Jeff Babione, the head of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works advanced projects division, mysteriously commented on the recent bombshell video of a suspected next generation fighter, which appeared earlier in social media.
Speaking to Defense One, he dropped some interesting hints about the aircraft. When asked about the footage, he said “I can’t,” without giving any specific details or dismissing speculations as something unimportant.
In addition, he refused to go into details about the current “security posture” after the video, which was captured from one of most secret Lockheed Martin sites.
Nevertheless, during the virtual interview, Babione’s background changed from an artist's conception of the X-59A Quiet SuperSonic Technology (QueSST) to a picture showing a graphic of an abstract stealthy unmanned aircraft without vertical tails.
Earlier in this month, a video of an unobtrusive aircraft mounted on a cargo platform appeared in various social platforms, stirring close attention as many claimed the model is a prototype of a sixth-generation stealth fighter.
The aircraft, which was reportedly spotted at the Lockheed Martin facility in the Mojave Desert, has a tailless design with an elongated fuselage. The size of the aircraft is difficult to determine as it may be a scaled-down model.
The shapes are similar to a variety of new generation fighter concepts, including those, developed by the US Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) program.
The program, initiated in the early 2010, involves the development of a group of innovative aerial vehicles, including unmanned aerial vehicles with additional weapon capacity and wider abilities. But the main focus was said to be on a next-generation fighter.
Last year, the US Air Force secretly tested a sixth-generation fighter demonstrator as part of the program. It was designed and built by an unnamed American company. The demonstrator was completely digitally designed, and its model was also tested in simulators. There were no technical details provided.
In June, The Drive reported that the sixth-generation fighter being developed as part of the NGAD would receive an expensive "Chinese" and a cheap "Russian" version. In the first case developers plan a long-range aircraft intended for operations in the Pacific Ocean region, and in the second - a shorter-range fighter for Europe.