October 14, 2010
The image above, captured in March of 2010, depicts an F-117A mockup. Normally, a mockup of the F-117A wouldn't be a very big deal, but this one is in the middle of Luoyang, China. First spotted by the intrepid members of the
China Defense Forum, the mockup appears to be partially completed, apparently missing the forward fuselage. This could however simply be an abberation in the image given that the color applied to the mockup does not appear to stand out against the pavement a great deal. It is a full-scale mockup, with the wingspan matching the "real" F-117A at roughly 43 feet.
Why is there an F-117A mockup sitting inside of Luoyang? There could be a completely benign purpose, such as use in some sort of media. However, Luoyang is home to the Luoyang Electro-Optical Technology Development Center, who is responsible for developing the current air-to-air missiles fielded by the Chinese military. A facility such as this would certainly be able to make use of an accurate model of a VLO aircraft for missile seeker evaluation, particularly in the case of seekers for active radar homing weapons like the current PL-12. In such a case replicating an F-117A would be far less complex than accurately replicating a non-faceted VLO shape like the B-2A.
Or, hey, if we're bored we could always assume that this is the prototype JH-8, a VTOL capable F-117A derivative using captured Martian technology. But that would just be ridiculous.
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