THE UNITED STATES Air Force has unveiled a unique "stealth" aircraft built more than a decade ago in California in strict secrecy. Its pioneering radar evading design was adapted to today's B-2 stealth bomber.
Meant to be a surveillance plane that could fly close to a battle front with minimal risk of radar detection, the plane was test flown 135 times from 1982-85 but then scrapped. It has been in secret storage ever since.
The Air Force had never before acknowledged the existence of the project, code named Tacit Blue. The plane remained under wraps and never flew real missions.
In declassifying the project, the Air Force provided colour photographs and a videotape of the plane in flight. The only one of its kind ever built, the Tacit Blue aircraft will go on public display on May 22nd at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
The plane was built between 1978 and 1982 by Northrop Corporation at its Hawthorne, California, plant for $136 million, Lt Gen George Muellner told a Pentagon news conference. Another $29 million was spent testing the plane, he said.
"It has been a pretty well kept secret," he said.
Aircraft enthusiasts have speculated for years about the existence of a super secret spy plane some dubbed "Aurora," which officials deny ever existed.