전투기 F-47의 카나드는 있을 수도, 없을 수도 있습니다?

[위종민]

현재 공개된 F-47의 이미지가 실제 디자인 특징을 숨기고 있어 실제 F-47과는 전혀 다를 수도 있다는 기사입니다. 가장 큰 특징인 카나드조차 있을 수도, 없을 수도 있다고... 

미 공군, NGAD 전투기 이미지 의도적으로 왜곡… 실제 설계 비공개 유지

미국 공군은 차세대 공중 우세 전투기인 F-47(Next-Generation Air Dominance, NGAD)의 이미지를 공개하면서, 해당 이미지들이 실제 설계를 반영하지 않는 '플레이스홀더'임을 밝혔습니다. 이는 적국이 NGAD의 진정한 설계를 파악하지 못하도록 하기 위한 전략적 조치로, 이미지에는 고정된 전방 카나드와 날개 전방의 상승 각도 등이 포함되어 있으나, 공기 흡입구 등 주요 특징은 의도적으로 생략되었습니다 .​Air & Space Forces Magazine+1Air & Space Forces Magazine+1

공군 관계자는 "우리는 그 이미지에서 아무것도 드러내지 않았다"며, 실제 설계와의 유사성 여부에 대해서는 명확한 언급을 피했습니다. 또한, 보잉은 NGAD 발표에 앞서 이미지를 의도적으로 왜곡하여 제작했으며, 공군은 이를 추가로 수정한 것으로 알려졌습니다. 이러한 이미지는 '아티스트 렌더링'으로 분류되어 있으며, 보잉의 공식 웹사이트나 보도자료에는 포함되지 않았습니다 .​

공군은 과거에도 스텔스 항공기 공개 초기에는 실제 설계를 숨기기 위해 왜곡된 이미지를 사용해왔습니다. 예를 들어, B-2 폭격기와 F-117 스텔스 전투기의 초기 이미지는 실제 설계와 다르게 조작되었으며, B-21 레이더의 경우에도 초기에는 공기 흡입구와 배기구를 숨긴 이미지가 공개되었습니다 .​

이러한 접근 방식은 NGAD 프로그램의 보안 유지와 기술 보호를 위한 전략의 일환으로, 실제 설계와 성능은 향후 공식 공개 시점까지 비공개로 유지될 예정입니다.

NGAD Images Doctored to Hide Most, If Not All, True Design Features

Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. The rendering highlights the Air Force’s sixth generation fighter, the F-47. The NGAD Platform will bring lethal, next-generation technologies to ensure air superiority for the Joint Force in any conflict. (U.S. Air Force graphic)

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NGAD Images Doctored to Hide Most, If Not All, True Design Features

April 18, 2025 | By John A. Tirpak

Images of the F-47 Next-Generation Air Dominance fighter, released by the Air Force on March 21 when the program was awarded to Boeing, are mere placeholders and aren’t intended to accurately portray the aircraft, despite showing only a small portion of it, Air Force and industry officials told Air & Space Forces Magazine. The idea is to keep adversaries guessing about the true nature of the NGAD design.

The images show a stealthy-looking aircraft from its nose and cockpit back to the leading edges of the wings, which display pronounced dihedral, or an upward-angle. They also show canard foreplanes, which appear to be fixed, not articulated. No air intakes are shown.

Although many aviation experts have penned extensive analyses of the F-47 images, particularly of the canards—the use of which would be difficult to square with the notion of the F-47 as an “extremely low observable” design—they should be “taken with a large grain of salt,” an Air Force official said.

“We aren’t giving anything away in those pictures,” he said. “You’ll have to be patient” to see what it really looks like, he said, adding “Is there a resemblance? Maybe.”

A former senior Pentagon official, asked at the time of the F-47 announcement about the unusual canard and wing configuration, replied, “Why would you assume that’s the actual design?”

Sources said that, in anticipation of the NGAD announcement, Boeing artists produced images that already deliberately distorted some of the NGAD’s features, and the Air Force then further altered them. Boeing Defense, Space, and Security does not use any of the released images on its website and did not include them in its NGAD announcement press releases.

An Air Force spokesperson noted that the two images are available on the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), where they are labeled as “artist renderings.” An Air Force spokesperson said they are “free to use.”

Shown is a graphical artist rendering of the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) Platform. U.S. Air Force graphic

As for the canards, the former defense official said “it’s possible to have canards and be stealthy,” but stopped short of saying that they are indeed a feature of the F-47.

China’s J-20 Mighty Dragon fighter, whose stealth Air Force officials have characterized as being in the same class as that of the F-22, employs a canard and delta wing design, but deflection of those control surfaces have to be managed extremely carefully so as to not to break the angles required to be low-observable to radar.   

The Air Force has a long history of withholding imagery of stealth aircraft until the real articles are about to break cover and fly where they can be seen—and photographed—by the public. But even then, the Air Force has consistently shown only distorted pictures in the early days of revealing new stealth aircraft.

B-2

In April 1988, the Air Force released the first official image of the Northrop B-2A stealth bomber; a painting that blurred-over the aircraft’s exhausts and presented the aircraft from an angle that made it difficult to determine its true wing angle of sweep, size, and intake configuration.   

Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard reveals the first official image of the then-secret F-117 at a press conference in 1988.

F-117

In November 1988, Pentagon spokesman Dan Howard displayed a heavily doctored photograph of the then-secret Lockheed F-117 stealth strike aircraft at a press briefing. The first image was foreshortened to disguise the true angle of sweep of the F-117’s wings, and create ambiguity about its engine intakes, exhausts, sensor apertures and size. The tactic was so successful that model companies rushed to production with kits that featured broad wings like those later seen on the B-2 bomber, rather than the true narrow, arrowhead shape of the F-117. The Air Force only fully revealed the F-117 in 1990, because the jet, which had previously only flown at night and mainly in restricted airspace, was about to participate in daytime training missions.

F-22

Lockheed used fictional but consistent imagery of a delta-wing fighter with canards in its late 1980s advertising during the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition. Only when the Air Force officially rolled out the YF-22 in 1990 was the true, conventional planform of the fighter revealed.

B-21

The first artist’s rendering of the B-21 Raider, released in 2016, obscured the air intakes and exhausts, and left most of the cockpit transparencies in shadow; again presenting the aircraft from an angle that made it hard to determine its size and wing angle of sweep.  Subsequent artist’s concepts were released in 2021 revealing the unusual configuration of the cockpit transparencies, and more detail of the depth of the keel and shape of the wings, but continued to conceal the intakes and exhausts. It was not until the aircraft’s rollout in December 2022 that details of the nose were revealed. At that event, photographers were strictly limited to photographing the aircraft from the front only. And it was not until the first flight from Northrop Grumman’s Palmdale, Calif. facility in November, 2023—not announced ahead of time—that the true shape of the planform and first details of the exhaust were captured by non-government photographers on the airfield fenceline. The Air Force did not release official images of the B-21 in flight until several months later.

The only departure from this pattern involved the Joint Strike Fighter. The companies in that contest were free to share artist’s concepts of their aircraft during the late 1990s, and the nearly-final configuration of the F-35 was displayed at the time Lockheed Martin was selected as the competition winner in 2001. At that time, however, there was less concern about adversaries gaining insight from such imagery: Russia’s military was considered moribund from lack of funds, while China was not yet considered capable of exploiting such information.

Air

[백선호]

파닥파닥~~~ -.-;;;

[위종민]

실기체는 다음번 대통령이 나올 때 쯤 볼 수 있을런지. 그런데 트럼프한테 대충 아무렇게나 만든 장난감 던져줬을 것 같진 않긴 합니다.

[여행자김씨]

스텔스와 전투를 위해서는 카나드는 빼는게 낫지 않을까 싶은데요? ㅋㅋㅋ