next-generation airliner. Boeing's and Lockheed's designs have been revealed before. Northrop's concept finally was unveiled last week at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Sciences Meeting in Nashville.

It's the first airliner optimized for radar cross section! (Well, that's one way for airlines to get around slot restrictions at LHR.)

Seriously, NASA originally planned to analyze all three concepts and select a single design to build a 737-sized subscale test vehicle. That programme is now on hold due to funding cutbacks.

But Northrop is unlikely to walk away from the concept forever. Company officials emailed us another another image showing a concept for a next-generation military airlifter based on the same technology. In two decades, the USAF will likely need to start replacing the Lockheed Martin C-5A fleet. It's a requirement already being eyed by Boeing with the subscale X-48 blended wing body, and by Lockheed with the Speed Agile concept. It's now clear that Northrop plans to compete for the contract, if it ever comes.

 

[Al Bhatti]

Everything becoming stealth, will the robotic soldiers of future be also stealth? and their outside be some sort of a camouflage membrane which changes colour as per the surrounding.

 

[Oldman1]

Everything becoming stealth, will the robotic soldiers of future be also stealth? and their outside be some sort of a camouflage membrane which changes colour as per the surrounding.

Unless they make this aircraft really big I considered this useless when it don't have enough space for vehicles.

 

[joekrish]

Wow! Looks like a paper plane.

 

[Chogy]

I think it's financially foolish to pursue something like this unless the costs to create stealth go WAY down. It's much wiser to protect a standard transport like a C-17 with stealthy fighters.

 

[jha]

Royal waste of money and time....

 

[gambit]

Royal waste of money and time....

R/D are never a waste. R/D are inherently inefficient in resources usage but that is expected because of its necessity for a trial-and-error methodology, but in the long run, the data gathered, as in what works and what not, will be helpful for future plans when a need exist. The problem is the proverbial shelf life of any project. Technology progression can render any past R/D project useless so the question becomes whether or not to implement whatever is discovered. The longer this 'whether or not' analysis take, the greater the institutional paralysis on where to go next.