Northrop TACIT BLUE

I'm trying to find the exact dates for the first and last flights of the Northrop TACIT BLUE (Whale)...
 
maiden flight - 5 Feb., 1982
last flight - 14 Feb, 1985
 
If TACIT BLUE had made it into service, I suppose that the production version would have been somewhat larger (longer, primarily?).
 
was it not a purely experimental aircraft, investigating various stealth and auto stab systems? What would its role/purpose have been?
 
It was a prototype of a plane intended to carry a targeting radar for the Assault Breaker system near or over Warsaw Pact airspace. The basic technology morphed into J-STARS.
 
hole in the ground said:
was it not a purely experimental aircraft...
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It turned out to be. But in the time, when the program was active, Northrop as a "right" manufacturer made an uncalled proposal for a serial production version with SLAR. It did not made it.
 
If you're clever you can determine what threat radar they were testing their model against by the size of the sphere. The sphere is not necessarily tied to the TACIT BLUE program itself.
 

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...2007
 

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RGClark said:
What was its most important innovation? Just stealth?

Bob Clark
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It was intended to be all-aspect stealth, minimizing the returns from any angle. In the F-117A there are angles where you can get a pretty big RCS spike, but they're minimized due to the faceting. Northrop's advance away from faceting was a big improvement in LO design and a key driver behind the all-aspect LO concept.
 
RGClark said:
What was its most important innovation? Just stealth?

Bob Clark
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It had a radar. This was a big deal.
 
Would have been interesting if they had made a medium range bomber out of the design. All aspect stealth, heavier bomb load, bigger air frame for fuel, could have been a secret follow on to the f-117.
 
Empire said:
Would have been interesting if they had made a medium range bomber out of the design. All aspect stealth, heavier bomb load, bigger air frame for fuel, could have been a secret follow on to the f-117.
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Not so sure about that. The biggest problem with the F-117 was stability, and if you read the Air Force Magazine article, you will see that it was even worse for Tacit Blue. Perhaps it would have been controllable when fully loaded, but I have a feeling that the dropping of a bombload would have resulted in a sudden shift of the gravity center to the rear of the plane and it would have flipped over... Just my two cents as I'm in no way an engineer or a technical expert.
 
Actually, making a bomber out of it shouldn't have been a problem, it just wasn't an optimum design for it. In fact, they sort of did make a bomber out of it, but one that was more optimum for the mission; The B-2. If they had wanted a medium bomber, it probably would have looked like a smaller twin engined B-2; I guess you could look at Northrop's ATA submission for that design, though slightly scaled up. Of course, there wasn't a need for a small stealthy bomber at the time since they already had the F-117A.

I've always found the TB (F-117D?) to be an interesting design.
 
Sundog said:
I've always found the TB (F-117D?) to be an interesting design.
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Yes, TACIT BLUE is said to have been designated the YF-117D.
The only other secret prototype identified in the series is the McDonnell Douglas YF-118G Bird of Prey.
 
Empire said:
Would have been interesting if they had made a medium range bomber out of the design. All aspect stealth, heavier bomb load, bigger air frame for fuel, could have been a secret follow on to the f-117.
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Wouldn't have worked very well. TACIT BLUE was designed to demonstrate technologies needed to penetrate behind the forward edge of battle and persist while using radar to surveil enemy ground forces. The aircraft was built around the requirements of the radar.
Some of the things that it demonstrated:
- Very low RF signature across a broader range of frequencies than XST/HAVE BLUE (XST requirements were for a narrow range of frequencies)
- Low observable radome
- Low observable/LPI radar
- Validated models for radar cross section estimation outside of the specular region. This means they figured out how to use computers to build things that were less visible to more than just high(er) frequency radars. This *allowed* Northrop to build the tools to create VLO designs across a wider spectrum, which would be important for operating inside an enemy air defense system.

Dick Thomas's book talks a bit about flying TACIT BLUE:

Hell of a Ride: A first person biography of the 'gutsy' test pilot, Richard G. 'Dick" Thomas, notorious for his bold, daring and dashing flight test escapades!: Thomas, Cynda: 9780595528783: Amazon.com: Books

Hell of a Ride: A first person biography of the 'gutsy' test pilot, Richard G. 'Dick Thomas, notorious for his bold, daring and dashing flight test escapades! [Thomas, Cynda] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Hell of a Ride: A first person biography of the 'gutsy' test pilot...
www.amazon.com
 
I think all they needed to do was move the wing a little more forward (no need to make room for the large LPI radar) more mid wing and enlarge the tail. This would help with stability when releasing a bomb load. They just needed to make a smaller LPI, attack radar add bomb bay, areial refueling and maybe add a weapons officer. With its low RF signature across a broad range of frequencies this plane could have penetrated any air defense in the world at the time and with a bigger bomb load than the F-117.
 
While it's signature was low in all directions, it wasn't necessarily lower than the F-117 or B-2 from the front or back. As I side in my previous post, it could be made a bomber, but wouldn't be as good at it as an aircraft designed from the outset for that mission.
 
flateric said:
Well, damn, anyone got his hands on these???
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As of today... yes. I've gotten *much* better resolution versions of the Tacit Blue diagrams. Really quite nice.
52508

I'm awaiting confirmation that I can do stuff with them. If I can, I am going to redraft them, and finally, at long freakin' last, accurate and reliable diagrams will be available. They will appear HERE when the time comes.
 
Orionblamblam said:
As of today... yes. I've gotten *much* better resolution versions of the Tacit Blue diagrams. Really quite nice.
52508
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Does it show a weapons bay?
 
Just discovered the latest posts in this topic, hadn't read about it before. Great news! I'm really looking forward.
 
darn, I always thought that V-tail edges are pendipecular to CL in planform view...devil in details
 
would be nice to see Tacit Blue brochure like you did on AGM-129
 
flateric said:
would be nice to see Tacit Blue brochure like you did on AGM-129
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Maybe happen. But there's not near as much available on the TB as on the AGM-129. Even the display unit is less informative than it could be, since it is slathered over with a thick coat of paint that obliterates details.
 
Same-scale Northrop factory models of B-2A and Tacit Blue, for size comparison.
 

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circle-5 said:
Same-scale Northrop factory models of B-2A and Tacit Blue, for size comparison.
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Great, thanks! I'd love to see more pics of the Tacit Blue model, if that's possible.
 
Tacit Blue desk model, made by the in-house Northrop Display Model Shop in El Segundo, California.
The whales represent the program's logo. Those who were involved in the project were known as 'whalers'.
 

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Restoration staff move Tacit Blue into the new fourth building at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force on Oct. 7, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photo by Ken LaRock)
 

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Grey Havoc said:
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com

Virtually Tour The Cockpit Of The Once Top Secret Tacit Blue Stealth Tech Demonstrator

Although Lockheed’s “Have Blue” prototype that eventually led to the F-117 Nighthawk is widely recognized as the grand daddy of stealth technology, Northrop’s Tacit Blue, aka “The Whale,” demonstrator arguably had an even greater impact on the future of stealth. Now, by clicking here you...
foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com
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B), Thumbs up and thanks!
Here the direct link:

Research and Development Gallery Cockpits

A 360 degree cockpit from the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force
www.nmusafvirtualtour.com
 
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