Going through some old back issues of Popular Science, I found this gem. it was a 1982 cover story about the B-2 bomber ( then known only as the Advanced Technology Bomber) and what aviation journalists speculated it looked like.
Although some will say the B-2 doesn't look at all like the artist representation here, Pop Science did get it right in some aspects.
The B-2 did turn out to be a flying wing with engine inlets not that all different than you see here. What they got wrong were the twin canted tails and B-1/X-15 looking nose. However, twin canted tails were considered in early versions of the B-2s design.
Its apparent the artist was also influenced by the markings and paint job on an SR-71.
All in all, the artist's rendering is about eighty percent right.
It is also interesting to note that the same image was ripped-off and published in the Soviet military journal Aviatsiya e Kosmonautika as an exclusive rendering of the real thing.
-Steve Douglass
Click to enlarge.
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