United States military forces, along with defense companies, are forever designing, upgrading, and updating their aircraft. Next in this category of ambitious programs never developed is the Lockheed Martin X-44 Multi-Axis No-Tail Aircraft, or MANTA concept of a tailless variant of the F-22 Raptor.
The X-44 Manta is a tailless, delta-wing airplane designed to extend the parameters of stealth and maneuverability within air-to-air. The X-44 was designed in the Cold War, and it would feature twin turbofans, lacking vertical stabilizers to greatly reduce its radar cross-section.
This promising program was canceled in 2000 before work began on a prototype.
Collaboration between Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works division, Boeing, and General Dynamics brought about the creation of the YF-22 prototype.
Then, in 1990, Raptor made its maiden flight, and in 1991, a Pratt & Whitney-Lockheed combination was tasked with the building of the engine as well as the airframe.
A significantly modified form of the F-22 platform was under development as the X-44 MANTA.
The X-44 Manta was the stretched delta-wing mainplane version, almost as if it were a Raptor but with all the outsized vertical tail fins scrapped and replaced by all the quintessence of tailless designs.
Its objective was stealth to be able to fly just below the detection range of enemy aircraft and still retain the smallest possible radar signature.
It was designed to be able to carry a single 20mm internal cannon and could carry an arsenal of powerful missiles; even provisions could be made to carry up to two AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles and six AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles.
However, the X-44 Manta program was short-lived. NASA was interested in a crewed tailless research aircraft and funded two contractors to determine if the design was viable and gave it the designation of X-44A.
It started in June 1999 but ended after a year as its funding was terminated.
The X-44 Manta never went beyond being a concept, but some aspects of the design have spread into the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Air Dominance program.
The NGAD, a sixth-generation fighter to replace the F-22, will be wedge-shaped and tailless.
This new platform will center on a crewed fighter jet accompanied by “loyal wingmen drones,” much cheaper UAVs that carry a mission-customizable array of weapons and other tactical systems.
This X-44 Manta is, meanwhile, a standalone and rather fascinating chapter in military history aviation, marking the relentless pursuit of innovation in air technology combat, as production tightens on the world’s first sixth-generation airframe.