{"id":457299,"date":"2026-09-08T16:06:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457299\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T16:06:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T16:06:11","slug":"mystery-black-jet-at-long-beach-airport-identified-as-aevums-ravn-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/457299\/","title":{"rendered":"Mystery Black Jet at Long Beach Airport Identified as Aevum’s RAVN X"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sixteen years photographing aircraft<\/a> at Long Beach Airport, and aviation photographer Ricky Schol had never seen anything like it. A massive black airframe rolled out of a hangar \u2014 sleek, angular, unmistakably F-117 in energy. He moved closer. No cockpit. No engine noise. No exhaust. Just 80 feet of silent, matte-black aerospace mystery sitting roughly 100 feet away. That aircraft has now been identified as the RAVN X, built by Aevum Aerospace<\/a> and designed to autonomously carry rockets<\/a> to orbit.<\/p>\n

\"\"Image: Ricky ScholBuilt to Launch, Then Gone Quiet<\/p>\n

The RAVN X debuted in 2021 as an autonomous orbital launch mothership \u2014 then nearly vanished from public view.<\/p>\n

Aevum unveiled the RAVN X in 2021 with serious ambition. CEO Jay Skylus described the aircraft as \u201cthe first stage\u201d of a two-stage orbital launch system \u2014 an autonomous mothership that air-launches a rocket carrying small payloads to orbit. The specs matched the scale of that pitch:<\/p>\n

Approximately 80 feet long with<\/a> a 60-foot<\/a> wingspanWeighs around 55,000 poundsDesigned to deliver roughly 1,000 pounds of payload to orbitFAA registration N567RX tied to a Long Beach Airport address registered to Aevum<\/p>\n

During the observed movement at Long Beach, witnesses reported no engine noise and no exhaust \u2014 raising the possibility that what Schol photographed may still be a mockup rather than a flight-ready prototype. A launch-tracking source reported no confirmed hardware activity after a December 2020 rollout, with the program appearing inactive by August 2024.<\/p>\n

Then came the silence. Aevum\u2019s website offers no meaningful recent updates. The 2021 announcement landed with real energy \u2014 and then the program essentially disappeared from public view, the aerospace equivalent of posting one cryptic teaser trailer and never releasing the film.<\/p>\n

Signs of Life<\/p>\n

The Long Beach sighting is now being framed as the RAVN X\u2019s first autonomous taxi tests, suggesting the program may not be finished.<\/p>\n

The Long Beach appearance is being described, per The Aviationist, as the RAVN X\u2019s first autonomous taxi tests<\/a>. That reframes Schol\u2019s sighting from a curiosity into something more deliberate \u2014 a program that may still be alive, even if barely breathing publicly.<\/p>\n

The open question of whether this airframe is a true flight-ready prototype, a modified mockup, or strictly a ground-test article is still unclear. Aevum has not issued a formal statement.<\/p>\n

Space launch is<\/a> brutally competitive. SpaceX and Rocket Lab<\/a> have continued advancing while Aevum stayed quiet. Any observable activity from a program this silent is a signal worth tracking \u2014 even if the runway ahead is long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sixteen years photographing aircraft at Long Beach Airport, and aviation photographer Ricky Schol had never seen anything like…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-457299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}