Meet The X-44 Manta: The Air Force’s Plan For An F-22 Raptor On Steroids?
BySandboxx NewsPublished1 min ago
X-44 MantaUS Navy 6th generation fighter jet artist rendering. Image Credit: Boeing.
X-44 Manta could have been an F-22 Raptor-style plane like no other. Russia and China would not have liked this one bit: Way back in 1999, Lockheed Martin had a plan to field a delta-shaped stealth fighter that skipped the need for a conventional tail section, in the F-22-based X-44 Manta.
Instead of using a conventional tail section with both vertical and horizontal control surfaces, the Manta aimed to leverage thrust vector control, or directing the flow of the engine’s thrust to give the aircraft the acrobatic capabilities it would need in a high-end dogfight. Today, more than two decades later, that same concept appears to be found consistently across nearly all official renderings of the Air Force’s next air superiority fighter being developed under the NGAD, or Next Generation Air Dominance, program, begging the question… could elements of the X-44 Manta have found their way America’s next top-of-the-line fighter?
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/03/meet-the-x-44-manta-the-air-forces-plan-for-an-f-22-raptor-on-steroids/
