Didn't an F117 crash on finals at Boscombe Down in 89/90? There was something went down about then that was all hushed up.

Also believe 117s were operating out of Macrihanish in the secret days.

Googling indiecates that the UFOlogists seem to believe the Boscombe Down crash was of the supposed TR-3B "Astra"
They even go so far as to allocate a serial number: 90-2414

Don't ask me if its true... NO idea

MrWomble

Interesting. Were you there?

The SR-71 designator is actually a continuation of the pre-1962 bomber series, which ended with the B-70 Valkyrie. Late in its career, the B-70 was proposed for the reconnaissance/strike role, with an RS-70 designation. The "RS" prefix (sometimes written as "R/S") was actually allowed as an explicit "special case" in the orignal 1962 issue of the designation regulations. When it was clear that Lockheed's A-12 aircraft (then used by the CIA) had much greater performance potential, it was decided to "push" a USAF version of that one instead of the RS-70. This USAF version was to become the RS-71.

"Conventional" wisdom now says that then president Lyndon B. Johnson messed up the designation in his public announcement and called it the SR-71 - and nobody wanted to correct the president. Because the strike mission had been cancelled anyway, "SR" was quickly reinterpreted as "Strategic Reconnaissance". However, a first-hand witness of those events recently revealed in Aviation Week & Space Technology, that LBJ did not misread anything. In fact, then USAF Chief of Staff LeMay simply didn't like the "RS" designator - he already objected it when the RS-70 was discussed, preferring "SR-70". When the RS-71 was to be announced, he wanted to make sure it would be called SR-71 instead. He managed to have LBJ's speech script altered to show "SR-71" in all places. Using archived copies of LBJ's speech, it can actually be verified that it reads SR-71 both in the script and on the tape recording. However, the official transcript of the speech, created from the stenographic records and handed to the press afterwards, shows "RS-71" in three places. It seems that not the president but a stenographer did accidentally switch the letters, and thus create a famous aviation "urban legend".

Machrihanish's secret hanger played host to quite a few things in it's time. Once inside, the crew didnt need to re-appear as it was linked underground to the US facility.
The first deployments were as far back as 83. What was unusual was having to work nights when we didnt have enough staff to man ATC and the support facilities, but no concept of why we were havng to do it.

Even more amazing were the steps taken to stop the resident VAS in the hanger from seeing the new arrivals. At night, the duty team were forbidden to look outside of the crew room, whilst the ground handlers wore slip on blindfolds while they marshalled the A/C in. The day staff too wore blindfolds when outside of the offices, which also had the interior windows blacked out. The only person who didnt, was a civilian girl K--- S------- who worked there. Looking back I'm almost certain she was a CIA operative.

In hindsight, I'm suprised non of the 140 misfits who had the joy to be posted there didnt just lift the blindfolds up for a quick peek and blow the whole thing - But thats us guys - professional to the end. We made it look just like another posting in the middle of nowhere with no aircraft and nothing going on.

Ok, I'll bite.

How do you marshall an aircraft in if you can't see where it is?

That was the easy bit. - The 'LONGARMS' project in 1982 fitted RF detection and audio alert syestems at the back of each parking bay - It was the first commercial use of parking sensors. The audio was interpreted by the Handler who moved his lightsticks accordingly.

AR1,

you know you won't go to heaven, :E

How can it be stealthy if it goes "Beep! Beep! Beep!" when taxying into a dispersal? :ok:

As for the so-called "Boscombe Down incident" - a load of old guff. The last post on this thread fits my understanding of what happened. There was no crash. I reckon that the tinhatters lumped together a bunch of innocuous things that happened over a week or so, and spun a story out of them. It seems that the only mildly dramatic thing that did happen was that there was an A-road closure in the middle of the day due to a returning trials Tornado with a problem.

Mmm, how many consipracy theories can you get into one PPrune thread??:)

Regarding the model kits, Testors were so taken by the sucess of their 'F-19' kit that they produced a rival 'Mig-37 Ferret' - the blurb on the box stated along the lines that as the Soviets were less technologically advanced than the US, their Stealth fighter used older facetting technology to achived low radar visibility.

I'll bet there were a few wry smiles at Lockheed when that came out - and some perturbed security dudes!

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpo..._mig37b_48.jpg

A common misconception. It only makes that noise when it's reversing.

dur! they don't beep, they have them set on vibrate. :rolleyes:

The tinfoil hat brigade and the 'Elvis is alive' mob will always believe what they want.....

But it's quite fun when a sneaky-beaky event turns out to be bunkum.

Back in the mid-70s, the NAVFAC (or 'biscuit factory*') at RAF Brawdy was ultra sneaky-beaky as it housed a humourless bunch of USN folk who worked at the SOSUS installation - we mere Hunter students weren't supposed to know anything about it. I had to punch off my tanks into St. Bride's Bay once and remarked to one of the Yanks at lunch "Hope I didn't blow your headphones off when my tanks hit the ocean!" Cue some very frosty looks and a typical "I can neither confirm nor deny" type answer....:\


One day, a mate took a short cut to the simulator section through the USN SeaBees' compound and, in doing so, spotted a mysterious bell-like object partially concealed under a tarpaulin. "Ah-hah", he thought, "I'll bet they use that for checking their cables on the sea bed....". The word went round and soon others were looking at this 'secret' bit of kit.

Unfortunately the next time they saw it, it had been painted up and was taking part in the US 1776-1976 bicentennial celebrations as the Liberty Bell - it was actually made of foam plastic and wood!


*so-called because it was commanded by a Captain Jacobs.

Was told by a mate of mine who worked for the old Bond Helicopters, that in the 80s, one of their S76 had landed at Macrihanish roughly about that time for some unknown reason, probably refuelling / pit stop purposes in 83/84 and there was a bit of humour with regards to lunch. Whoever was on Ops at the time said that the captain and the licensed engineer could eat in the Officers Mess, while the unlicensed engineer who tagged along for the flight was only allowed to eat in the Sgts Mess. The aircraft captain apparently kicked off a stink and said he would not be separated from the engineer, thereby saying they'd all eat together in the NCO mess :)

Anyhow was told that their S76 had landed and parked next to a then HH-53 deployed up from Woodbridge and a Herk, probably a HC-130 also from Woodbridge. But that was the only US presence there that particular day.

Regardless of its being now Campbeltown Airport, the airfield still plays host to USAFE exercises in particular, the 352nd SOG. Theres pics on the USAF/USAFE website of one particular exercise involving the Special Tactics Group in NBC conditions 6 years back

352nd SOG closes out ORI deployment at RAF Machrihanish

That wouldnt be inside the Gaydon hangar, one of those pics? :mad::cool:

AR1, silly question if god forbid, whatever was parked in hangar at said time, that didnt make an appearance in either Bill Gunston's books or Jane's or Flight International pubs, had a mishap and said crews had to bail out, I take it it would've been up to the folks then at Woodbridge to fly out with their Pave Lows and Combat Shadows to rescue and recover rather than say D Flight at Lossie

Machrihanish, hmmmm....

IIRC the first mentions of spookiness there involved very loud noises in the 1991 timeframe.

When one was a cadet in the 80-90s the rumours around the squadron suggested that MIldenhall be The 117 hang out when in UK. I laughed it off then remembered the 2 disused ex SR-71 'barns' and the Lockheed Skunk Works reps and staff that be around. Plus looking at books on the 117 and the similar looking individual 'housing' at TTR, wasn't so much difference to the larger BLackbird barns.

I read in the very first Air Forces Monthly in 1987 that supposedly the 117 had been seen flying from Sculthorpe when it was still in USAFE hands.

Cheers

Diary of Events | Machrihanish Airbase Community Company

Guess we can say goodbye to any future spookiness or ghosts appearing from the designer boards / CAD/CAE/CAM workstations Phantom Works or Skunk Works :(:8:8

Wished I now dug out my spare quid from my Marco Polo wallet and raised my hand now :)

Oh yeah the boscombe "black day"

fwiw, there is something hinky about this - less perhaps than they make out but more than us pooh pooh ers say.

And why is no one giving more info on the Aurora - or its replacement......
or its replacement's replacement......

Does Uncle Sam still put all of its go fast new sexy toy budget in the hands of Bubba Boeing, or is the "overruns" on various projects the way to fund Uber Black death machines?

Ah, also - the Omega Men, they now drive Audi's........there is one outside.

I am surprised at the level of interest the 'Wobblin' Goblin' has aroused. It's only real claim to fame was its much hyped invisibility to radar and even that could be compromised in rain. It wasn't very fast, it couldn't carry a heavy load and it was limited to nocturnal raids. It was however the first serious stab at making a stealth aircraft and very much a product of its time so it gains my respect.

I was on exchange at HQ TAC - as it then was - 89-91 - during GW!.

The division in which I worked had Bandit 03 and 04 - I think. I can name names, but might have their bandit numbers wrong - but I think they were both the first USAF boys to fly the 117.

A few weeks before the jet was due to "come out" I found, in a model shop in a mall in Norfolk Va, a 1:72 model which I bought. I glued it together over the weekend, not very well, and on Monday I put it on display on the filing cabinet next to my desk. It took just a few minutes before Bandits 03/04 - AW and WM - arrived to assess the Japanese model manufacturer's views of their "Black" Aircraft. From their reaction, the model was surprisingly accurate!!

Having watched the jet on its first public outing arriving at Langley en-route to GW1, the model makers had done a remarkable job given the "Black" nature of the programme.

Whatever - it most certainly did a quite remarkable job during GW1 - and probably during other conflicts since.

It must have been a great experience for those lucky enough to fly it!!

I remember our brand new Chinook at Macrahanish on a visit and sharing the hangar space with a bunch of seals, they had a big built like a bricksh*t house Sgt who was doing the old US thing when they were exercising after having been for a run up some nearby hill, and the Sgt was calling out a seal song, you know the type of crud, "we are in the US Seals,. 1 2 3 4 taking it like a bitch that squeals 1 2 3....4".
So we did one when pumping up the Chinooks accumulator taking the mickey out of the Chinook, the stupid system and the yanks that built it....... He was not impressed.. Station was like a time warp from the 40's, felt sorry for whoever got posted there.

I believe the artist for Flight that did the cutaways worked out what would be where in the F4 and did the drawings for Flight, he had a visit asking him who was slipping him secret drawings, they showed how the had worked out the interior from panel and rivet lines, he later stated during a visit to the factory he was suprised to see his drawing in use as he had got it that correct.

Not exactly a stealthy wobbling Goblin here

http://www.murdoconline.net/2008/F117_Farewell.jpg

:ok:

Unfortunately SEALS don't have sgts rank as they're all sailors :) this guys must have been a Chief Petty officer 'Chief' :)

BomberH

Bandit numbers for the F-117 started in the mid-80s, IIRC.

The MiG pilots of the 4477th TES at Tonopah were the originators of the Bandit call sign, meaning that they had the block of numbers from 0-c.80 to themselves.

Al Whittley was Bandit 150. Wayne Mudge was 163.

Or they weren't actually SEALS... or someone is making up porkies... :E


Of course, a plain, ordinary Sgt is an E-5... same as a Petty Officer 2nd Class.
A Staff Sgt is an E-6 (PO1).
It takes a Gunnery Sgt (USMC) or Sgt First Class (Army) to equal a CPO (E-7).

Being a Chinook....it wouid have been Army not Navy.

But I guess we all look alike as we don't have hat badges like the other side.

Chinook was RAF as we had just got them and night stopped at Macrahanish, American who we were told were seals by RAF inmates at Macrahanish, had lots of stripes.. Not being US rank savvy I just put him down as nearest UK equivalent, they did have a fit young lady in their group.


So must have been seals

RAF Machrihanish

Weren't the SEALs at Mac' a forward deployment covering security for Holy Loch?

F-117 secrecy.
 

There were indeed Seals there. Met a few of them in 89. I remember them having their own little area and all being chuffing massive.

Thankfully, I was only there for a week. Not a nice place...

Daddy.....Security for Holy Loch......why sure that sounds good.....lets go with that shall we!

Just like the bunch at Subic Bay were there for security of Cubi Point Air Base and the NavWeps Depot and the Rosie Roads crew were there to guard Camp Garcia on Vieques.

Did / Does TR-3B ever exist?
 

Other programs like Boeing Bird of Prey, the Whale battlefield surveillance platform we're revealed and placed in museums over the last decade or so, and even the RQ-170 is now acknowledged (just about) and our lovely F-117 retired (sort of) what's with Tr-3B assuming it is 1000% airframe exists! not being unveiled ?

Cant rememebr offhand around 2 decades ago where there was a reference in 1994 Air International Farnborough issue, special or was it Flight International Farnborogh issue, casuallh mentioning the complement of the TR-3B with the F-117 as a FAC / low obeservable ?

I read that one way of knowing these aircraft existed was looking at the defence spending, there was a black hole that was unaccounted for.

Saw something on area 51 that claimed it was the test centre for the U2 and SR-71. Amazingly the staff carried around a chart that had times of the day printed on it, the times were when Soviet spy satellites were due overhead. As the times approached, everything would get towed indoors and once the satellites passed over the aircraft would get towed out again. But what gave the secrets away was when the aircraft were outside their shadow would cause a difference in temperature on the concrete apron that would leave an outline that would show up on a IR camera. So some American with a sense of humour played tricks by drawing fake outlines of funky shaped aircraft with pots of paint. It was a good trick as it fooled the Soviets into thinking the US had superior technology.

http://files.abovetopsecret.com/imag...a21d6507b5.jpg

Bruggen used to move the dead Frightnings around for the satellites, the someone realised there was no heat signature, so for a while they used weed burners to heat the ground behind the stone cold engineless hulks, eventually they saw sense and gave up on it all.

Someone finally twigged that the Sovs didn't have IR recon sats?

Apart from the fact that Bruggen didn't operate Lightnings, nor did RAFG as would have been well publicised at the time.

Didn't one of the stations have a half-sized Bloodhound SAM site with nice white missiles?

So true PN, but a Frightning standing still looked quicker than a Jag flat out.

Chopper re 'TR-3B' - the rumours at the time were for a 'TR-3' or 'TR-3A' (and the name Black Manta connected). To this day, it's still believed that the designation came about from distilled conversation regarding Lockheed's Tier 3 UAV.

GR4techie - re sat recon of Groom Lake, 'scoot and hide' taxi-through shelters were eventually built to deal with the problem

Cheers

Norma

NutLoose ... during one MoD tour I was looking at buying a few sqns of Tornado decoy aircraft for deployment at MOBs. IIRC they came in around £15k per 'airframe', and had built-in thermal (and radar) decoy capability.

And then The Wall came down .... :cool:

Boscombe Down incident was an F3 dangling a long piece of fibre optic behind it. The road was closed because the bit on the end of the fibre optic hadn't been jettisoned in flight so was trailing behind the jet as it came in to land.

Cheers Norma, and HP, remember this

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ps37c23174.jpg

lol

lots of 2 + 2 = 4.5, 6.71 etc etc in the story....in the article itself was an artists impression of what happened to include

C-5A with its nose open ready to receive tarpaulin covered airframe

8 Flt A109A hovering and numerous MoD Police at port arms!!

Prob was in that pic and story depicted many different aircraft that landed in the week or so after whatever incident was said...from a corporate jet with N reg that happened to land at Exeter Airport! Then the T-43A / 737 supposedly visited that they thought was one of EG & G's one (then again hey, didn't USAFE 3 or 4 star have a C-40 anyhow replacing VC-137 'Miss Piggy' anyway at time) oh and throw in one of Odiham#s finest (not sure if that was part of the artists impression)

They claimed the C-5 'happened' to be one of a pair assigned to Palmdale / Plant 42 or whatever its called and on its way to Ramstein on a trans atlantic flight / deployment when it got diverted to Boscombe....

Cheers

Hmmm the plot thickens, I heard on the rumor mill, (bar the youtube vid going around) that there are a couple of handfuls of F-117 now in active condition.

Which begs the question, why was it retired anyway? Was it part of costs or the initial kickback that F-22 Raptor and F-35 to a more or lesser extent, classed as more stealthier?

Cheers