Secret Aircraft

[orbital]

^

Steve, it had to have been a F-104 because I got a clear look at the wings.
it was banking about 1/4~1/2mi directly in front on me,,, low'ish to the ground
then heading then due south

edit: just got back from having to drive that same route,
the distance had to be closer to 1/4~1/2 mi

 

[StarHalo]

FWIW, here is the rear cockpit tour of the SR-71. Notice the empty panel locations...

Pretty much every square inch of the SR-71 is declassified with the sole exception of the actual reconnaissance hardware. Word has it that just prior to retirement, it was 2 gigapixels..

Couple days ago I was driving east,, right in front of me was something truly unusual.

Check for local airshows/events, that's it 90% of the time.

A few years ago I was out at Hearst Castle/San Simeon and saw a Cobra gunship fly over, banking hard and in a hurry; I told the wife it might be best if we got to a radio quickly - turns out the President was in town, just a bit of his security out and about.

 

[NoNotAgain]

A little SR71 camera information.

http://www.velocityreviews.com/thre...igital-vs-sr71-reconnaissance-cameras.248258/

I found this declassified CIA document online which talks about
various aspects of the SR71 reconnaissance plane, including the
cameras and optics: http://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/successortou2.html
Evidently several interesting cameras were built for this project,
including: 1) A Perkin Elmer camera capable of resolving 140 lp/mm on
6.6" film (2.2 gigapixels), and 2) A Hycon camera with a lens designed
by James Baker capable of resolving 100 lp/mm on 9.5" film (2.3
gigapixels).

 

[idleprocess]

The 104 is still one of the coolest looking aircraft, IMHO. Too bad it couldn't carry much, or turn well, etc.

It was an interceptor. Its mission was to take off, vector to intercept, smash the gas to make it to the intercept point, then splash the hostiles before they could deliver their payloads.

A few years ago I was out at Hearst Castle/San Simeon and saw a Cobra gunship fly over, banking hard and in a hurry; I told the wife it might be best if we got to a radio quickly - turns out the President was in town, just a bit of his security out and about.

Watched the president's detail roll in sporting some V-22's and CH-53's in Dallas last year - flying from DFW airport to Love Field might seem extravagant, but probably required less police presence and fewer closed streets. They were flying a tad low and I knew to look when I heard them.

 

[Steve K]

It was an interceptor. Its mission was to take off, vector to intercept, smash the gas to make it to the intercept point, then splash the hostiles before they could deliver their payloads.

Very true... I didn't mean to imply that the team at Lockheed didn't do a good job. The interceptor role was the main focus in the post-war years, where the big threat was bombers coming over the horizon. The main virtues for aircraft were the ability to go fast in a straight line and to unleash some large rockets or missiles at the bombers. I think some of the missiles even had nuclear warheads(?).

There seems to be a desire to use a specialized aircraft for multiple purposes, and the F-104 just wasn't good at other missions. It did seem to do well as an inexpensive export fighter. The Germans flew them for quite a while. I seem to recall something about them doing well as low level attack aircraft, as the high wing loading made them less sensitive to the turbulence at low altitudes. Since the mission included repelling Soviets coming across the German border, there wasn't a requirement for a large combat radius, so no need to use up hard points on fuel tanks.

Anyway.... the F-104 never had a glamorous career in the USAF, which is a shame. It was developed in the "adolescent" years of jet design, and was the first really design to place high speed as the top design priority.

As a side note, the wing design for the F-104 was derived from (or inspired by?) the wing on the X-3 Stiletto, designed by Douglas Aircraft. While the F-104 was long and slender, the X-3 was even moreso.

The X-3 is at the USAF museum in Dayton, OH. Along with the other experimental aircraft, it is crowded into a hanger that is separate from the rest of the museum. There are no ropes around the aircraft, which is great, but they are so tightly packed that it is hard to get a good photo.

 

[Steve K]

just saw this article in the Washington Post about the Navy's X-47B drone being refueled in flight. Kinda cool..

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...04941f10-8a79-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e&hpid=z10

The article includes a video of the refueling...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOU9iJZuoFc&feature=player_embedded

I was surprised that they used the usual naval "probe and drogue" method. That makes the aircraft being refueled responsible for getting the probe into the basket at the end of the hose. This is in contrast to the USAF's preferred method where the refueling aircraft must stick the probe into the aircraft receiving the fuel. Both make sense for their respective missions.

This must still be in the early phases.. I didn't see any way for the X-47B to retract the refueling probe.

 

[idleprocess]

I believe that the X-47's are being retired, so the jury-rigged look is probably reflective of the program coming to a close.

 

[NoNotAgain]

just saw this article in the Washington Post about the Navy's X-47B drone being refueled in flight. Kinda cool..

I was surprised that they used the usual naval "probe and drogue" method. That makes the aircraft being refueled responsible for getting the probe into the basket at the end of the hose. This is in contrast to the USAF's preferred method where the refueling aircraft must stick the probe into the aircraft receiving the fuel. Both make sense for their respective missions.

This must still be in the early phases.. I didn't see any way for the X-47B to retract the refueling probe.

Naval asset, naval refueling probe.

The idea is to keep it simple. Retractable probes are heavy and take up space. It's not like the X47 is a high speed aircraft. Frequently refueled via EA-6B Prowler. One of the navy's slowest and stable aircraft still in use.

 

[Steve K]

Naval asset, naval refueling probe.

The idea is to keep it simple. Retractable probes are heavy and take up space. It's not like the X47 is a high speed aircraft. Frequently refueled via EA-6B Prowler. One of the navy's slowest and stable aircraft still in use.

well, the X-47 is a stealth aircraft, and a big exposed probe is not stealthy. Exposed refueling probes went away when the F-18 was introduced in the 80's. Even the F-18 has been upgraded to be sort of stealthy (the E/F models).

As an experimental aircraft, it's not all that old.. the first flight was in 2011.

I do have a fondness for simple naval aircraft. I spent four years working on A-4 Skyhawks (also equipped with a fixed refueling probe)

 

[DUQ]

+

Couple days ago I was driving east,, right in front of me was something truly unusual.

At very first, I thought it was a drone of some kind,,
it was low flying & had unusually short wings, but it was jet shaped

can't say for sure what I saw oo:


F-104 Starfighter??

add:: I live in under the path of many EAA Fylin crafts,, so I'v seen lots of different stuff over the years
this one actually caught me off guard a bit..

Maybe it was an F-35?

http://natocouncil.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/v31882_f35-joint-strike-fighter.jpg

 

[Steve K]

I know that there are F-35's at MCAS Yuma in Arizona. Are there operational F-35 squadrons at other bases?

There's a Flickr group for aircraft at MCAS Yuma, where you can see pics of the F-35...
https://www.flickr.com/groups/1561717@N24/pool/

It will be interesting to see how well the F-35 functions in the variety of missions that it is being used in. The VSTOL mission in particular, seems poorly suited to the airframe.

The AV-8 design was the only VSTOL jet that was really successful, despite many aircraft companies trying different configurations. The only thing that the AV-8 can't do is go supersonic, due to that large fan at the front of the engine. The F-35 does achieve supersonic flight, but only by taking the large fan disc and mounting it horizontally in the fuselage. This eat up a lot of space in the fuselage, adds complexity with the drive shaft and various doors needed to cover the fan in horizontal flight, etc.

There may be problems making the AV-8 design stealthy too... due to the large fan at the front of the engine. It's pretty hard to cover that up so it doesn't make a huge radar reflection.

Anyway, it'll be interested to see what we learn as the F-35 starts being used by fleet squadrons.

 

[StarHalo]

I'd wager all the manned aircraft introduced after the F-117 will be viewed as a mistake..

 

[magellan]

I'd wager all the manned aircraft introduced after the F-117 will be viewed as a mistake..

I guess things have changed since, "No buck. No Buck Rogers."

 

[idleprocess]

I'd wager all the manned aircraft introduced after the F-117 will be viewed as a mistake..

I would not bet against future manned stealth control aircraft running something like line-of-sight distances from the unmanned air-to-air and fighter-bomber craft not tasked with close air support. This will eliminate satlink latency and liability. This seems likely since AI doesn't seem to be up to the task of full-on autonomous combat.

 

[idleprocess]

The AV-8 design was the only VSTOL jet that was really successful, despite many aircraft companies trying different configurations. The only thing that the AV-8 can't do is go supersonic, due to that large fan at the front of the engine. The F-35 does achieve supersonic flight, but only by taking the large fan disc and mounting it horizontally in the fuselage. This eat up a lot of space in the fuselage, adds complexity with the drive shaft and various doors needed to cover the fan in horizontal flight, etc.

If your requirements are VSTOL first and everything else second, then the Harrier was a success. But when you look at the overall utility it was worse than pretty much every other combat aircraft. Vertical takeoff requires terrific amounts of fuel, the aircraft can't carry many weapons, can't carry much fuel, and its survivability was poor. Other than the fact that it allows amphibious assault ships to carry fixed-wing aircraft, the benefit is marginal.

Anyway, it'll be interested to see what we learn as the F-35 starts being used by fleet squadrons.

Hopefully we'll learn that no matter how much you polish it, a turd is still a turd.

I hear the J-31 is a good indicator of what the F-35 could have been since it's based on the F-35 plans that hackers absconded with.

 

[moldyoldy]

I'd wager all the manned aircraft introduced after the F-117 will be viewed as a mistake..

An Air Force General told me that he views all fast/high manned aircraft as anacronysms. Endurance of manned recon flights are limited no matter how fast or high they fly. High unmanned recon flights are up to 24hrs now.

However the winner of unmanned flight duration is the X-37B: now set for launch #4 on 20 May. More importantly, the USAF is progressively giving away some of the X-37B testing involved, other than recon. specifically, thruster experiments involving electric propulsion, eg: ION propulsion already deployed in the very latest recon satellites. This translates to a much longer operational life for those very expensive recon satellites (usually the KH series).

If anyone is interested, here is a 262 page PDF on an early series of those KH satellites. Of course, the NRO is the sponsoring organization.

Also, if anyone remembers, the presumed "Aurora", or whatever real name it had we will never know - an early follow-on to the SR-71 - evidently used pulse-jet (popcorn-on-a-string contrails) propulsion and was rumored to employ ionic/plasma flow enhancement on the leading edges to enhance the speed well beyond the SR-71. At least two deployments of this A/C series were noted by observing the unique contrails. Both deployments ceased some years ago.

Now the long-expected SR-72 is showing up in the news again. This time rather than a 2-stage engine (turbo + ramjet bypass) of the SR-71, the SR-72 is rumored to be designed with a 3-stage engine (turbo + ramjet + scramjet). Mach 6 has been the stated design speed. Most air-to-air missiles have a max speed of Mach-5, some of the fastest might make it to Mach 6. However the altitude difference would render the SR-72 even less challenged than the SR-71 was by air-to-air missiles. 80K feet is still evidently the mission altitude, same as the SR-71. Even though many A-A missiles & SAM missiles were launched, none even came close to the SR-71. As the SR-71 pilot of the last speed-setting event stated, (paraphrased) 'we flew fast enough to break the old record, not as fast as we could'.

side note: FAA control ceases at flight level FL 600 (60,000 feet). After that, any pilot up there is on his own. Recent reports of contrails well above FL 800 have been reported. Go figure.

 

[orbital]

+

Fourth mission of the X-37B set today,
small vid on its lift sequence


http://www.space.com/29442-x37b-space-plane-fourth-mission.html

 

[moldyoldy]

FWIW: These A/C are certainly not classified, rather low tech, although what/where they are doing up there is very high-tech.

http://news.yahoo.com/fbi-behind-my...raft-over-us-cities-070836765--politics.html#

The DEA has used some similar A/C system for years.

 

[MrJino]

I work as a sushi chef and often talk to old retired air force and navy pilots who flew test crafts. Of course they don't bring pictures but what they say blows my mind.
We won't see the planes they test for decades, if not more.

 

[moldyoldy]

Bump! no secret any more: The TR-X

oddly enough, German web-sites are reporting the info slightly differently. TBD on how the 'can we afford it' argument plays out.