Message posted by Peter Merlin on July 10, 2004 at 22:53:04 PST:

By now, you have seen some of the other fine responses and are well aware that Bird of Prey was a manned technology demonstator. It was originally built by the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works (a unit that was purchased by Boeing during the course of the test program). I have met two of the three pilots. One said: "It was a geat program, but I'm glad it's over."

With hindsight, it is now obvious that the X-45A and X-36 both share a family resemblance to Bird of Prey (BoP). Before BoP was declassified and unveiled to the public, there was much speculation about whether or not it was a manned vehicle. There was good reason to suspect that it was a UAV as someone was able to make a fairly solid connection between the X-45A UCAV and BoP. I have to say that I was glad to see another manned "black" aircraft. There are still at least a few manned mystery planes that need to be unveiled: a classified demonstrator flown in the mid 1980s, and the YF-113G "classified prototype" flown in the 1990s.

In Reply to: Bird Of Prey posted by Chris M on July 10, 2004 at 9:07:08 PST:

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