The Case of the Stealthy Franken Hornet

Foxtrot Alpha has a new post up about an odd variant of the Super Hornet. Apparently, AvWeek covered it before, apparently. However, Sweetman et al pronounced it an attempt at just stealthing up the Super Hornet. FA is looking at it again from sat photos and stating its not as simple as Sweetman says.

a reply to: anzha
The thing in the new pic looks to be a far cry from a Hornet.
The fact that there is a photo of it makes me wonder if it isn't just meant to throw people off.

a reply to: butcherguy

The outlines are interestingly similar to a Super Hornet.

OTOH, it is sitting out in public.

OTGH, it might have been a small project and this was a model rather than the real thing, so no big deal.

I suspect there are a lot of small projects of little importance and this may be one of them.

I am hoping someone here would have some more nonSweetman insights.

Nice find. That's what I get for not popping over to FA today.

One of the comments is from Tyler Rogoway himself, which sounds to be promising.

Big update coming, probably in a new post. One of our readers linked us to new imagery proving that this thing is indeed a full stealth rework of the Hornet exactly as theorized, and was envisioned almost certainly to be unmanned. No trick of the camera or unknown variables at play. Stay tuned.

There have been several attempts to stealth up legacy aircraft over the last few years. They usually flop for various reasons.

a reply to: Zaphod58

There have been several attempts at signature reduction for various 4th gens. The F-15SE is the most recent example. The problem is noone wants to buy a 4th gen anymore if they can have access to 5th gens. We are on the cusp of 6th gen fighters after all.

This, however, looks a little different. The 'nose' is gone and looks like someone tried to make it into a UCAV.

a reply to: anzha

Which is another major issue. You can convert just about anything into a UCAV, but why when all they can do is drop bombs. There are already some good dedicated platforms out there that can be used without going through the hassle of converting a full sized 4th Gen platform.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Completely agree.

Call me stupid, but it almost looks modified for a lifting body shape. Am I just looking at the pic wrong?

This is a weird bird.

Hence, the decision to shake the tree here and see what others might know. Some of you are rather connected, Z.

To me it just looks like an F18 cocooned..

a reply to: Zaphod58

I wonder why the military isn't having video game data from flight and space combat sims, along with their own simulator data being fed into some kind of computer program/AI that can do A2A combat?

You'd think with enough data they could design a computer system to analyze a situation, predict an enemies course of action and provide several tactical options with degrees of viability...

Is it the "no human at the trigger" issue? That seems to me being one of the biggest obstacles ... I don't think people are comfortable with fully autonomous craft that can decide to kill on their own. To much like Terminator...

I think this explains things.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

1. no human at the trigger, but some forms of autonomy are going to happen for weapon systems, but no one wants the terminator.

2. also, sims are pretty simplistic for the most part and cannot cover most scenarios realistically.

3. no one in a real peer shooting war should count on comsats of any stripe staying in operation. We go to war with china or russia and all those beautiful fat pipe sats are going down.

Maybe it's just a caccooned airframe.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Then again...

a reply to: cavtrooper7

It's shorter than a normal Hornet and is missing a few bits if it was just cocooned.

Interesting musing from someone in this community once said the F117 companion wasn't that far off from an F/A-18 design. Another interesting coincidence is the new photos of the stealthy F/A-18, coincidence would have it that if the rumor is true, the companion is far-off in design from the pics. Coincidence's don't happen in the military, I thought!

a reply to: themadgenius

Oh the companion is about as far from an F-18 as an F-15 I'd from a B-52. Heh.

Boeing was pushing hard until this year to keep the Hornet line open so was trying everything possible, including stealthier platforms. This is most likely one of the concepts that they turned out not to need once the Navy and Kuwait started talking about orders.

a reply to: anzha

with the removal of the cockit, is it now a ucav ? or is it actually meant to be manned ?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: cavtrooper7

It's shorter than a normal Hornet and is missing a few bits if it was just cocooned.

The "nose" ends exactly at the nose-gear door. My guess is everything forward of the door and bulkhead is simply removed.

If you find the plane on Google Earth then you can see the exact image that Tyler posted today:
www.google.co.uk...@32.1512063,-110.843429,30m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x86d6653db2375c9b:0xdf50c8f 87748ce38!6m1!1e1

However, if you click the "tilt" button so the image adds perspective as far as I can tell you're looking at a second different image. Notice that the shadows and perspective on surrounding images change too. In the perspective view it definitely looks quite ..... "beaky". Very B-2 to me

edit: argh can't get the link to work!