The Northrop N-204 was a high altitude
reconnaissance
In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities.
Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...
jet aircraft
A jet aircraft (or simply jet) is an aircraft (nearly always a fixed-wing aircraft) propelled by jet engines.
Whereas the engines in propeller-powered aircraft generally achieve their maximum efficiency at much lower speeds and altitudes, je ...
designed in the United States in the 1950s.
Development
In fall 1957, Northrop submitted a proposal to the
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
for a subsonic high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, having capitalized on their earlier N-165 design study. The concerns by CIA pilots that the
Lockheed U-2
The Lockheed U-2, nicknamed "''Dragon Lady''", is an American single-jet engine, high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day ...
was being tracked by radars on spy missions over the Soviet Union prompted Northrop to make low observable technology a part of the N-204 design, as was later done with the
Lockheed A-12
The Lockheed A-12 is a high-altitude, Mach 3+ reconnaissance aircraft built for the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) by Lockheed's Skunk Works, based on the designs of Clarence "Kelly" Johnson. The aircraft was designate ...
.
[Chong, Tony, 2016. ''Flying Wings & Radical Things: Northrop’s Secret Aerospace Projects & Concepts 1939-1994''. Forest Lake, Minnesota: Specialty Press.]
Although Northrop estimated that the N-204 could go into service in 1960, the N-204 project did not proceed to the hardware stage.
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Design
The N-204 was similar to the Lockheed U-2 and Yakovlev Yak-25RV in having long, straight wings like an ordinary sailplane, and a v-tail. However, the engines of the aircraft were not buried in the wing roots or podded under the wings, but instead were buried in the outboard end of the wing center-section.[
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Specifications (estimated)
See also
References
{{Northrop aircraft
N-204
N-204, Northrop