NORTHROP GRUMMAN is working, on a highly classified advanced wing design, believed to be related to at least one US Department of Defense "black" aircraft project.
The company is testing a pressurised-wing concept, using rapid prototyping methods at its B-2 division plant in Pico Rivera, California.
The "distributed-exhaust" system, as the concept is also known, is believed to be tied to advanced design work on classified military programmes including, a low-observable special-forces transport. Northrop Grumman declines to comment, saying only that it is potentially aimed at "several commercial and military applications". The work was revealed when a design-equipment supplier inadvertently released information on its part in the programme.
The US design uses pressurised air bled from the engine pumped through the upper surface of the wing.
Source: Flight International