This may be the shape of the future U.S. top secret stealth bomber

A new Northrop Grumman ad teases new stealth bomber. And it may be a manned one.

Two aerospace giants are competing to build Pentagon’s next stealth bomber, designated LRS-B ( Long Range Strike-Bomber): a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and Northrop Grumman.

The latter has produced a cool ad that was posted on Youtube last week.

The ad shows Northrop Grumman’s long tradition of flying wings: the YB-35 prototype dating back to  the 1940s, the B-2 Spirit the only heavy stealth bomber known to operate with the U.S. Air Force, and the X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System developed for the U.S. Navy.

However, towards the end of the ad another shape is teased to the viewers: a flying wing hidden below a protective sheet that is coherent with the many renderings which have appeared in the past and, possibly, with the triangle-shaped jet sightings of last year.

Noteworthy, a pilot is depicted staring at the plane a scene that may suggest the LRS-B will be manned.

And the slogan the narrator recites is clear enough: “Building aircraft, the likes of which the world has never seen before: This is what we do.”

This is not the only Northrop Grumman ad which gives a hint at the future LRS-B shape: as explained on his blog at War Is Boring, aviation journalist David Axe has seen traces of the LRS-B in another commercial.

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About David Cenciotti

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David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.