The Boeing Model 853-21 Quiet Bird was a US Army reconnaissance plane study developed by
Boeing
The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...
in the early 1960s from their Model 831.
It was an early example of stealth technology, especially electromagnetic low-observability.
[Thomas Tamblyn;]
Boeing's 'Alien' Looking Stealth Fighter From The 60s Looks Futuristic Even Today
, ''Huffington Post'', 2015. (retrieved 29 June 2023).
Design and development
Development of the Model 853-21 began in
1962
The year saw the Cuban Missile Crisis, which is often considered the closest the world came to a Nuclear warfare, nuclear confrontation during the Cold War.
Events January
* January 1 – Samoa, Western Samoa becomes independent from Ne ...
at Boeing Wichita, only a 1/2 scale prototype was produced which never flew, but tests showed that it had a very low
radar cross-section
Radar cross-section (RCS), denoted σ, also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected.
An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy b ...
(
stealth aircraft
Stealth aircraft are designed to avoid detection using a variety of technologies that reduce reflection/emission of radar, infrared, visible light, radio frequency (RF) spectrum, and audio, collectively known as stealth technology. The F-117 Ni ...
).
[
]
Specifications
See also
References
External links
*
{{Stealth aircraft
Stealth aircraft
1960s United States experimental aircraft
Boeing aircraft
Cancelled military aircraft projects of the United States