Does the plane from Stealth actually exist? Northrop Switchblade

Video from the channel Found And Explained about Northrop, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:57. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

An explainer video that starts from the FA-37, the fictional aircraft from the film Stealth (2005), to show that its two designers worked at Northrop and drew on a real company concept known as Switchblade.

The narrator explains the wing dilemma: a straight wing performs well at low speed and a swept wing at high speed, while a forward-swept wing behaves better in stall but suffers aeroelastic instability. In 1998 Northrop patented an aircraft with variable forward-swept wings meant to solve this. The concept was never built. Grumman's X-29, a company that later merged with Northrop, had shown that forward sweep did not reduce drag enough, and computer-based flight controls already allowed unstable, highly maneuverable designs without variable geometry.

The wings folded forward into a delta shape for fast flight and opened for takeoff and landing. The design added canards, control surfaces next to the fuselage and thrust-vectoring nozzles on its two engines. The patent described three configurations, depending on the position of the air intakes and the presence of a tail fin. The aircraft, probably unmanned, could carry four air-to-air missiles and four bombs internally, and placing the wing pivot next to an engine mount saved weight. The patent has since expired.