Ghost Plane Over The Midlands

[Startrek3]

Is it Apr 1st already? Or have C130Js been fitted with hush kits? Or are Brummies just thick?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...mments-section

[Wensleydale]

Ghost Plane over the Midlands

Surely it would have been a Phantom?

[Fonsini]

Perhaps he was on his way to RAF Minton with a vampire on his wing...

[cargosales]

Originally Posted by Startrek3

Is it Apr 1st already? Or have C130Js been fitted with hush kits? Or are Brummies just thick?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...mments-section

4th question: Are journos these days just so overwhelmed with work or just thick as well "Many witnesses said they saw what appeared to be a large green aircraft, possibly a Douglas Dakota, sweep the skies before making its way towards the ground as it if were about to crash."

Hmm, it'd be the first Douglas Dakota in history if it had four engines and looked like a Herc...

Jeez, where do they get these people from?

[Airbubba]

I've been to beautiful downtown Belper in years past to buy some ACARS hardware and software at the AOR UK radio shop.

Lockheed did do a quiet prop single-engine plane series in years past. I saw one in the hangar at NASA Ames at NAS Moffett four decades ago. The prop shaft went outside the fuselage and the shaft had a candy stripe paint job. It was possibly a QT-2PC. The well rehearsed answer to 'where did you get that thing?' was 'don't ask' . There were other versions with more conventional configurations used by the Army and other customers.

[PPRuNeUser0139]

Originally Posted by cargosales

Jeez, where do they get these people from?

They're a representative selection of the target audience of the BBC's RAF Centenary programme.

[Archimedes]

Originally Posted by Startrek3

Is it Apr 1st already? Or have C130Js been fitted with hush kits? Or are Brummies just thick?

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/new...mments-section

Way'um broight enuf tay know that Belper ay in Brummagen.... (Birmingham Mail has to borrow stories from other regional newspapers shock! More on pages 2,3,4,5, etc,etc)

[IFMU]

Lockheed did do a quiet prop single-engine plane series in years past. I saw one in the hangar at NASA Ames at NAS Moffett four decades ago. The prop shaft went outside the fuselage and the shaft had a candy stripe paint job. It was possibly a QT-2PC. The well rehearsed answer to 'where did you get that thing?' was 'don't ask' . There were other versions with more conventional configurations used by the Army and other customers.

They got it from Lockheed, but was built at Schweizer.
QT-2PC PRIZE CREW

[Basil]

they were so low, I thought they were going to crash. They made no noise and produced no contrails

RAF secret silent attack glider has to fly below 500' to get below unseasonally low Mintra.

[[email protected]]

As if the proliferation of Fake News wasn't bad enough - now we have to put up with Shoddily Researched Crap News from idle journos and thick contributors......

News channel SRCN - bringing you some utter bolleaux we couldn't be arsed to fact check..........

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by IFMU

They got it from Lockheed, but was built at Schweizer.
QT-2PC PRIZE CREW

Thanks for the link, I appreciate it.

From: http://prizecrew.********.com/

"We built two QT-2 aircraft at the Lockheed aircraft facility within the San Jose, CA airport, under the highest of security measures...

"The basic platform was the modified Schweizer Model 2-32...

"Jack Bauman would make necessary design changes right on the shop floor..

"The propellers were handcrafted out of seasoned birch stock by a noted propeller designer and builder, Olie Fahlin...

When I saw the plane, I believe it had been repainted in civilian NASA livery and I think it had an N-number. There is a N2471W in some of the film clips, it was listed as 'sold' in 1977.

I remember the red and white candy stripes on the prop drive shaft. At least I think I do, it's been a while. A NASA pilot walked me through the hangar to go see the U-2 on the ramp at Moffett. "The Air Force U-2's will be retired in five years so the NASA birds will be the only ones still flying."

[Stitchbitch]

We had two Apache over at lunchtime, God only knows what they'll make of them... "There be Dragons"

[glad rag]

That BBC lady in a tornado?

[ValMORNA]

To be fair to the ignorant bumpkins of the Midlands, they are not being paid £50Kplus to recognise the difference between, for instance, a MIG-15 and a DC-3. Further, the journalist/s in question would probably be surprised at some of the grammatical errors by elitists in this august group, including those who wouldn't know a diphthong from an under-aged elephant's rectum.

[MFC_Fly]

Originally Posted by sidevalve

They're a representative selection of the target audience of the BBC's RAF Centenary programme.

Maybe if a C-130 had been included in that programme then they may have a better idea of what they saw

[chopper2004]

NASA ARC YO-3A

Originally Posted by Airbubba

I've been to beautiful downtown Belper in years past to buy some ACARS hardware and software at the AOR UK radio shop.

Lockheed did do a quiet prop single-engine plane series in years past. I saw one in the hangar at NASA Ames at NAS Moffett four decades ago. The prop shaft went outside the fuselage and the shaft had a candy stripe paint job. It was possibly a QT-2PC. The well rehearsed answer to 'where did you get that thing?' was 'don't ask' . There were other versions with more conventional configurations used by the Army and other customers.

NASA Ames had Lockheed Martin YO-3A for years.

https://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/...proj_desc.html

During Vietnam war, it was one of the then state of the art a/c in theater. Equipped with FLIR, nightscope etc One wanders if the AAC should have such an a/c for surveillance over NI ...

Cheers

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by chopper2004

NASA Ames had Lockheed Martin YO-3A for years.

Thanks, I must have seen the predecessor then. The YO-3A doesn't have the external prop shaft.

[treadigraph]

Originally Posted by Airbubba

I remember the red and white candy stripes on the prop drive shaft. At least I think I do, it's been a while.

This one perhaps:

[Airbubba]

Originally Posted by treadigraph

This one perhaps:

Wow, thanks again, we may have a winner.

I believe that plane is in Navy Test Pilot School markings at Pax River. It certainly has the candy stripes that I claim to remember in the Ames hangar.