ProjectFear alleged Boeing NGAD F-47 demonstrator video - June 2026

ginkgo_thruster said:
lol why everyone think that have to F-47? NGAD competition ended March 2025, F-47 EMD prototype is not yet ready.

It’s possible a F/A-XX prototype or CCA Inc2, since we don’t know how big it is, or the video is completely fake.
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Disagree. There are three known NGAD demonstrators to exist since at least 2018. This could very well be one of them.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
The resemblance to X-36 and Bird of Prey are what make it seem to most people like a Boeing project.
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The Boeing AII-X demonstrator for the Navy definitely had visible influences from X-36 and Bird Of Prey.

Whether the ProjectFear video shows something like that is entirely up to the interpretation - and, really, faith and bias - of the person viewing it.

The thermal video was captured using a device optimized for hunting - a thermal rifle scope. Not exactly optimized for this use and the manufacturer isn’t clear about how their software and hardware may influence the image .

https://irayusa.com/hch50r
 
So trying to be reading behind the lines and cryptic messaging, this could be the Boeing All-X demonstrator for USN, and not NGAD demonstrator for USAF?
 
I'm starting to take a closer look at the footage and thought I could share a couple of things I might have noticed.

During the flyover, we can see that the black silhouette of the aircraft shows a symmetrical discontinuity in coloration that appears to be constant among all frames in an area of the object towards the rear (click to enlarge the picture):
Screenshot 3 - heat.jpg
Once the aircraft is starting to move away from the camera, the shape of one landing gear leg can also be guessed:
Screenshot 4-5 - landing gear.jpg
The open gears bay and landing gears extended would be consistent with the aircraft making a landing approach, as suggested also by the speed, altitude and bright (landing) light visible in the video.

If what I'm seeing is correct though (i.e. the length of the gears bay and the dimensions of the landing gear itself), this vehicle might be significantly smaller than a lot of people currently think.
 
voodoo-patch-pic-jpeg.773212

I think this one is more interesting actually.
 
CiTrus90 said:
I'm starting to take a closer look at the footage and thought I could share a couple of things I might have noticed.

During the flyover, we can see that the black silhouette of the aircraft shows a symmetrical discontinuity in coloration that appears to be constant among all frames in an area of the object towards the rear (click to enlarge the picture):
View attachment 814740
Once the aircraft is starting to move away from the camera, the shape of one landing gear leg can also be guessed:
View attachment 814741
The open gears bay and landing gears extended would be consistent with the aircraft making a landing approach, as suggested also by the speed, altitude and bright (landing) light visible in the video.

If what I'm seeing is correct though (i.e. the length of the gears bay and the dimensions of the landing gear itself), this vehicle might be significantly smaller than a lot of people currently think.
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Yeah it was my first impression as well that it had the landing gear down, assuming it is a demonstrator/x-plane it's not impossible that it's a smaller than the production aircraft. The question is why did the NGAD require X-planes like the JSF instead of prototypes like the ATF. My guess it that it uses some sort of active flow control or fluidic thrust vectoring, it would be consistent with the claims of reduced need for maintenance and even the mostly dismissed claims of it being very maneuverable.
 
fightingirish said:
Yep, apparently so. :rolleyes:
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This is other patch obviously, and what Rogway claims as 'hidden all the time' is not so obvious match to vehicle from video for me (may be my eyes are old).
 
flateric said:
This is other patch obviously, and what Rogway claims as 'hidden all the time' is not so obvious match to vehicle from video for me (may be my eyes are old).
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Must agree, but I do see a sasquatch in Overscan's patch.

Chris
 
quellish said:
The Boeing AII-X demonstrator for the Navy definitely had visible influences from X-36 and Bird Of Prey.

Whether the ProjectFear video shows something like that is entirely up to the interpretation - and, really, faith and bias - of the person viewing it.

The thermal video was captured using a device optimized for hunting - a thermal rifle scope. Not exactly optimized for this use and the manufacturer isn’t clear about how their software and hardware may influence the image .

https://irayusa.com/hch50r
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Is this bird what you have the photo of?
 
CiTrus90 said:
Genuine question for the people that are more familiar than me with this sort of equipment.

When the shots with both cameras (IR and white phosphor night vision) are shown side by side, there is a lot more clouds in the IR shot that don't seem to match with the ones visible in the other camera:

There is also a lot more stars visible in the background of the aircraft (the bright light) flying than I would expect to see, since the IR view appears to be significantly more cloudy.

Is this reasonable to expect since the 2 cameras work differently?
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I don't particularly believe it is real - but, yes IR will penetrate cloud vapour to different degrees and background clouds could like quite different.
 
X-36 was developed to test a tailless platform in regards to very high maneuverability plus you can see the planform alignment features even though it's subscale. Bird of Prey was an LO demonstrator for the Boeing X-45A UCAV vehicles.

I am not an aero guy but if Boeing did combine the two configurations I am curious of the balance they are trying to achieve in regards to potential high maneuverability, LO and BVR missions. If the aircraft videoed is real (probably is), they could still be flying the demonstrator and/or flying an EMD version built out at 51, 51 has grown quite a bit and I am sure has developed and built manufacturing facility capability as well.

If it does in fact have the drooped wing tips, the high maneuverability aspect would be interesting, to my knowledge, was there any other operational true fighter aircraft with a similar configuration?
 

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CiTrus90 said:
If what I'm seeing is correct though (i.e. the length of the gears bay and the dimensions of the landing gear itself), this vehicle might be significantly smaller than a lot of people currently think.
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Impossible. I read on the internet that 6th generation aircraft are “battlestars”.
 
At the time, the Xmas Tree Fighter shape would have been very hard to control (per some of the flight control guys I knew from YF-23) but it it was extremely LO and excellent for BVR. Now with modern CFD modeling and simulation including much more sophisticated flight control software development capabilities, the Xmas Tree may be feasible now?
 
Hydroman said:
X-36 was developed to test a tailless platform in regards to very high maneuverability plus you can see the planform alignment features even though it's subscale. Bird of Prey was an LO demonstrator for the Boeing X-45A UCAV vehicles.

I am not an aero guy but if Boeing did combine the two configurations I am curious of the balance they are trying to achieve in regards to potential high maneuverability, LO and BVR missions. If the aircraft videoed is real (probably is), they could still be flying the demonstrator and/or flying an EMD version built out at 51, 51 has grown quite a bit and I am sure has developed and built manufacturing facility capability as well.

If it does in fact have the drooped wing tips, the high maneuverability aspect would be interesting, to my knowledge, was there any other operational true fighter aircraft with a similar configuration?
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xb-70 drooped wingtips at high speed, that's about it. F-4 Phantom had upward wingtips....
 
While battlestars may be a joking term, fact remains that GCAP is aimed to be pretty darn large. That one of the two Chinese planes is even bigger. So in 10 years time or whatever, when we get some sense of scale for all the other planes in development - we'll see just what sort of average increase percentage there will be for all those next gen planes, over the previous generations. I don't see it as much of a surprise, as the trend to go bigger has never really stopped since the dawn of aviation. From biplanes to ww2 monoplanes to early jets etc. Even F16s have become really small, in today's context - with much larger F35s replacing them.
 
Hydroman said:
If it does in fact have the drooped wing tips, the high maneuverability aspect would be interesting, to my knowledge, was there any other operational true fighter aircraft with a similar configuration?
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Untaken path for PAK FA
 

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totoro said:
While battlestars may be a joking term, fact remains that GCAP is aimed to be pretty darn large. That one of the two Chinese planes is even bigger.
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Crud, the F-47 design proposal was said to be much smaller than people were expecting. It's said to be roughly F-22 sized, which I take to mean ~80-85klbs MTOW.

I had personally been expecting something the size of an F-111, 105klbs MTOW with that being pretty close to the mission weight. And I'm still kinda expecting FAXX to have an MTOW of around 95klbs, but only rarely fly that heavy, instead having a typical mission takeoff weight of about 80,000lbs.

GCAP's huge wings make me say "over 100klbs".
 
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The renderings of Russia's sixth-generation fighter jet also adopt this design. What impact does this kind of gull wing have on stealth performance compared to ordinary straight wings? It is safe to say that it is somewhere between the ordinary straight-wing design with vertical stabilizers and the straight-wing design without vertical stabilizers, but what exactly is it like?
 

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The A10 and the Heinkel He-162 also have drooped wingtips athough not as pronounced.
tico said:
The renderings of Russia's sixth-generation fighter jet also adopt this design. What impact does this kind of gull wing have on stealth performance compared to ordinary straight wings? It is safe to say that it is somewhere between the ordinary straight-wing design with vertical stabilizers and the straight-wing design without vertical stabilizers, but what exactly is it like?
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The wing edges woud be the biggest problem as the drooping would position them right on the edge toward ground radar especialy the tip. So the tip must not be a straight line but be pointy and veering off. The (fan made) Russian design fail here.
 
timmyjohn said:
Too early to be giving out tributes?

Rich Nastasi, a really smart stability & control engineer, conceived of the idea depicted below in 1987 or 1988 1985 or 1986 in a classified environment in Bethpage NY -- I'm an eyewitness. I believe his concept predates any similar notion in St Louis, but we'll never know for sure.

See: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/boeing-bird-of-prey-demonstrator.996/#post-700061

Don't know how to contact Rich, but I hope he enjoys the satisfaction knowing that at least one of his colleagues remembers him and his idea -- one of the best innovations to ever come out of the stodgy Grumman Iron Works. Unfortunately, in the mid-1980s, Grumman had already come down with a terminal illness.

Edit: I just looked at some old notes. My dates for Nastasi's innovation seem to be 2 years earlier than I have written previously.


View attachment 764212
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OK, time to give out tributes. Rich Nastasi at Grumman-Bethpage came up with the idea of the gull wing plus canard combination in 1985 (firsthand knowledge) as a way to address 3 challenging requirements: very low RCS; effective tail-less subsonic/supersonic stability & control; retain fighter-like low-speed maneuverability. The attached patent suggests an X-29 mod for flight demonstration, but the concept stems from other classified activities.
This patent was filed in 1993, about a year after Bird of Prey design activities were initiated at McAir-St. Louis as best I can gather.
Here's the aft swept wing version in the patent...
 

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