Well there you go.
You learn sumfing everyday.
As late as the late 90's...
The gap between the YF-12 / D-21 - SR-71 and the space shuttle was clearly full of some very interesting ideas - some of which still haven't seen the light of day.
I seem to remember a story from somewhere about a very interesting evolutionary chart, which is quite an eye opener, on the wall of a corridor or room at the Skunk Works.

Hello,

First time poster/long time lurker here. This thread has lot of beautiful ideas and tidbits, some of them I can confirm with the things I know.
Gulf War I - F-117s flew along with another, yet undisclosed, bird. The unknown aircraft played as an "door-opener" for Nighthawks during their bombing runs. The situation happened again in the early 2000's during the first few nights of OIF. The unknown bird was supposed to be around a few years back, way after they retired F-117. So it is more like just "Nighthawk's helper". It is EW jet with little strike potential, too. It was built in smaller numbers than F-117.

A question to Ewan Whosearmy:
Could you provide name of the pilot's autobiography? Would love to read it!

So what is the Mil verdict on Putin's allegedly untouchable Mach 20 cruise missile?

Yes that's Mach 20 not a misprint.

One thing for sure....over taking it from its Six O'Clock will take some doing I suppose!

To SpeedFanatic - it was "A Passion for Flying " by Tom Eeles

If Tom said he'd seen something, you may rest assured that he certainly did!

But as for what it was....??

Thank you, Beancountercumru!

Well, as I see there is no actual description of how the plane looked like. Tom Eeles just confirmed he saw something unusual because of the sound the aircraft(s) made. There isn't anything about the planform design unfortunately, so we really can't say whether it was triangular shape or not...

Considering the secrecy and security levels for Groom Lake/Area 51...and knowing its background....one must wonder why it continues yet today.

There must be some very sensitive programs going on there for sure.

Not far from my current abode there is a small government facility.....where booms and bangs are frequently heard....and in the past small groups of very hard men trained there for a take down of a rather high value target in an unfriendly friendly country not our own.

Lots of secret locations to be considered.

It is good I suppose that the general public do not know everything that is going on at most of those places.

Heck, we hardly know what's going on in DC, or at least have become so calloused to the nonsense we won't do anything about it.

Oh please....don't get me started on that topic!

There are a swoop of folks in Congress that have no clue of what is going on much less what is going on outside of Congress!:ugh:

About this time of year, back in 1996, I was living next to what had, until quite recently, been a USAF base in the UK. Late one night I was out in the rear garden and saw two white lights above the trees in the direction of the old base. These two lights approached and eventually I could make out that they were on the wingtips of something quite large and kite-shaped. Whatever it was flew over my head, over my house and continued in a straight line, visible for a good ten minutes. It wasn't really possible to get an idea of scale but it reminded me of standing under a B-52 on finals. There was no sound at all. I had always assumed that it was some US black project and, perhaps, the pilot had come to have a look at where he'd previously been based.

The link to the declassified documents is the first time I've ever seen anything that looked remotely similar. Figure 8 on page 9-10 shows a "stealthy ucav concent" which, I assume, should read concept. It's the right sort of shape but I have no idea about size or whether this was actually built. Fascinating read, though.

I am assuming that the X 37B has been produced at one of these sights, people are being very coy (quite right) about what it has been doing up there.

Google X-47c.

Apparently so. The plasma sheath prevents radio comms down to the ground, but not upwards towards satellites. I understand that the plasma tube left behind a re-entering vehicle acts a bit like a waveguide. Back in Apollo's days the US didn't have the in-space comms infrastructure that exists today (and over the past 20+ years).

Pretty sure that a M5, M6 (e.g. X-15) aircraft isn't generating a plasma out of the air it's hitting; it's just getting jolly hot. At the start of reentry, Shuttle was moving at about M17...