Is The Switchblade In Production???

I heard about the USAF's replacement for the F-111 a while back but always presumed that it was just a rumour along with Aurora etc, yet ive just found this:



This says that in November 1999, the Switchblade was patented by the Northrop Grumman Corporation.

Is this aircraft definitley being put into production???

Looks like an amazing plane if it is!





[edit on 23/5/2005 by MickeyDee]

that patent is old, if you really look you can find many more unknown patents, ill get some.

It don't seem too much probable that this would ever go out of the drawing board. The Idea is cool, but till now, forward swept wings hasn't surpased the prototype phase and probably never will be nothing more than this (remember the SU-47 or the X-29).
It seems that this kind of wing increases the loads in the union of wings and the main body, and so the advantages of this configuration don't deserve the problems it gives to solve (I hope someone correct me if I'm wrong). Yes, forward swept wings are cool, but not too much practical.
And if we add to the problems of these wings with swing wings... at first sight, it seems very problematic, doesn't it?
To sum up, in my opinion, Switchblade is a cool idea, but I think there would be many problems to solve, and probably it doesn't deserve the waste of time and resources to give this plane to production.
Of course, all that is only my opinion...

That is true It looks Problamatic, But when the F-14 came out they had Huge problems with the Swing wing mechanisms on the tomcat, and was almost scrapped after the navy had purchased only 100-150 tomcats but with a little bit of work the Tomcat Became one of the Best Dogfighters and Interceptors of all time, so maybe with a little bit of Work and trial and error the Switch blade could be a lethal plane to have.

The 'Switchblade' is not in production nor heading for serial production. It was strictly a prototype.
B-27 Switchblade





seekerof