Does the plane from Stealth actually exist? Northrop Switchblade

This video is brought to you by Squarespace. This is the FA-37 Tower. It can fly Mach 3.5 at supercruise, has an impressive range, incredible stealth capabilities, and it doesn't exist. Why? Because it's a made-up plane for the movie Stealth that came out in 2005. But as it turns out, the two designers who made up this plane actually worked at Northrop, and their movie Magic Aircraft borrowed a little bit more from real life than you may have thought. The captain gives the final word, and the plane board USS Enterprise. In the Navy, no journey is ever made alone. Call 1-800-USA-NAVY. It's the year 1998, and the US Air Force is trying to solve the magic problem of creating the ultimate fighter. The jack of all trades. Modern fighter jets are not even fighters anymore, but multi-role aircraft, and they have to do a little bit of everything. One day they might be flying deep into enemy territory to drop bombs, and the next they're in a dogfight trying to outmaneuver other jets. That means the same aircraft needs to handle a wide range of flight conditions. Slow, fast, and really fast. Of course, professionally, we're talking subsonic, below the speed of sound, transonic, just about the speed of sound, and supersonic, well beyond it. And not only do they need to fly in these zones, they need to be nimble, stable, and fuel efficient while doing so. And a big part of making that all possible is the wing design. You see, there are two basic wing types, unswept and swept. And I'm going to be really basic with this explanation. Unswept wings are the kind that stick out straight and they're great at slower speeds. They're stable, allow heavier payloads, and let planes take off and land on short runways, like those on aircraft carriers. But once you start going faster, approaching or breaking the sound barrier, those straight wings start to create a lot of drag. They also mess with how the plane handles, making it harder to control. That's where swept wings come in. These wings are angled backward, or even forward, and they're built for speed. They reduce drag at higher speeds and help planes transition through the tricky transonic range more smoothly. They're angled back from the route to the tip, allowing the aircraft to cut through the air more efficiently when going supersonic. But swept wings have their downsides too. At low speeds, they're not as efficient, they need longer runways, and they don't carry as much weight. Backward swept wings also tend to stall at the wing tips first, which is a big problem because that's where the ailerons, which control roll, usually are. So when these planes stall, the pilot loses roll control and the plane can pitch up unexpectedly. So to get around this, you might decide to do forward swept wings. This flips the geometry. They angle towards the front instead of the back. They can handle stalls better and can be more maneuverable, but they come with their own issues. Structurally, they also tend to flex in ways that are harder to control. It's what engineers call aeroelastic instability, so they're not very common. So here's the challenge. How do you make a plane that can handle every flight condition? Slow speeds, high speeds, short runways, heavy loads, tight turns, all without the usual compromises. What is needed is a wing that can adapt to the different conditions. One that can shift shape or orientation to match the needs of the mission. Something that handles low speed landings just as well as high speed escapes. Something that avoids tip stalls, keeps roll control and minimizes the drag at max speeds. Well, that would be an F-14 Tomcat. No, just kidding, but that was actually the idea behind it. Enter Northrop and their switchblade concept. Older designs can't offer that kind of flexibility, but a smart adaptive wing system that uses modern technology, you could have a jet that truly does it all. I love the fact that the Northrop engineers were able to take their real life designs and kind of in a way build this aircraft, although in a Hollywood movie. Technically, it's still their dreams coming true. Of course, if you have your own idea that you want to change the world with and can't get a Hollywood movie made about it, then Squarespace is the very best thing. That's right. The amazing Squarespace website creator has combined two decades of industry leading expertise with cutting edge AI technology to unlock your strongest creative potential and make your dreams become a reality. Squarespace will actually now recommend a fantastic design to reach your goals, which means a more personalized website and a unique online identity. You'll never look like a template again. But building a website is only the beginning with Squarespace because on Squarespace, you can now actually run email campaigns completely in the platform as well as running social media campaigns and even launching courses. So now if you want to teach the world something, Squarespace is now your one stop shop for your entire education needs. And of course, I actually use Squarespace myself for my merch store, which is www.foundandexplained.shop. So I trust Squarespace and maybe it's time you gave it a go as well. And if you want to get 10% off your first website or domain, go to www.squarespace.com slash found. Every little click of that link massively helps the channel and we couldn't have done it without Squarespace. Published as a top secret patent in 1998 titled Aircraft with Variable Forward Sweep Wing, Northrop outlined exactly this type of ultimate aircraft. Now, I will mention that this isn't the actual Switchblade drone that Northrop would also reveal a year later, and that's a topic for another time. But the nickname Switchblade has stuck in the top secret projects in a circle. So the first thing to notice is the Switchblade wings that give it its name that fold forwards for high speed flight, forming a delta shape across the aircraft's fuselage, and then they peel back for low speed flight, such as landing and taking off. I'll get more into the detail of the wings in a moment. From the front, the aircraft also has a small adjustable wing called a foreplane or canard, which is controllable by an active system to help maintain with stability maneuvering. Behind the main wing, there is also additional flaps called porch flaps attached to the fuselage to help control the aircraft when it's in its delta configuration. To assist with maneuverability, there would also be thrust vectoring nozzles at the rear of the aircraft for its twin jet engines. The patent would actually list three different configurations. The first would be the one that were featured as the 3D model with its engine intakes on top. Having the intakes on top means that there is more room under the plane for weapons bays. The second would be a version with a tail plane to provide additional control. This might be an all movable vertical tail where the whole tail is a control surface, a vertical tail where only the portion of the tail is a control surface like we see on more traditional aircraft, and variations of these two techniques whereby one or more tails are not vertical but canted to one side or another, like on the F-22 Raptor. The third version would be the same as the first but swapping the engine intake under the aircraft. Naturally, the engineers in the patent say that this is not the final version and it's subject to change during wind tunnel tests. Northrop also believed that this aircraft would likely be a drone, which seems like a forward thinking solution back in the late 90s because nowadays we can see a lot of 6th gen aircraft evolving into unmanned aircraft. In terms of weapons, this aircraft could internally carry four air to air missiles and four bombs for ground attack missions, with potentially more on the wings, although that would cut into its stealth capability. And this is where the genius of its wing design comes in. This plane can change its aerodynamic profile from a low speed aircraft for landings or precision attacks to a high speed aircraft, able to intercept enemy planes. Now you might have noticed that these wings actually swing forward as opposed to backwards like on the F-14 Tomcat or the F-111 Aardvark. Well, the main advantage of this decision appears to be structural. Placing the wing pivot box near one of the engine mounting stations reduces the overall weight of the aircraft. From a control systems perspective, it also centralised both low speed and high speed flight controls near the pivot, unlike older variable geometry designs which sometimes required control surfaces at the wingtips when swept to maintain control. In addition, I can't help but also wonder if the wingtip is effectively locked in place by the canard. If so, the canard would serve as an additional load path when the wing is retracted, further reducing the structural weight of the aircraft. Finally, this wing integrates smoothly into the airframe, avoiding the structural breaks as seen in the F-111 or the upper surface air bladders used on the F-14. Essentially, this would be a lighter aircraft without the weight problems of the F-14 and easier engineering to integrate into the airframe, hopefully reducing the amount of maintenance, not like 100 hours that was required for the F-111. So if this jet design was so good, why did it never get built? Well, you see, a forward swept wing aircraft design wasn't a new idea. We saw it in the late 1980s with the X-29, which you know was built by Grumman, who was the second half of Northrop Grumman, and they just merged a few years before this Northrop concept jet. Hence why I haven't exactly mentioned the Grumman name until now as I wanted to make it clear that this was two different sides engineering the same type of aircraft that became integrated into the same company. With the X-29, it was found that while the aircraft could fly supersonic, the drag reduction from the forward swept wings was not significant enough to warrant a design choice over backward swept wings. Northrop hoped that the wings closing to form a delta shape, plus the stronger wing roots would cancel out the two floors of the previous X-29 design, but it seems that the military just thought a more traditional aircraft could do the job better. In addition, design and aerodynamic research changed significantly since the 1970s. Now with computers, a purposely unstable airplane could be designed. And this kind of started with the F-16, but it really came to fruition with the X-29 because it couldn't fly without computer help. This would mean planes could be designed that were incredibly manoeuvrable and efficient at all speeds from super slow to supersonic, without having to have forward swept wings, let alone swing wings. But I will say that the best part of this conceptual jet fighter isn't that it appears on the big screens in the movie stealth, it's that the patent is expired. So there's actually nothing to stop you taking these blueprints, getting to work building your own supersonic stealth jet. Thanks for watching.