Did we just get our first glimpse of America’s new stealth fighter?

On Friday, Air Force Chief of Staff General David Allvin posted a new Air Force recruiting commercial to X that includes a brief clip of an unusual new stealth fighter taxiing on a dark runway, offering what may be the world’s first glimpse of one of the technology demonstrators involved in the development of America’s new stealth fighter, designated the F-47.

The exotic aircraft is on screen for only slightly more than a second, but is shown from two different angles: one from directly in front of the aircraft as it turns toward the camera, and another slightly above it. The aircraft depicted does appear to be taxiing under its own power. The clips in question begin at around the 20-second mark.

While the footage is rather dark, when you brighten it up, we get a pretty good look at what certainly appears to be a new stealth fighter design, though lacking in some of the characteristics we’ve come to expect of Boeing’s F-47 (more on that in a minute).

The clip from head-on is much blurrier, so brightening the image does not offer quite as much detail. However, as there are no existing images or video of the technology demonstrators involved with the NGAD program, it still warrants some attention.

Related: America’s first 6th-gen fighter jet will be Boeing’s F-47, Trump just announced

The Next Generation Air Dominance Program emerged after a classified 2014 study into the technologies required to maintain America’s air superiority advantage in the decades to come. This was followed by a classified billion-dollar X-Plane program that saw involvement from the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and all three of America’s prime fighter contractors: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman ultimately bowed out of the competition in 2023, leaving it down to Lockheed Martin and Boeing, with Boeing ultimately securing the production contract, believed to be worth north of $20 billion, last month.

DARPA has since revealed that two technology demonstrators were produced for the NGAD program. One was completed in 2019 and had reportedly set some kind of classified performance records by 2020. The second made its maiden flight in 2022, though according to DARPA, both platforms recorded hundreds of flight hours throughout testing.

It’s important to remember, however, that technology demonstrators are not necessarily reflective of the aircraft’s final design, and are instead only meant to demonstrate the feasibility of systems and design elements that may ultimately find their way into the production design. Boeing, it’s been reported, aims to have the first production-prototype test articles flying prior to the end of the current presidential administration, or within the next three or so years.

The aircraft shown in this recruiting commercial does not have the canards that seem apparent in Boeing’s F-47 renders that have been released thus far, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t Boeing’s design. Likewise, this could be the demonstrator produced by Lockheed Martin, and as such, wouldn’t be expected to share much in common with the F-47 design.

In either case, the inclusion of standing vertical tail surfaces is also something of a surprise, as most renders we’ve seen from both Boeing and Lockheed Martin related to this effort have omitted them for the sake of improved all-aspect stealth. Instead, this fighter appears to have vanted tails similar to Northrop’s fan-favorite YF-23, or like those shown in renders and mockups for Europe’s in-development Tempest fighter.

And of course, we should always recognize the possibility that this unusual and exotic-looking aircraft may be nothing more than a 3D render whipped up for the sake of an engaging commercial.

Nevertheless, this is not the first time we may have gotten a glimpse of a classified aircraft program in promotional material released by the Air Force.

In 2021, the Air Force’s Profession of Arms Center for Excellence released a promotional video that included a render of a secretive intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platform the public knows as the RQ-180; the video also included what appears to be a brief glimpse of a single-engine technology demonstrator related to Lockheed Martin’s long-rumored SR-72 program.

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