Pssst, can someone enlighten BAe, it goes the other way up

[NutLoose]

:p

Mystery Stealth aircraft spotted at BAE Warton 18 2 2014 - YouTube (http://youtu.be/Hg4YbsBq0kE)

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,1202.120.html

[Linedog]

BAe's new designer, Paddy McGrath completes his first project for the Australian air force.

[Bob Viking]

It struck me that the video is a very parochial and British scene. An incredibly expensive (assuming its a real fuselage and not just a mock up) piece of equipment being pulled upside down on an old trailer with some bloke walking next to it. I can't help thinking that a similar scene at a Lockheed Martin plant in the US would see the same fuselage being transported on a high tech monorail and guarded by robots. With frickin laser beams!
BV

[safetypee]

This event is either a major whoops / SNFU in forgetting the tarp cover, or a stealth system test. The latter is more likely as a radar assessment tower is seen in the background, and aircraft are often mounted on this upside down.
Of course it could be a big spoof; or will be presented as a spoof if it was the real thing when it shouldn't have been on view.
Or is it one of theirs – you know who.

[Pontius Navigator]

Loose article check?

Interesting that it has strong points on the top; may be it is for the Swiss Air Force for suspension in the hangar galleries?

[Sir George Cayley]

Moving it in daylight? No covering. Security CCTV not panning and no one notices the photographer?

Yeah, really stealthy. :E

SGC

[N2erk]

The health&safety hiviz jackets worked- nobody ran into them! Liked the fellow following the trailer in case pieces fell off. Also the lack of staff at 2:07 on- must have been a tea break! :D

[thing]

Looks like an upside down YF-22 to me.

[sandiego89]

my 2 cents it looks like an RCS model of the original McDonnell Douglas/British Aerospace/Northup Grumman bid for the JAST program, which was soon renamed JSF and resulted in the F-35 program we know today. There were three main bidders for the JAST/JSF. Boeing, Lockheed-Martin and the MD/BAE/NG team. Two made the down select in 1996, with Boeing making the X-32 and LM making the X-35, which eventually was selected for the F-35 JSF. The MD/BEA/NG bid was not selected for further study. IIRC it had a lift jet for the V/STOL version and was deemed too complicated and had the penalty of carrying around a lift jet while not in V/STOL mode. All three concepts chose different V/STOL methods.

The similarities between this model rolled into the sunshine recently and the non-selected MD/BAE/NG bid are especially close in overall shape, intake design, canted tails, and canopy. The cut out on the belly looks very much like where the main engine could be diverted down for V/STOL flight. So perhaps this is just a 18 year old RCS model from that program.

Some examples of the non-selected bid here:

http://www.jsf.mil/gallery/gal_photo_cddr_mda-ngc-bae.htm

[TEEEJ]

Thing, Sandiego89.

It is the BAE Replica. Rumour has it that it is being prepared for museum display? Just a rumour. Don't shoot the messenger!

Old image of it on test pole. You can see the test pole in the video at 02:45.

http://www.hitechweb.genezis.eu/stealth4f.files/BAE_replica_3.jpg

x20rg1gCBNM&feature=related

From 2003

Secret UK stealth plane project revealed - 04 April 2003 - New Scientist (http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn3590#.Uw44Ofl_uSq)

http://www.hitechweb.genezis.eu/stealth4f.files/BAE_replica_1.jpg

[Lima Juliet]

It's BAe REPLICA. I saw this about 5 years ago and it was at least 5-10 years then! It was cancelled when we bought into the JSF program.

The cancellation was described to me as 'another TSR2 moment' :eek:

Try doing a search for BAe REPLICA on google or similar.

LJ

PS. Must type faster like Teeej!

[Cows getting bigger]

I saw it in a hangar, still upside down but painted black, in 2004. Having been sworn to secrecy over a few other sexy items that were kept at arm's length, the BAe staff weren't particularly worried about us having a good nose at this particular bit of hardware.

[Davef68]

According to a mate that's had a poke around it, it's set out as a two seater. And it's resemblance to the MDD/BAE JSF contender is not co-incidental/ I've long harboured a suspicion that was one of the reasons it was ditched.

[unmanned_droid]

Another possible motive for this design is that it was developed to prove that the UK could match anyone else on low observability in next gen fighter aircraft so that the UK would be let in to the good stuff in JSF.

I do wonder if it's a little undersize given the two seater configuration and the size of the canopy for that, but others suggest not.

It's a radar signature tool. It has representative skins and surface treatments and the internals are just a skeleton to support those skins.

Would very much like to see what else was in that hangar!

[Lima Juliet]

Some of the other stuff in the hangar that I saw from open source:

http://www.hitechweb.genezis.eu/UCAV02.files/bae_kestrel_1_big.jpg
Kestrel

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/04images/Airplanes/Corax_01.jpg
Corax

http://www.thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/04images/Airplanes/Raven_01.jpg
Raven

Oh yes, an MRA4 (now probably razor blades!) and Taranis...

http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/335862/article_img.jpg

LJ :ok:

[Lima Juliet]

Oh, and lots of other bright ideas from the past 50 years like this...

Fighter Jet Take-Off Platform - YouTube

...what a shame that the senior staff can never follow through with these visions for the Customer!!! :{

LJ

[unmanned_droid]

Thanks LJ.

I had forgotten about most of those - Warton should make more of them. The Corax fills in a blank or two. I sit across from one of the guys that did the stressing for that.

Was HERTI in there too?


http://www.sir-differel.com/images/brit-bae-fury.jpg

[Lima Juliet]

Yes, it was :yuk:

That was not one of the Company's best!!!

LJ

[Lima Juliet]

And this...

http://www.uavglobal.com/wp-content/gallery/ampersand/ampersand.jpg

...wot no Ken Wallis!

RIP

LJ

[N2erk]

Can't fool me- the first craft in post 15 has 2 of Jetex-50 engines mounted. I had one of those (engines).

[Lima Juliet]

Not Jetex engines. These were small gas turbines. Kestrel, Raven and Corax were stepping stones to Taranis and were quite small (certainly than might be gauged from the photos). I would say no more than 3-5 metres across.

Who knows, maybe we'll see them in a Museum in the future?

LJ

[tartare]

Leon - purely out of interest, were they really serious about actually building the REPLICA?
How close did they get?
It certainly looks the part - what a shame.

[WhiteOvies]

X-47A and some of the early Firescout development aircraft are in the museum at NAS Pax River in Maryland. X-47B is often in the overhead too, which shows how far the USN have come in similar timescales with similar thoughts.

[Haraka]

LJ,
Very interested to see that RPV Autogiro.
W.Vinten. Ltd. successfully built and flew a prototype full scale RPV version of the Wallis Autogiro around 1985.
Named the Vindicator ( guilty! :O), it was later lost on an overseas flight demonstration.

[Lima Juliet]

Tartare

I don't know the full "ins and outs" of Project REPLICA, but I did see it. It is a life size mcok up and covered in very expensive RADAR Absorbent Material (RAM) which isn't cheap - so they must have been pretty serious. It was one of mamy solutions to replace GR4 - others of which included Tornado 2000 with a faceted nose, redesigned intakes but still the mahoosive fin! There was also the FOAS concept UCAV which spawned into the smaller technology demonstrators that has led to Taranis.

Haraka

It's called BAES Ampersand and I believe it is based uopn the MT-03 autogyro. It certainly looks like a BCAR Section T compliant autogyro - so there's a better chance of it not crashing! :ok:

LJ