"Quiet Bird" Stealth Aircraft

[Sedalia Dave]

Boeing publishes photos of secret 1960s stealth plane experiment

"Quiet Bird" model echoes modern stealth fighters, but it never took wing.

 

Interesting how inter-service politics effects super advanced technology.

More than two decades before the first flight of the F-117A "Nighthawk" stealth fighter—and two years before Russian mathematician Pyotr Ufimtsev would publish a paper first defining the physics that would drive development of stealth aircraft—engineers at Boeing's Wichita, Kansas, facility performed tests on an experimental design that might have been the first stealth aircraft ever. According to images and information just recently released by Boeing, the company performed testing on a stealth aircraft prototype in 1962 and 1963. Designated as Model 853 by Boeing and known as "Quiet Bird," the prototype never flew. However, it demonstrated the effectiveness of design and construction approaches that would later be applied to stealth aircraft.

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[Badlands Bob #61228]

I'm not sure that fat little thing would fly anyway.

[Badger Mountain Charlie SASS #43172]

In 1962 it was McDonnell Douglas, wasn't it?

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

if ya got ENOUGH engine , a bus will fly

 

think F-4

 

CB

[Sedalia Dave]

In 1962 it was McDonnell Douglas, wasn't it?

McDonnell Douglas was created in 1967 through the merger of the Douglas Aircraft Company and the McDonnell Aircraft Corporation. McDonnell Douglas was acquired by Boeing in 1996.

 

GIven the reference to the AGM-86 ALCM design being similar to Quiet Bird I believe that this design also originated with Boeing.