An apparently previously unseen low-observable aircraft test shape has emerged, with initial open-source intelligence research indicating it was spott

Mysterious Stealthy Shape That Resembles Future Fighter Concepts Spotted At Radar Test Range (Updated)

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2021-09-23 10:00:11

An apparently previously unseen low-observable aircraft test shape has emerged, with initial open-source intelligence research indicating it was spotted at Lockheed Martin’s secretive Helendale radar-cross section (RCS) measurement facility. This site, located in the Mojave Desert not far from the company’s Skunk Works headquarters at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, is among the most sophisticated of its kind and has played a key role in the development of U.S. stealth aircraft since the early 1980s. You can read all about this facility, which looks ripped from a science fiction movie, in this past feature of ours.  

While we don’t know what this shape is intended to resemble, it provides a timely reminder of some of the exotic test work that’s clearly going on behind closed doors, at facilities like Helendale and others, on a number of advanced combat jet development programs that we know about, as well as more stealthy aviation work going on in the classified realm.

A short video showing the apparent test shape seems to have been first posted to the TikTok video-sharing social networking service, before being shared on other social media channels. Ruben Hofs brought it to our attention on Twitter. Hofs, who tweets as @rubenhofs, used an open-source intelligence (OSINT) comparison of buildings and foliage in the locale to determine that the video was almost certainly taken at Helendale.

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