X-44 Manta Aircraft - Here's what you need to know: While the design never made it past the drawing board, it would be even more mysterious than the F-22 Raptor.
The X-44 MANTA, short for Multi-Axis No Tail Aircraft, was a futuristic-looking derivative of Lockheed Martin's iconic F-22 design. According to Air Force Magazine, Lockheed Martin may have developed six different F-22 Raptor-like aircraft to be offered to the Air Force. Although none were selected, this particular design attracted NASA's interest as a research platform with which to test thrust vector control on tail structures. Meet the X-44 MANTA.
X-44 Manta Aircraft
Like the F-22 on which the X-44 was based, it would be highly stealthy and possibly more stealthy than its parent F-22. Concept renderings of the X-44 suggest it will be fired through the F-22's air inlets, which are designed to scatter enemy radars inward rather than reflect them outward.
The 4 Other Proposed Fighters Based On The Legendary F 22
Like the iconic B-2 stealth bomber, the X-44 was a tailback design. Without a tail, these tailless designs are inherently more stealthy than other tailed aircraft - the X-44 will have a very low radar signature. Instead of using standard control surfaces to maneuver in flight, MANTA maneuvered using thrust vectoring, in which the twin engine exhaust nozzles could direct exhaust gases in different directions.
Although innovative thrust vectoring is not new. One successful Russian design in service with the Indian Air Force, the Sukhoi Su-30 variant, enjoys very high maneuverability thanks to the engine's vectoring nozzles.
The modified delta wing design also had several advantages over its predecessor. By design, delta wings have more internal and external surface area than traditional wings and therefore can hold more fuel. By using so-called wet wings, also known as integral fuel tanks, larger volumes of fuel can be stored in the wings of the aircraft.
This type of fuel storage is quite common and allows the transportation of large quantities of fuel. In addition to higher fuel capacity, the X-44 will benefit from a more aerodynamic airfoil, resulting in less drag during flight.
X 44 Manta: The Stealth Fighter That Would Have Freaked Out Russia
The X-44 was one of many designs that Lockheed Martin designed and submitted to the US Air Force as a means of augmenting that branch's stealth aircraft, although this particular design may be the only one that was tailless. Since the F-22 production lines have long been shut down, it is unlikely that we will ever see the X-44 MANTA in flight.
Caleb Larson is a national interest defense writer. He holds a Masters in Public Policy and focuses on US and Russian security, European defense issues, and German politics and culture. As early as 1999, Lockheed Martin had plans to build a delta-shaped fighter jet that would bypass the need for a conventional tail. Unit in the X-44 Manta, which is based on the F-22.
Instead of using a conventional tail section with both vertical and horizontal control surfaces, the Manta focused on thrust vectoring, or steering the flow of engine thrust, to give the aircraft the aerobatic capabilities it needed in high-altitude combat. Today, more than two decades later, the same concept seems to appear consistently in nearly every official Air Force narrative.
The air superiority fighter, developed under the NGAD or Next Generation Air Dominance program, begs the question... could elements of the X-44 Manta find their way into the US?
Lockheed Martin F 22 Raptor
Last year, the US Air Force shocked the world by announcing that it had already designed, built and tested a prototype aircraft from its next-generation Air Dominance program. This new aircraft promises to be more advanced than any fighter ever seen, and is designed not only to combat the advanced 5th generation fighters deployed by America's adversaries in Russia and China, but
Around the same time, the Air Force also released a birthday image showing a wedge-shaped aircraft without the usual tail section, prompting some to wonder if the artist's handiwork was related to the NGAD statement that appeared alongside it. . Since then, other official Air Force images, along with renderings from leading aerospace companies such as Lockheed Martin, all show a similar wedge-shaped aircraft.
Some, myself included, have pointed to Northrop's highly capable but ultimately obsolete YF-23 Black Widow II as a secret precedent for this tailless design, but Northrop isn't the only show in town that knows how to build a tailless fighter.
In fact, based on some of these artists' renderings and the practical limitations of developing a new short-fuselage fighter, the X-44 Manta may represent an early iteration of what is or will be.
China's Sixth Gen Aircraft
The name X-44, or rather its abbreviation, goes directly to the intention of the concept. After decades of rapid fighter development, some things were just considered standard for a capable tactical aircraft: things like a conventional tail section with vertical and horizontal control surfaces. While the F-22 and later the F-35 received a slightly different tail surface than you would find on a 4th generation fighter such as the F-16, the X-44 Manta aimed to achieve the same goal. Maneuvering without needing all that tail surface. Without a tail, the radar return of an aircraft would be drastically reduced and formed
So, logically, Lockheed Martin partnered with NASA to talk about how to implement this concept. Successfully making an aerobatic fighter that can refuse to use its tail for control means relying heavily on the use of thrust vectoring control to change the direction of the fighter's flight. NASA has already had great success using thrust vector control in the F-15 ACTIVE, a high-performance fighter that was a modified F-15 Eagle that used canters on the front wing (taken from the tail section of the F/A-18 Hornet) and jet nozzles for thrust. for vectoring to create a fighter that outperforms the legendary eagle in almost every way.
Or refer to a jet engine nozzle. On some platforms, such as the F-22 Raptor, this nozzle is aimed in one plane (up or down), while on other aircraft, such as the Russian Su-35 4th generation, the nozzle can move 360 degrees. It offers even more. Dramatic capabilities when it comes to changing directions quickly.
During initial engagement, the F-22 Raptor's thrust vectoring allows the pilot to point the fighter's nose and weapons downward at a passing enemy aircraft while still maintaining thrust in the same original direction. In close engagements between two fighters successfully trying to turn tighter than the other to lock weapons, the same thrust vectoring capability allows aircraft like the F-22 and Su-35 to change course much more aggressively than any advanced aircraft. Without control of thrust vector can.
Lockheed Martin X 44a > National Museum Of The United States Air Force™ > Display
Although the F-22 uses thrust vectoring control in addition to its more conventional tail section, Lockheed Martin has proposed using the F-22 design as a starting point for a demonstrator of this new technology, which could prove to be as capable as the fighter design. we saw. As usual in recent decades.
Since the concept was not implemented as a clean sheet fighter development program, but as a technology demonstration, it did not seem practical to start from scratch on the design of the aircraft. Instead, Lockheed Martin offered the F-22 Raptor. While not the latest stealth fighter from Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works (the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter began test flights three years ago), the F-22 was...
- America's best and most capable fighter when it comes to enemy aircraft. It also already boasts thrust vector control, making it a logical choice for an experiment focused on these particular capabilities.
The X-44 Manta wasn't the only F-22-based concept floating around the Pentagon at the time. As the world's first operational stealth fighter, the first fighter to christen the new "fifth generation" of aircraft, and arguably the most powerful air superiority aircraft ever to fly in the service of any nation, it makes sense that the United States would consider relying on it. F-22 for other, more specialized roles. The X-44 concept was intended to cut the tail and produce the F-22
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The Sea Raptor effort would put the F-22 atop the U.S. supercarrier fleet — offering a plane that can fly faster, farther and carry more munitions than the F-35Cs currently destined for Uncle Sam's flat roofs.
The F-22 Raptor has already distinguished itself from the rest of the fighter world by using stealth as part of the design of the fighter itself. While earlier and highly capable air superiority fighters like the F-15 relied on massive power to pick up scrap in the air and only later incorporated things like radar-absorbing cloaks for slow detection, the F-22 is very
It was aimed at delaying discovery or canceling it entirely. From there, its two powerful Pratt & Whitney F119 engines could still propel the stealth fighter to speeds of up to Mach 2.25, and its thrust vectoring control allowed it to pirouette away from any incoming missiles.
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