Message posted by Vahe Demirjian (Member since 04/28/2022) on July 26, 2023 at 20:28:48 PST:
In Chapter 7 of the book "Stealth: The Secret Contest to Invent Invisible Aircraft", details are given for Lockheed's competing design for the BSAX competition that was won by the Northrop Tacit Blue design. On page 134 of this book is a sketch by Richard Scherrer of Lockheed's BSAX submission, which took the form of a faceted flying wing. Peter Merlin writes in his new book about Area 51 that the Lockheed BSAX design was used by the Lockheed Skunk Works as the basis for its initial Senior Peg design studies in 1978-1979 that combined the faceted airframe of the F-117 with very long swept wings and a V-shaped tail, and he mentions in an endnote on page 520 of "Dreamland: The Secret History of Area 51" that the radar model identified as an early Senior Peg design in the February 14, 2005 issue of Aviation Week and Space Technology is most likely the Lockheed BSAX. Given that the Lockheed BSAX proposal was the first proposal by the Lockheed Skunk Works for a stealthy flying wing and the initial Senior Peg design studies for a stealth bomber by Lockheed were based on the company's losing BSAX design, it should now be easy to connect the dots regarding Lockheed's late 1970s and early 1980s stealth flying wing designs, especially considering that the final Senior Peg design (the one submitted for the ATB contest in the early 1980s) departed from earlier Senior Peg designs in being a hybrid wing body aircraft which had the butterfly tail on the flatted aft extension and curved center body with faceted wings.
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