Scaled Composites' Stealthy Mystery Jet Is Now At The Navy's Top Flight Test Base [3/5] - Stealthy Mystery Jet 3.jpg (1/1)

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Scaled Composites Model 401, an exotic, stealthy jet aircraft with a dorsal air
inlet, trapezoidal "Lambda" wings, chined edges, and a big V-tail has flown from
the company's base in Mojave, California across the country to Naval Air Station
Patuxent River in Maryland. "NAS Pax River," as it is often called, is the
Navy's premier aerospace test base, roughly akin to Air Force's Edwards AFB in
California. The long trip comes 18 months after the type's first flight and
could help to finally shed some light as to what the aircraft's mission is and
who its intended owner is. It also serves as proof that the design has matured
to the point where cross-country flights are not an issue.

Since its first flight, nearly no new details have been officially released
about the Model 401's mission or its intended customer, aside from the fact that
it and its sister ship were indeed built for an external entity. The famed
aerospace design firm's original statement read:

"Scaled Composites is proud to announce the rollout and first flight of its most
recent project, experimental aircraft Model 401. Scaled worked with a
proprietary customer to build two vehicles to demonstrate advanced, low-cost
manufacturing techniques and to provide aircraft for research flight services to
industry partners and the United States government. The two vehicles were
designed to be identical in outer mold line and performance, with each aircraft
powered by a single Pratt & Whitney JTD-15D-5D engine with 3,045 pounds of
thrust.

The vehicles are capable of flying Mach 0.6 with a service ceiling of 30,000
feet and have a wingspan of 38 feet and are 38 feet long. They have an empty
weight of 4,000 pounds and a maximum take-off weight of 8,000 pounds with an
endurance of up to three hours. Aaron Cassebeer, Project Engineer said, “This is
such an exciting time for us. Scaled is at the forefront of experimental
aircraft development and I am fortunate enough to have a front row seat.” He
went on to say this about the mission, “Today was a great day for our test team.
We had a great flight and we are looking forward to the future test program.”
This successful first flight is the beginning of the flight test phase for
vehicle number 1. The Scaled team plans to continue envelope expansion on the
first aircraft as they move toward first flight of the second Model 401
vehicle."

Still, Scaled Composites' corporate silence doesn't mean that new facts haven't
emerged. We have kept a very close eye on the aircraft and have discovered a
bunch of information about its lineage that seems to point towards unique
possibilities as to its intended purpose.

Above all else, we discovered it is called "Son Of Ares," with each aircraft
being named after the Greek gods of fear and terror Phobos and Deimos. Ares was
Scaled Composites' light close air support prototype from 30 years ago that
ended up being turned into a small but highly adaptive testbed for sensor,
communications, and avionics technologies, many of which had to do with unmanned
aircraft. You can read all about this in these two prior exclusives of ours.

Exclusive photos The War Zone obtained also show large cavernous equipment bays
located on the bottom of the aircraft's fuselage. This would point to the
possibility that this aircraft could be reconfigured to carry various types of
sensor payloads—a feature that is not uncommon on Scaled Composites aircraft.
Its upward canted wings may also be indicative of a platform optimized for
carrying sensors as it would help keep its target within a sensor's field of
view during banking turns.

It appears to be a somewhat stealthy design, which would indicate that it has
some level of enhanced survivability when operating over or near contested
territory, or at the very least, wherever it is intended to be operated could be
sensitive in nature. As we noted when it was initially unveiled, its design is
remarkably similar to General Atomics' Predator C/Avenger unmanned aircraft, a
plane that also designed with some level of low-observability in mind. It also
shares similar attributes with past technology demonstrators, such as Tacit Blue
and Bird Of Prey.

So, the big question is why would this aircraft fly across the entire country to
NAS Pax River? Did the Navy order these aircraft? If so, for what purpose? Are
they to become test aircraft that act as surrogates for new sensors? Are they to
be used as training aids to replicate the capabilities of penetrating unmanned
surveillance aircraft like the RQ-170 Sentinel or Q-11 Avenger during exercises?
We know that manned platforms with similar performance as advanced unmanned
aircraft currently in service have acted as stand-in surrogates for training
exercises. We have also speculated that the aircraft could be optionally manned,
similar to the company's innovative Firebird design.

With this in mind, maybe U.S. Navy Special Warfare Command has decided to
procure a manned aircraft that can easily stand-in for unmanned aircraft during
testing and training missions. Clearly, overwatch and airborne intelligence
collection has become a very important part of special operations. Most
famously, the RQ-170 kept watch on Bin Laden's compound and was overhead
relaying video during Operation Neptune Spear—the SEAL Team Six raid to capture
or kill the terrorist mastermind.

It's also possible that it is just visiting the base for some unknown reason.
But that's a long and expensive flight for such an aircraft to make just for
show and tell.

We have reached out to NAS Patuxent River for more information, we will let you
know what we hear back.




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