Interesting Times at Mojave 3-15-17

a reply to: nelloh62

It's around the corner from where the Scaled hangar is.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks. Did you manage to get a glimpse inside ? Any new toys on show

originally posted by: Sammamishman
Alright, now that I'm finally home, here's my effort:

Strangely enough the bottom one looks like the butt end of a J-20. Lol.

The top one is of two hornets no doubt. The one on the left just has the horizontal stabs. drooping. The other one might be a weird optical illusion of multiple aircraft parked next to each other but the spacing and shape of the tail planes is all wrong for a hornet at any angle and the reflection off the canopy looks almost Avenger-ish.

The left of the two, or the one in the foreground in the side profile shot taken at the end... that one looks to be an F22, going by the vertical stabs side profile compared to that of the one in the background.

a reply to: nelloh62

They're building their super launcher in there. It's going to be stupid big. The door wasn't high enough to see it though.

a reply to: weavty1

I was actually looking at the canopy. It looks gold, where the Hornet uses a clear canopy.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm working on a diagram about why, but right now I can say that after looking at the side-on view, I have some pretty definitive proof that what we're looking at ISN'T an F-18. The gold canopy is just the icing on the cake.

a reply to: weavty1

dude, check out PM

a reply to: Zaphod58

Any chance of one of these aircraft might be the deep interceptor for B-21 ?

a reply to: Zaphod58

a reply to: nelloh62

I doubt that anything that black would come out before late at night, with little to no moon.

a reply to: Zaphod58

On a side note, and no intention to derail thread, will the US Navy be using carrier variants of F-35 ?

a reply to: nelloh62

Yes. They stood their first C model squadron up at Lemoore in California.

a reply to: Zaphod58

And here's the definitive proof:

First, let's look at a regular Rhino:

The F-18 has always had somewhat "smooshed" proportions, with vertical stabilizers set pretty far forward and a cockpit that's set pretty far backwards. The length of the canopies of both aircraft are far too long to be single-seaters, especially the golden canopy in question, when compared to how short and relatively tiny the canopy of a single-seat Hornet/Rhino is.

So when you lay out the proportions of the aircraft, you find that the distance along the back of the 2-seat Rhino between the aft end of the cockpit and the root of the vertical stabilizers is barely 1.4 times the length of the vertical stabilizer itself. Furthermore, the angle of the dual cockpit glassfuselage joint is a relatively 7 or so degrees off horizontal, fairly shallow for a two-seat fighter.

Now, let's look at what Zaph caught: (Thanks to Sam for the image processing, because levels in GIMP are a PITA to get good results with)

As you can see immediately, the proportions look nothing like the F-18. Firstly, there's a lot more airframe between the aft end of the cockpit and the root of the vertical stabilizers. At the minimum, the distance between the aft end of the cockpit and the root of the vertical stabilizer is 1.8 times the length of the vertical stabilizer, and again, that's at the minimum. I could believe that it's an optical illusion if there was a 10% variance between the proportions, but here, we're talking an aircraft that has 30% more fuselage between the end of the cockpit and the beginning of the tailfin. Even the single-seat F-18 doesn't have those proportions.

Furthermore, the cockpit angle appears to be significantly steeper, on the order of 9 or 10 degrees instead of the 7 that the two-seat rhino has. This would mean that the cockpit, if it's a two-seater, is likely raked as steeply as the cockpit on a two-seat Harrier or Flanker, again, absolutely nothing like the cockpit on a Hornet. And that's before we even get to that distinctive gold hue, that stands out as being clearly different from the opened F/A-18 cockpit that we can see just to the right of it, or the fact that if you squint at the tail-on shots of the aircraft, the tailplanes start to look more and more like F-22-style hexagonal edge-aligned surfaces.

As to what it is, it resembles nothing that I have ever seen in photographs, or even concept renders. This is exciting.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I've never seen one yet, but when we get our two new carriers operational, hopefully get a chance

a reply to: Barnalby

a reply to: nelloh62

Just fixed it

originally posted by: Barnalby
As to what it is, it resembles nothing that I have ever seen in photographs, or even concept renders. This is exciting.

(jedi hand wave)

You find this boring. You want to go home and rethink your life.

a reply to: Barnalby

Well done sir, great work, this is what ATS is all about,

a reply to: Bedlam

It's a mutt for sure. The elevators look like they came from an F-22:


The steep-angled twin cockpit pushed to the extreme front end of the aircraft looks like some of Lockheed's A/F-X renderings:


The fuselage looks long, and the wings look like they're probably basic trapezoids like on the F-22 or F-35.

Really gets the neurons going.

a reply to: Barnalby

Longer fuselage so they can squeeze the plasma generators on front and rear of engines