Boeing's secret budget-busting stealth fighter

Throughout the 1990s, a team of engineers from McDonnell Douglas’ Phantom Works developed and tested a unique stealth fighter shrowded in the secrecy of Area 51, known to most as the Bird of Prey. While most stealth programs are known for their high cost, the Bird of Prey went from a pad of paper to the skies over Area 51 for less than the cost of a single F-35 today.

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[blurglide]

In 2002 I was a Lieutenant at Wright Patt AFB. One day, the Bird of Prey was declassified. 3 days later, I saw it being towed to the museum restoration hanger. Damn near drove off the road!

[maryannmoran-smyth]

The bird of prey was a Technology demonstrator That took us to the next step in aviation. This is also seen in what was developed afterwards like drones, stealth, autonomous controls and composite engineering we see today. I can only imagine what you’re working on now and how futuristic it will be ….. keep on rocking guys….

[lando]

The best stealth technology engineer is the one who nobody knows about.

[brrrtnerd]

You just know how much I love the approach MD took for this! They bore the cost, borrowed parts, employed advanced materials and used in-house CFD, CAD for the majority of testing cutting out thousands of hours of model testing. Plus the entire background and contributions of Weichman! Icing on top, named after the Klingon Bird of Prey, and it still looks more advanced than any 5th gen out there, seems to echo current NGAD concepts. The performance issues really only seem secondary considering it was using existing tech from a civilian corporate jet for propulsion.

[nizloc]

Still remember being a kid in the 90s, reading about this in some magazine (popular mechanics maybe?)

They missed on it. Wasnt a production plane, wasnt the SR-71 replacement. Etc etc

Still impressive that they knew anything about it.

Just from a nerd / technology geek standpoint, its fascinating how many of these things exist. "Ideas" to prove theories, that we'll never hear about.

[Dominikmj]

I love the design. However there has been a big logical fallacy in the video: the comparison of the F-35 and the Bird of Prey platform.
A deployed Bird of Prey (not sure where it could fit in - as F-117A successor or stealth jet powered Super Tucano?) would have been far more expensive. It was a demonstrator - without combat essential avionics (not even radar) nor weapons. It is like comparing a trainer aircraft with a full fledged combat jet.

[paladin]

Nice piece. FYI radar cross section of an aircraft is a function of reflectivity (as you said) and radar frequency and aircraft aspect angle. By the way, "budget busting" means that the budget was exceeded. The biggest problem with programs that "bust" their budgets is the plethora of regulations and bureaucracy that platforms have to wind through.

[FrankieAngels]

USAF: The A-10 is the slowest combat aircraft in the world.

Boeing: Hold my beer.

[hongshi]

Great video. I’m probably not the only one who thinks that no classified project should ever be unclassified.

[tonyah.]

Super cool show today! Thank you for your hard work on YouTube! I love the look of that Boeing secret budget-busting stealth fighter jet!

[sgt.grinch]

Nice. I’m impressed that so much was accomplished with so little.

[kakavdedatakavunuk]

The Bird of prey aerodynamically speaking closely resembles X-45, and I think that it could be described as a piloted version of it. The difference is the wing design, which is polyhedral, with dihedral inboard sections and anhedral outboard sections (but the same planform). Also, the chines on the front fuselage are more accentuated compared to X-45.

[SkyhawkSteve]

kudos to the USAF museum for that drone footage of the Bird of Prey. Their youtube channel has a number of similar videos of various portions of the museum. A novel and unique view of their aircraft!

[Raptorman]

Building an airframe, a demonstrator airframe, is pennies on the dollar for what a complete, mission capable, fighter plane costs. How much development on weapons control software integration was done with the Bird of Prey? What range did it have? Could it be refueled? Could it cooperate with other air operations? In short, beyond a flying airframe, what could it do?

[jimepley]

A similar approached was used in the development and fielding of the F-117. Off-the-shelf parts and engines, it was basically an A-7 with a stealth kit body. Love those skunk works guys.

[markkoolhaas]

One could argue that; if the bird of prey was developed in to a effective front-line fighter or bomber, costs would have risen exponentially. It was just a prototype.

[dongypooh]

Wiechman looks like the embodiment of stealth; he himself was stealthy!
I admire legendary people behind the scenes like him.

[SanjaySingh-ohhv]

I think it's a bit melodramatic to say at 3:10 "was rejected outright" ... apparently the YF-23 and YF-22 were quite competitive with each other, and the debate still rages to this day whether the YF-23 should have been chosen instead. Various reasons were given for choosing the YF-22 over the YF-23, and on forums people even debate whether those reasons are valid. I personally think that the YF-22 was marketed better.

[keithbrown]

Thank you, being involved with aerospace I only saw a smitten of this aircraft, yours is the most detailed and revealing video I’ve ever seen, thank you so much it was always a hidden secret that I could not seem to find any information and once again job well done sir

[jeromebarry]

Lessons learned by Boeing in this craft are clearly useful for the announced already flying prototype of a 6-th gen air superiority fighter. A bigger engine, a gun, an internal magazine and some computing power, done.