X47b trialling a couple of chem-trail dispensers. Simples....... :cool:

BEagle,

At my old Part 145 MRO company, around 10 years back, the other other of the business was a Part 21G and J composite facility. We had a contract with a bunch of Bedfordshire academics and boffins to build the BWB scaled drop test models as said academics had been contracted by the Boeing Phantom Works. Also we got involved indirectly with the Cambridge Uni / MIT Silent Aircraft initiative

The 'Silent' Aircraft Initiative

Back to the BWB, below my feet in my Quality Dept, these shapes were built and then shipped off back to Huntington Beach and would find their way up to the Mojave and used for a series of crash test evaluations. I do not believe they were in anyway used as airborne tests from say NASA NB-52H or any other platform, but launched like as a UAS....

Last I heard the BWB scaled models we built, had all but one or two used and made a dent in the lovely Mojave desert,

Cheers

But it really doesn't.

http://theaviationist.com/wp-content...ane-Musket.png

http://www.trtturk.com/application/s...5_x-47b-10.jpg

Where's the crank in the leading edge and the W-shaped trailing edge "boat tail" in the first pic?

Well, there's got to be SOME reason for the USG to be spending all that money on this:

http://notreally.info/sol/terra/us/n...px-Area_51.png

It's not as if there aren't precedents for super-secret aircraft development programmes.

Steve Douglass's credentials were mentioned earlier. To me, it seems he may have been naive and not too rigorous in the conclusions that he has drawn in the past. I've not seen anything that suggests he is a hoaxer or would fake images, though.

Actually, the suggestion is that there were three triangles - there's another shot apparently showing three from Steve Douglass's site, which PPRuNe annoyingly won't allow a link to but which can be found from the AvWeek link in the original post in this thread.

Phantom Ray fits more than X-47B (except for the single engine...), but both those are open programmes, and only 1 of the former and 2 of the latter have been built. Or acknowledged to have been built you might well object, but then why reveal the aircraft but hide how many are built? They're demonstrators, not operational aircraft, we are told.

Also, the Phantom Ray has a one-piece wing and is therefore difficult to move from factory to test site - people would surely notice.

http://www.boeing.com/Features/2010/...om_ray_400.jpg

PS Can anybody point to definitive information on the current US rules for flying UAVs outside of Ranges or otherwise segregated airspace? In other words, if UAVs could not have been flown over Amarillo legally then it is a strike against the triangles being UAVs. If they could, well - we're none the wiser!

Edit again, to answer my own question. The relevant FAA Fact Sheet is here, from which I quote selectively but hopefully accurately:

So there would need to be a manned chase AND a defined COA Block of Airspace. In the absence of a COA NOTAM to that effect, which has not been mentioned by anyone, I think that means they shouldn't legally have been UAVs.

Thanks for the great pic, pc9, that illustrates my point exactly. I agree my initial post only told a bit of the story, although I did elaborate in my PM to you. I still feel the contrail debate, fascinating as it was, has sent us off at rather a tangent. hoodie, fair point, it's certainly missing the "boat tail"

Quite possible it is something entirely new.
That planform does look odd; not a cranked arrow, not arcuate, no beaver tail like the B2.
I've long suspected there are a whole family of subsonic reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles that we're unaware of.
Nothing incredibly exotic, just variations on a theme - and I wonder if this is one of them.
Look at the Sentinel, Polecat, Bird of Prey.
Developed relatively quickly, and in secrecy.
I assume that rapid prototyping, large single composite piece manufacturing and re-using existing powerplants (and other bits like landing gear etc) means that new sub or transonic manned or unmanned prototypes can be developed reasonably quickly.
History seems to show its when you start wanting to go very fast, very high, very far or combinations of all three that programs get expensive, big and unwieldy.

Shot, if you sent me a PM, I didn't receive it.

ShotOne

No they weren't. Nor were the contrails on a Nimrod formed by mixing of the exhaust gases and the wing tip vortices.

Please note that from saudipc9's 747 photo the contrails are most definitely coming from the engines - they appear well before the wing tip vortex could have mixed with jet eflux. What happens further behind the 747 is the mixing of the contrail and vortex - but the contrail is NOT caused by mixing - that just changes the shape and look.
Only that the contrails from any type are formed from the jet exhaust and would be there whether there was a wing tip vortex or not. What happens further behind the aircraft when the two do mix is an entirely different question.
And yes, you can often tell the difference between 4-jet contrails and twin jet contrails.

Now back to the mystery aircraft. Given the graininess of the picture and lack of definition, I'm still sticking with B2. Try copying and pasting the photo into something that you can zoom in on (ie Word - other word processing software is available) and zoom in to 500% - to my eye you can see the "wings" and the trailing edge saw tooth. The trailing edge definition (as shown in Willard's earlier photo) is just lost in the pixelation of this photo.

A problems with them being B-2 is the response Douglass got from Public Affairs at Whiteman AFB (quoted at the page linked from the OP):

Now, there might be B-2s operated away from Whiteman (AFFTC is the obvious alternative), but 3 of them?

Maybe the photos are too poor, but I would still have expected to see evidence of a W trailing edge if a B-2.

I don't know what US FoI laws are like, but would the USAF necessarily confirm an operational, or even a training, sortie?

But they unequivocally said "Not ours" - they didn't say "I am unable to provide that information".

hoodie,

Given the modest resolution of the picture, and the unknown color of the underside of the boat tail, it's not impossible it's an X47. To be more sure you'd need to blur the image using the resolution response of the camera against a bright sky background, and include the effects of the uncertain elevation to the aircraft, which makes it appear shortened in the wingspan direction than if it was directly overhead, and so makes the wing sweep angle appear greater than it is.

The twin contrail is the clincher against X-47B for me. Your suggestion may be valid for B-2 if from somewhere other than Whiteman, though.

It just doesn't look like a B2 to me.


Posted from Pprune.org App for Android

Why are all you guys presuming it is an American aircraft? Don't you read the Iranian Press Releases? :rolleyes:
KB

If it'd nuked Texas we would've heard about it by now. Nebraska, on the other hand...

If, as an earlier poster seemed to suggest, this was in airspace not open to UAV's that certainly points to it not being one. In the post-wikileak age it would take impressively big cojones to flagrantly break the law in broad daylight.

Very happy to accept your word, Roland, on VC10 contrails. Not seen many lately for some reason:)

Alien craft or military spy plane?Alien craft or military spy plane?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Rm7okJdrqk

Northrop Grumman answer
 

Northrop Grumman Subscale Test Vehicle | Aerospace Projects Review Blog


http://http://i57.photobucket.com/al...psswxcpeen.jpg

I an trying to sort out where the passengers fit in this lovely design.

Graphic and story are not complimentary. The graphic show the payload as 463L pallets upon which cargo is shipped. It also shows 4 engines which at this size aircraft (based on weight) means roughly 100-120 pax if conventional aircraft are accurate for comparison. I don't see many airlines being interested in that in a relatively small aircraft.
I recognize this is a paper airplane and a lot of work remains but this looks like a plane designed with requirements closer to what the military would want than what the airlines would want.

Just for comparison, this was the second of two B2s overhead this QTH around 1330 local on Friday 13th June, ICOSA 12 I think

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/r...ps803a10ba.jpg

and zoomed in..

http://i478.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa6c0bc74.jpg

LRS-B already flying?
 

In current issue of Combat Aircraft, on the last article on page 112 by David Axe with the title "Is the US Air Force's New Bomber Already Flying?"

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ps2dc914e1.jpg

It was citing the circumstantial evidence that Northrop already has a prototype or two (or three in this case) flying for the entry into the Long Range Strike Bomber competition and a controversy that the USAF had decided there and there to choose Northrop which Boeing was not particularly happy with....

Cheers

Are you sure it wasn't United?

Apparently the B-2A has a rear facing laser, or "laser" (© Dr Evil), to detect contrails, thus enabling the computer, err... pilots, to adjust altitude.

BTW, could the pic be of a RQ-180? (See also http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...2-retired.html )

Wonder if it could be this?

Cheers

Northrop Teases New Bomber in New Ad

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...ps77pkonfi.jpg

I wonder what Walter & Reimar Horten would make of how their designs have evolved since the end of WWII and how they've been deployed.

JAS

probabaly cursing in some aviation heaven that they didn't get a world-wide patent on account of external difficulties - like a World War

You're not kidding. I was at Fairford last year and I witnessed a whole formation of highly secret aircraft fitted with some revolutionary new kind of engine. The contrails actually changed colour mid flight.

Didn't the B2 have a highly toxic chemical mix at some point during it's development that was supposed to prevent contrails? Can't remember what the chemical was now but I seem to remember it melted the containers that carried it.

Heard about that too, thing.

Stealth Aircraft Contrails

I think that's the SR-71?
Isn't there a reference somewhere to sled drivers once turning the contrail hiding mixture on and off in quick succession after exiting hostile territory to spell in morse an extremely rude word for female genitalia?!
Probably urban legend - but a great story...

Over Philippines
 

RQ-180?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...UslNtMu_sEVMYA


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....7a5c37a6a.jpeg

How good is US Met. at predicting contrail levels?

I ask because we were [I was] still struggling in 1997 when I retired. Devilish tricky stuff ..... best way to find out is fly¬

USAF ISR Heritage video
 

@2:33


Any thoughts please?

Cheers

Breakdown/analysis here….


https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...tealth-fighter