ID This Fighter?

I was on space daily today and came across an article about China having problems with making a carrier fleet and there was a picture with an f18 taking off and 2 plains on the deck that I just cant place...




Link to article

Space Daily

It’s some kind of delta wind and not like any US aircraft f-22 or f-35 I have seen so I'm assuming it has to be British or something that’s very new or was scraped before it went active...

I think it might be the X-32A/B but I'm not sure...

Great find, Shadarlocoth. But I have no idea what those two planes are. It reminds me of the movie Stealth (awful movie). During Stealth's filming, people took pictures of the planes they used in the movie and thought they were real military prototypes.

Snopes : F/A-37 Talon

Perhaps that picture you are mentioning is for an upcoming movie.

BTW, they only thing I could think this could be is a Joint Strike Fighter variant with Delta wings. This proof-of-concept looks like the aircraft in your photo, but scalled down.



But, I doubt its any current Joint Strike Fighter variants.

It looks like a photo that has been retouched to include a couple of the X-32 type JSF aircraft. Just another photoshop job. It was probably from Boeing promotional material used during the JSF fly-off.

it is the X-32. Your hunch was right

More images here of the X-32 and history of the program as well.
www.globalsecurity.org...

As Shadowhawk said it look like it could of been a Photoshop job done by Boeing for the JSf comp. And as someone who makes his living in Photoshop its pretty clear to me that is what was done here let alone the X-32 never was a carrier.

[edit on 8-2-2008 by Canada_EH]

I think if you look closely at the above pic you will see it is actually 2 f-22's... It's the camera angle that makes the tail and the wing seem to be one delta wing.



Just my thought though.

reply to post by Now_Then


No, I don't think so. Look at the canopy section - it rises a lot higher than the one on the Raptor. Also it doesnt have the boom between the engines like the F-22.

It certainly doesn't look like anything I have ever seen before.

reply to post by Now_Then




If you look at the plane closest to the "camera" then you will see some issue with this being a F-22.

As mentioned by BW there is no "boom" between the vertical stabilizers. Next there is the canopy which is not only high but is not a full bubble canopy but is instead cut off three quarters of the way back. Also there is no intersection between intake section of the fuselage and the wing but is just one large delta. Also at the tip of the wing there is a hint of a small change of shape that would be the "winglet" design that was on the early X-32 model. Also not highlighted is the location of the landing gear which is much to far out from the fuselage of the plane.

It is by far the X-32

I'm a pilot, its an x-32

Yep OK, good points, I agree it can't be a Raptor now as well, mostly as it seems that the F-22 airframe was not built heavy enough to handle landing on a carrier in the first place (anyone want to confirm that?)

It also seems that that boom between the exhausts is a fairing for the arrester hook (the hook is not for deck landings - it's for aresster gear on a conventional runway) the fairing has a couple of purposes, reducing radar sig of the hook, and preventing trust from left and right engines mixing?? any who discussed here

So not an F-22 then, i'm interested to know what it is... As regards the canopy it's worth remembering aircraft variants that land on carriers often have a redesigned canopy for better observation - a land based variant of this mystery craft could well have a sleeker shape

Edit:
reply to post by SolPower




here's an X-32a pictured from a similar angle and the offending picture, looks right to me

[edit on 8/2/2008 by Now_Then]

[edit on 8/2/2008 by Now_Then]

Originally posted by SolPower
I'm a pilot, its an x-32

So am I what is your point? I know plenty of pilots who couldn't ID a bell x-1. Frankly your post seems quite arrogate.

You should all listen to Canada, he knows the answer.

Not only are they X-32's, they are the same X-32. As shadowhawk said, its a photoshop jobby, with the one in front just being a resized paste of the one at the back to give the right perspective, look at the angles, the flaps, the shadows etc, all exactly the same, even down to the way the tip of the nearside fin lines up with the back of the cockpit hump on 'both' aircraft due to perspective, you don't get that exact match up in real life

Originally posted by waynos
You should all listen to Canada, he knows the answer.

Not only are they X-32's, they are the same X-32.

I concur with Waynos, Shadowhawk & Canada - it's a rendering of the Boeing X-32, which competed against the F-35 and lost. (thank god) It looked like a pelican with a beak full of fish. ;-)

So what's the point in photo shopping this picture? The more I look at it the more I can see that it is.

I mean is space daily a less than serious site? on the face of it it looks quite good to me, i admit it's not one that I regularly go to. Maybe they just used an archived pic without paying too much attention?

reply to post by Canada_EH


How was that arrogant, I can't speak on behalf of my profession? It's credentials fella

Because being a pilot doesn't mean that you're automatically able to identify a plane. I know pilots that couldn't ID different fighter types from Adam. And I know non-pilots that can ID an F-15 from 5+ miles, or from the sound. Being a pilot has nothing to do with credentials when it comes to being able to identify a plane.

It does in the USAF - we have detailed course material in UPT related to identifying of planes. It's a very important aspect of flying, be able to identify what you see. Suppose the pilots you talked to were not military pilots.

On the contrary. I grew up around the USAF. Some of them were very good at identifying fighters, some weren't very good at all, and could only ID them when they were finally up close to them. Some were retired military pilots in the civilian side of things that couldn't tell an F-15 from an F-14. They could tell foreign planes from US planes, but they had trouble telling which was which if they looked similar to each other.

reply to post by SolPower


My point was simple Sol. Being a pilot doesn't mean everything when it comes identifying aircraft. As me and Zaphod have said its not that we are saying that you are unable to identify aircraft. The short answer and lack of explanation and using credentials that sounds like no one else here like you or experience comes across arrogant thats all.

I don't see how it's arrogant, but lets agree to disagree ;p