Then I suppose both of you have missed the point: I replied to Black Dog as he is referring to posts made on ATS. My point was that a particular poster there is the source for the jalopnik article. The idea of a companion aircraft has credibility for me due to that one individual. Companion mission is something still only hinted of ('buddy-lasing' is of the TR-3a/F-19 theme).
Mr London 24/7 said:
Talk of a 'TR-3A' or 'F-19' completely discredited all early mention of an F-117 Companion from late-Eighties/early-Nineties (and continues to do so).
However... the former boom operator who has given brief details of such an aircraft on ATS in the last year is the real deal:
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/confessions-of-a-usaf-kc-135-flying-gas-station-boom-op-1578048155
(See also http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,16089.msg170370.html#msg170370)
The idea that the "TR-3" serves as a high altitude lasing platform for the F-117 is odd. Lasers don't work so well from high altitude, or through weather. The F-117 wasn't designed to hit mobile targets which might necessitate such a "buddy" platform.
Throughout the 80s the press reported that the stealth fighter was the product of the "CSIRS" program (Covert Survivable In-Weather Recce/Strike). When the F-117 was revealed to be a strike aircraft, some people wondered where the covert recce component was. This may have been where the idea of a "buddy" aircraft came from, at least in relation to the "TR-3". Now there is some certainty that there was no "CSIRS" program at all.
Hello,
Alongside Dr David Clarke of Sheffield Hallam University, I was recently involved in a small way in finding and publicising an original print of the 1990 Calvine "diamond" photo (see:
https://drdavidclarke.co.uk/2022/08/12/the-calvine-ufo-revealed/)
View attachment 684084
Assuming, for a moment, that the photo shows a real vehicle, and perhaps ignoring the alleged witness claim that it was hovering and silent, I was wondering whether anyone with knowledge of black project UAVs could say whether they feel it fits the bill as having been created under/within AARS, please? I am specifically thinking of QUARTZ, TEAL CAMEO, TEAL RAIN, etc.
I have been reading "Air Force UAVS - The Secret History" by Thomas Ehrhard (
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA526045.pdf) and several other detailed posts on SP - many from quite a few years ago - that hint that there might well have been a super-UAV (very expensive, long-endurance, stealthy, etc) made in the late 80s and early 90s that was the "cat's pyjamas", a real quantum leap in tech, to be used for locating and tracking Soviet SS-24 and SS-25 rail- and road-mounted ICBMs in the days preceding WW3.
Elsewhere, I also know that Dr Clarke was interviewing a former high-level defence source when the latter,
unprompted, turned the conversation to Calvine and said:
that the diamond was real,
that it was American,
that it had been tested over the low countries (presumably playing a part in the 1989-1991 UFO flap),
that it was used in the Gulf War,
and that its defining purpose had been to loiter over enemy territory and scan for targets to be subsequently destroyed by B-2 stealth bombers.
If anyone is also able to privately share a copy of the PhD thesis, Ehrhard, Thomas, "Unmanned aerial vehicles in the United States armed services: A comparative study of weapon system innovation", I'd be grateful to hear from them, too.
Thank you.