The folks at Magnitude 3/Leatherneck Studios (whatever their name is these days) sent out a Happy New Year message yesterday and the eagle eyed among you have spotted something interesting in the message. Let’s have a look.

Hidden aircraft?

In wishing us a happy new year for 2022, Magnitude 3 might have teased a new aircraft. They are fans of doing this although past teases lead to some disappointment when the Cristen Eagle II was announced instead of other more highly anticipated aircraft. Nonetheless, this tease looks a little more concrete if you can use the term.

Enhance the image and it looks like there is a jet in among the crowd of well-wishers. See for yourself.

Matching the circular profile of the fuselage and the struts of the landing gear have many suggesting that this may be a Su-17 or Su-22 NATO reporting name of “Fitter.” 2,867 of these single engine strike fighters were produced from 1969 to 1990 and were used by the Soviet Union and widely used by many other countries including Poland, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Su-22’s are still operated by some of these countries.

See the below image to compare the rough profile.

Last year, Leatherneck had a ‘Merry Christmas’ message with an aircraft under a tarp. At the time speculation ran rife that they were about to reveal a new aircraft and that the aircraft under the tarp was quite obviously not the already announced F8 Crusader (and clearly not their F4U).

Next update due soon

Their next update is due any day now so we may yet learn more when that report is released. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard from them (the summer was their last update) so I am keen to know what the progress has been on the F4U Corsair, on the F8 Crusader and indeed if they have a third project in the works.

For fun, check out this Su-22 Fitter demo by the Polish Air Force posted in 2020.