Possible configuration of the Boeing F-47 NGAD

The shovel nose was tickling my brain and these images of studies into a 'Quiet Supersonic Platform' eventually emerged from the Carboniferous stratum of my memory - the early 2000s, that is. Most quiet supersonic studies have been needle-like but that might compromise military requirements, so a shovel nose was resurrected. If all-aspect stealth is required, then suppression of boom is included, and reduced wave drag also helps.

From Northrop Grumman initially - QSP and Long Range Strike concepts. Maybe someone was headhunted by Boeing.
 

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CiTrus90 said:
To the guy that made the rendering for the Air Force: I dislike you with a passion, Sir/Madam.
View attachment 765084
The amounts of shift and tilt applied to the camera are diabolical.
And I'm still not 100% sold on the combination of both with the camera position.
Click to expand...
Excellent work!!! I think you nailed the nose shape. The camera work you did for comparison is spectacular!!! And if you were able to match the shape in both images of the F47, it must be the closest thing to its real design.
I have a technical question: as a mesh smoothing modifier, do you use Turbosmooth/Meshsmooth or OpenSudivs?
I've never used OpenSudivs, but they say it does a great job.
Regards and congratulations again on your work!!!
 
Rodrigo Avella said:
Excellent work!!! I think you nailed the nose shape. The camera work you did for comparison is spectacular!!! And if you were able to match the shape in both images of the F47, it must be the closest thing to its real design.
Click to expand...
I don't think I did enough though.

There are still some significant misalignments that I've been, so far, unable to correct:
Speculative F-47 - V5.00 - 4a.jpg
Speculative F-47 - V5.00 - 5a.jpg

I'm at a bit of an impasse here as it appears that the image has been distorted with further parameters besides those that I've been fighting up against until now.
And even a small misalignment can make significant changes to the overall shape, see for example how much different these 2 screenshots look:
Speculative F-47 - V5.00 - 3.jpg
Speculative F-47 - V5.00 - 6.jpg
Both align pretty well with the official images released when seen from the same frontal camera I used above and yet, just a small variation by moving a vertex up or down requires another movement on the other 2 axes to match the views.
With extremely significant changes on the final shape.

It's been a lot of trial and error so far, so I might need to let a few days pass by and then come back to the problem to see if I can look at it from a different approach.

Rodrigo Avella said:
I have a technical question: as a mesh smoothing modifier, do you use Turbosmooth/Meshsmooth or OpenSudivs?
Click to expand...
I use NURMS for my final models.
But in the above pictures I'm just going back and forth with low poly meshes adding and removing the smooth modifier.

Rodrigo Avella said:
Regards and congratulations again on your work!!!
Click to expand...
Cheers! Thank you
 
CiTrus90 said:
I don't think I did enough though.

There are still some significant misalignments that I've been, so far, unable to correct:

I'm at a bit of an impasse here as it appears that the image has been distorted with further parameters besides those that I've been fighting up against until now.
And even a small misalignment can make significant changes to the overall shape, see for example how much different these 2 screenshots look:

Both align pretty well with the official images released when seen from the same frontal camera I used above and yet, just a small variation by moving a vertex up or down requires another movement on the other 2 axes to match the views.
With extremely significant changes on the final shape.

It's been a lot of trial and error so far, so I might need to let a few days pass by and then come back to the problem to see if I can look at it from a different approach.

I use NURMS for my final models.
But in the above pictures I'm just going back and forth with low poly meshes adding and removing the smooth modifier.

Cheers! Thank you
Click to expand...

Great analysis!

What nose / canard / wing sweep angle does this result in? I think a leading edge sweep similar to the F-22 would be reasonable. Maybe you could apply that angle to your model and then try to line it up with the F-47 images?
 
I agree, f22 or yf23 wing sweep is very likely. You gotta do some assumptions which are logical. Also, observe f22, f35 from the side. Nose chine line from the nose tip to the intakes goes upwards. Curiously, on yf23 the upward line is minimal.

Also, every aircraft will have the wing surface point slightly downward, due to angle of attack needs.
If you look at side view of f22 you will see that, relative to the ground, not only is nose chine line going slightly upward but the wing surface points slightly downwards, when looked from leading to trailing edge.
 
CiTrus90 said:
To the guy that made the rendering for the Air Force: I dislike you with a passion, Sir/Madam.
View attachment 765084
The amounts of shift and tilt applied to the camera are diabolical.
And I'm still not 100% sold on the combination of both with the camera position.
Click to expand...
I'm certain that was deliberate, to prevent exactly the type of work you're doing.



CiTrus90 said:
View attachment 765085
View attachment 765086
Click to expand...
I am not doubting your work in terms of where the canards are, but man they're in a terrible spot. Blocking views out the canopy to the sides and below. There must be a DAS sensor covering that arc on each side.
 
VTOLicious said:
What nose / canard / wing sweep angle does this result in? I think a leading edge sweep similar to the F-22 would be reasonable. Maybe you could apply that angle to your model and then try to line it up with the F-47 images?
Click to expand...
At the moment, I'd say the angle is not "realistic":
Speculative F-47 - V5.00 - 7.jpg

BTW, going over Boeing's patent posted in the NGAD thread I'm starting to see some similarities with previously posted material. The main difference, so far and at least for the frontal section only (which is what I've modeled here), appears to be the position of the canards.
 
Surprisingly good model and logical enough, even if some close details could be corrected. It's the same guy who made J-50 and J-36 CGIs. It's almost like a sort of 6th generation J-20, the relatively long fuselage being optimized for lower drag, increased range and supercruise, which are some of the parameters the F-47 is said to be above the earlier generation.
 
CiTrus90 said:
"Mom get the camera! People are posting my stuff on Twitter!"

Still working on the assumption that the Two-o-thunder patch might be relevant:
View attachment 764790
View attachment 764791
View attachment 764792

Without knowing the specific FOV of the camera used for taking the shots of the renderings that have been released so far, it will be quite difficult to get an accurate match.

Seen from above, everything is planform aligned along 4 angles, but without knowing more I'm not sure I can do much else.
It is indeed speculative.
It's mostly a mix of the silhouette seen in the patch, hints from the pictures released and inspiration taken from Boeing's Concept 2405 and 2409.
Click to expand...
I have the feeling you are near of the real configuration
 
Not sure if the theory around those blobs is accurate but I kind of like the idea though wouldn't that put them way a bit further aft of the canopy than the graphic above?
 
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CiTrus90 said:
I'm fairly sure that it's gonna be a single seater:
View attachment 765272
View attachment 765273
Still struggling with trying to understand the canards' shape, though...
Click to expand...
I think the canards project from some kind of lerx. I think the tops of your model's air intakes should project forward, and the canards should emerge from there, leaving the air inlets behind them.
Regards!
 
Meanwhile I've been thinking about possible exhaust configurations. Especially with regard to a tailless configuration (no vertical stabilizers), which would most likely require yaw-thrust vectoring.

This is a schematic drawing and not to scale... Imagine YF-23 style "bread loaves" ;) What do you guys think?

1743526150706.png
* pitch-flaps are actually combines pitch-roll-flaps
 
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VTOLicious said:
Meanwhile I've been thinking about possible exhaust configurations. Especially with regard to a tailless configuration (no vertical stabilizers), which would most likely require yaw-thrust vectoring.

This is a schematic drawing and not to scale... Imagine YF-23 style "bread loaves" ;) What do you guys think?

View attachment 765325
* pitch-flaps are actually combines pitch-roll-flaps
Click to expand...
Check the X-36 thrust vectoring patent, on this forum.
 
dark sidius said:
For me there is two tails, look the shadows...View attachment 765186
Click to expand...

My first impression was that this was a lousy attempt at censoring, but now I'm not so sure. It looks crude, but look at the edges of the Smoke layer underneath. There's nothing crude here. I see a censored photograph of sophisticated design. Look how they specifically made the effort to make the segment directly behind the cockpit, as well as the outlines across the Flag to look "crude" compared to every other layered transition. My implication here is not that the entire configuration is fake, but rather the eye is being drawn to the "tail" section for a reason.

[FWIW] I sense an air of misdirection, but this may be because I dig counter-intelligence. If I were suspicious, I may begin to think the idea here is to trigger the analyst to speculate en masse across social media about theories that won't go anywhere, to clog up adversarial INT-gathering. This would have its advantages. At least, that's what I would do if I really wanted to keep my F-47's secrets from those in this forum. :)

Food for thought; I'm not trying to sell a conspiracy.
 
dark sidius said:
For me there is two tails, look the shadows...View attachment 765186
Click to expand...

There are also some blue-ish colored artifacts near the fuselage and in small amounts near the Flag. Aside from artifacts from processing, I'm not sure what these otherwise indicate. If this is a CI thing, I would suspect it to be another layer to solicit more social media speculation.

IMO Smells rotten. Too blatant.
 
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VishnuOsiris said:
My first impression was that this was a lousy attempt at censoring, but now I'm not so sure. It looks crude, but look at the edges of the Smoke layer underneath. There's nothing crude here. I see a censored photograph of sophisticated design. Look how they specifically made the effort to make the segment directly behind the cockpit, as well as the outlines across the Flag to look "crude" compared to every other layered transition. My implication here is not that the entire configuration is fake, but rather the eye is being drawn to the "tail" section for a reason.

[FWIW] I sense an air of misdirection, but this may be because I dig counter-intelligence. If I were suspicious, I may begin to think the idea here is to trigger the analyst to speculate en masse across social media about theories that won't go anywhere, to clog up adversarial INT-gathering. This would have its advantages. At least, that's what I would do if I really wanted to keep my F-47's secrets from those in this forum. :)

Food for thought; I'm not trying to sell a conspiracy.
Click to expand...
I would hope that the US has people up to speed on confusing OSINT, and would expect them to be at work in this announcement.
 
Scott Kenny said:
I would hope that the US has people up to speed on confusing OSINT, and would expect them to be at work in this announcement.
Click to expand...

The DoD “CI” components have been too busy beating up elderly citizens to learn Photoshop.
 
My experience with these sort of things is that they are given to the intern/butter bar to deal with, and they will censor as they see fit, which may or may not be critical components.
 
I don't get the allure of the vertical tail idea. Just from a patch that may itself been disinfo, or at least referenced a demonstrator that may have been proof of concept of an entirely different idea or subsystem? Just seems like Boeing would have needed to find an extremely good reason to add vertical tails, especially in addition to canards. Good enough to go against the last decade's prevailing aerodynamic and VLO wisdom seemingly arrived at simultaneously by firms across multiple continents. The two European efforts seem to have converged on a more YF-23 esque canted tail design which would make sense for a less risky yet exquisitely crafted approach to regional defense. But the F-47? This isn't Sukhoi. I doubt they care about maximizing maneuverability when the goal of the thing is to sling AIM-260s from triple digit ranges and play War Thunder with CCAs. Doesn't matter what Trump said about maneuverability--the guy can barely read.

I don't think the censorship signifies anything at all. It costs them nothing to add two black blobs to confuse forum nerds and the Chinese while they keep on with a sensible tailless design. A design which seems to have some really exciting similarities with their concept art (funny spade nose) and patent applications (flexible skin control surfaces/leading edge vortex extension please??) where they seemed to have decided it was worth it--both for signature reduction over any existing platform and maneuverability increases over pure tailless with no canards--to yank the vertical tails off and stick them next to the cockpit instead.
 
Man, one of the mods has no sense of humor.

I commented that I'd seen an April Fool's post of the F-47 looking like the Firefox from the movie.

Deleted for "spamming" when I'd explicitly said "today" on April first.

=====================================

As to vertical tails, I'm guessing none now. Not a single released concept has had vertical tails.
 

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