MBB Lampyridae...

[Archibald]

In December 1987, after the successfull completion of various models, the German governement to give the go-ahead for a powered demonstrator and operational aircraft. This was due to the revelation of the F-117, and the fact that the RCS of the MBB testbed was lower.
The flying aircraft was a straightforward development of the RCS mockup. It was powered by an Alphajet engine (a turbomeca Larzac).

The subscale demonstrator flew in march 1990 in Manching. On the following years it logged 599 flight before beeing send the Sinsheim museum in Frankfort. A retired F-104 was used as chaseplane.

In July 1990, the cost of the reunification and the end of the cold war saw the German governement diminishing drastically its defense budget. Fortunately, the success of the F-117 in GW1 saved the program.
The operational Lampyridae would be a stealth complement to the Typhoon. An orginal approach to the steath fighter was found.
The plane had no radar, only an IRST and AIM-9 infrared missiles. It had a powerfull datalink. The aim was to kill ennemies fighters per surprise.

all the program was kept in high secrecy, but a newspaper published this photo in 1993...


First plane was rolled of the MBB plant in January 1994, and exposed along the demonstrator.

A handfull of these plane took part to Deliberate Force in September 1995.

[RP1]

Cool!  Tha plane has a very predatory look to it, like a bird of prey.

RP1

[Archibald]

you mean the Boeing demonstrator?    

[Eddie M.]

I love the design of this aircraft. B)   Someone at Groomlake will see this and say,"Now why didn't we think of that!"
  Eddie
   

[Archibald]

I just wanted this photo...that's why I made those Lampyridae models.

[Hobbes]

Nice!

[Archibald]

Merci!
I now there's an unicraft kit available, but I never ordered on the web and have not too much money those times. So, better doing it all by myself!
I took the unicraft plan in 1/72 scale,printed it and  glued it to a cardboard boax. I had now a 2-D model. After that, I made a faceted aircraft with small cardboard parts. The canopy is plastic coming from the box of the loctite glue...

[Brian da Basher]

Another bit of amazing Archie whiffery! Looks very menacing in that all black scheme! I see you've been using blisterpack material in your builds. Isn't that stuff the greatest, Archie?

Nice work!

Brian da Basher

[Archibald]

Blisterpack material... that's the word
You said, that's perfect to make canopies...I also platic from mineral-water bottles
With strong glue you can...glue everything everywhere in every position!

[Archibald]

The model is now finished...

[JC Carbonel]

very nice ! and indeed this machine lend itself easily to cardboard modelling.

But as I want a bigger (1/48) model,  more data than has been released so far (landing gear , cockpit , what the nozzle looks like) is needed for me before I get to do it.

JCC

[Archibald]

To be honest, I admit that the cockpit is empty! This is clearly due to the scale, but also to my lack of interest for cockpit building      

[Rafael]

Hey, Archibald!!! That's a hot stealth plane you have there. I already downloaded your photos for future reference

[wolfik]

wow!! you finished it!!
it looks like a ....raven....