Most people are memeing about it saying "it's F-47 penetrating Chinese airspace!"
But out of the more serious replies they seem to be leaning into CCA rather than manned aircraft.
Mystery aircraft 4th August 2025: CCA vs other
- Thread starter dingyibvs
- Start date
But out of the more serious replies they seem to be leaning into CCA rather than manned aircraft.
You underestimate the editors of TWZ. They can continue to produce 500 articles with the same thumbnail images before their beloved F/A-XX actually fly
I would better reverse the question: is there a particular reason why people are assuming this aircraft is manned?
I know most people are leaning toward unmanned CCA but the resemblence is just uncanny with this underside view.
It's from a patent awarded to Northwestern Polytechnical University
Well, if the similarity is this high, I’m starting to suspect this might just be a Photoshop job. The angle is way too coincidental.
It could also be that the patent was actually related to a real active project like that Hongdu patent with the twin tails and stuff that turned out to be the actual JL-XX albeit with some modifications.
Either way, I don’t think a 6th-gen fighter with VG wings is feasible. Maybe this is a further development of a rejected design (possibly repurposed for UAVs)—that would explain why we’re seeing a publicly disclosed patent for its appearance.