I write a lot about companies that build aircraft. I write a lot about companies that build military equipment. So imagine my surprise when, last week, I learned that one of the companies I follow most actively -- Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) -- may have a military aircraft that's worth up to $100 billion in future revenue.

And it's an aircraft whose development has been kept so secret that I'd almost forgotten it even existed.

Rumored for more than a decade, the aircraft in question -- an unpiloted drone called the RQ-180 -- made its first real-world appearance in a single random photo snagged by a freelance photojournalist in California in 2020. Further details on the top-secret drone appeared on Medium.com last year, describing the RQ-180 as the culmination of a 20-year-long U.S. Air Force effort to build a "flying wing" stealth drone that is "invisible to enemy radars, infrared sensors, and acoustic detectors, and [able] to fly at high altitudes and long ranges."

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Source Fool.com