The TWZ Newsletter Weekly information and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy and foreign policy. A handful of aviation photographers were surprised to see the silhouette of a large, very sleek plane Thursday night at Long Beach Airport. One of them was Ricky Schol, who saw the mysterious airframe emerge from a hangar, prompting a double take. It was the first time in his 16 years of aviation photography at the historic airport that he had seen something like this. “I was driving home past my local airport on Thursday afternoon here in Southern California when I saw a bright light coming from a hangar I hadn’t seen open in a long time, so I retraced my steps to check it out,” Schol told us. “I was blown away when I stopped and saw the future in front of my eyes. I had no idea what I was looking at. I jumped out of my vehicle and started taking pictures right away.” “At first glance when I drove by I thought it was an F-117 Nighthawk,” said Schol, a plumber by trade. “That’s why I looked again. And to my surprise I saw something I had never seen before, without a cabin. It left me with a very curious feeling.” (Ricky Schol) Schol said he did some research and learned more details. He would soon discover that the mysterious plane design was the RAVN X, a plane intended to launch payloads into space, manufactured by Aevum Aerospace of Huntsville, Alabama. Schol was kind enough to share some of the photos he took of the plane, which he said he saw from about 100 feet away. You can find his work on Instagram at @aggressoraviation_. As you can see in the images below, the plane carries FAA number N567RX, which Aevum reserved for an address at the airport, but it appears to be a mockup, one we’ve likely seen before. (Ricky Schol) (Ricky Schol) A mockup of the drone was unveiled online in 2021 to much fanfare, with company CEO Jay Skylus describing it at the time as the “mothership” for a two-stage rocket capable of carrying a payload of just over 1,000 pounds. From our story when the RAVN X was introduced: “The twin-engine Ravn During the mockup launch, the company described what we noted at the time was a “very ambitious, if not almost bizarre, timeline” to get Ravn X into the air. The plan was to begin “vehicle-level testing” to obtain the required airworthiness certification and launch license for operations, a process that should take 18 months, Skylus said. From there, Aevum planned to obtain airworthiness certification for the first-stage drone from the Federal Aviation Administration. After that, the next step was to begin orbital launch tests from Cecil Spaceport in Jacksonville, Florida, in late 2021. Aevum Ravn There are no details on the company’s website and the latest information about RAVN X comes from Gunter’s Space Page, a website that tracks launches. “In December 2020, Aevum unveiled a mockup of the Ravn-X carrier aircraft (although it claimed to be a real prototype), but no further activity has been observed so far,” Gunter’s space page noted. “It is doubtful that any real hardware has been produced so far. As of August 2024, all activities appear to have stopped.” We’ve reached out to Skylus and Aevum for more details. (Screenshot by Aevum) www.twz.com Since RAVN “I was there from the time they took him out until they took him out,” he told us. “They lined him up on the track. He moved a little bit, but not much.” Schol said he didn’t hear the engines or see any exhaust. “I don’t know exactly what they were testing or trying to accomplish that night,” he said. Mockups can be modified for limited ground testing and other major work, as could be the case here. Regardless, RAVN X appears to be still alive as a program. If we discover any details, we will let you know. Contact the author: howard@twz.com Howard is a senior editor at TWZ. He writes frequently about conflicts, focusing primarily on the Middle East and Ukraine, and interviews with military and intelligence officials and industry leaders around the world. He lives near Tampa, Florida, headquarters of US Central Command, US Special Operations Command. Tyler’s passion is the study of military technology, strategy and foreign policy, and he has fostered a dominant voice on those issues in the defense and national security space. Tyler was the creator of the popular advocacy site Foxtrot Alpha before developing TWZ, which he continues to run as editor-in-chief to this day.
