Secret Stealth VTOL Transport - "Senior Citizen"

Matej said:
Who other than Matej knows :D There is a problem, because we are talking about two different designs. I made my drawings from scetch that I received from my reliable source in USA. Similar but smaller I later found here: http://members.macconnect.com/users/q/quellish/Other/other.html

Info about "employee cause" can be found in another Skunk Works Digest (v05.n395):

"The picture is of a turbofan powered, low-observable ('Stealth') V/STOL advanced tactical transport design, and is taken from the technical paper "Technology and design considerations for an advanced theater transport", 1990, by Richard Wible, Technology Exploitation Directorate, Wright-Patterson AFB. This may be similar or very close to Program Element 0401316F, SENIOR CITIZEN. In the same GIF is a picture of a Boeing "Advanced Theater Transport" aircraft design, provided by Rick Pavek (kuryakin@arn.net)."

This is the reason why I was so surprised, when you sent me bigger one with name that suggests, that it is not Boeing but Lockheed design.
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Well, now that would be quite a surprise... (!) I have seen drawing of that aircraft quite a number of times (something badly reproduced line drawing which looked difformed) but with 2 major differences: the underside and wing as well as propulsion system looked like it was a waverider !! There was a clear engine module typical of hypersonic aircrafts underneath (no over-fuselage inlet nor fans). And, guess what.. ? When i was quizzing Prof. Cszyz several years ago during my research about 'Aurora' and what the shape of a true hypersonic aircraft looks like, after exchanging many little drawings and reference paper titles, he pointed me to that one and said: THAT is the shape of a typical hypersonic aircraft. I was dubious at first, because i know his answers are often like Russian dolls, dubious because i thought this project was too recent and might have been conceived After Aurora.. Well... now i see the same shape all over again, but now with VTOL fans and what not.. surprising. Why would they use a waverider shape to propose a VTOL stealth transport... One of those two must be disinformation if you ask me.
 

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interesting, that giant VTOL SOFA promoted in 'Monsters vs. Aliens' ;)





 
...A stealth Super Guppy! You'd think only Gerry Anderson would have tried something like this ;D
 
We should start attibuting the more fanciful designs to OKB Andreyevich.
 
My old scan from NG document
 

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Is there supposed to be a lift post at the back as well? maybe deflection of the cruise engine exhaust? I see four lift-fan doors on the 20- nad 40% of the wing chord, and it seems like without some lift at the back, the centroid of hover lift would not be on the cg...
 
CammNut has it better
 

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In 2006 I did a page on Senior Citizen for my upcoming aviation site and featured it on the Stargazer website because of Rutan's implication in the sub-scale demonstrator.
In case some of those interested in the program may not have seen it, here's the link:

http://stargazer2006.online.fr/aircraft/citizen.htm

As usual, I more than welcome criticism, if constructive, and any additions/corrections you may provide...
 
Stargazer2006 said:
In 2006 I did a page on Senior Citizen for my upcoming aviation site and featured it on the Stargazer website because of Rutan's implication in the sub-scale demonstrator.
In case some of those interested in the program may not have seen it, here's the link:

http://stargazer2006.online.fr/aircraft/citizen.htm

As usual, I more than welcome criticism, if constructive, and any additions/corrections you may provide...
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What is very interesting to me is that the specifics of the Coanda implementation you describe Northrop using on SENIOR CITIZEN closely match their more recent work on AJACS, described here:
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,2765.msg49048.html
 
Hi,

and from 1986,Flightglobal.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1986/1986%20-%202722.html
 

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looks like there are two (shaft driven or direct lift engine) lift fans in the front, per side.
But what's in the back? Is that a flap? a 2D nozzle?
 
The demonstrator will support the Advanced Joint Air Combat System (AJACS) now in requirements definition within the USAF’s Air Mobility Command. Formerly called AMC-X, AJACS is envisaged as a future replacement for the Lockheed Martin C-130 tactical transport. Other AFRL efforts are looking at embedded aero-propulsion concepts for extreme STOL capability.

Companies that registered interest in bidding for the demonstrator contract include Alenia North America, Lockheed, Piasecki Aircraft and Voyager Aerospace. The latter was formed by Dick Rutan, who says he has been working with brother Burt [yeah, that Burt Rutan] on a twin-engined light cargo aircraft "for 15-plus years", but could not provide details of the design or its status.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/03/there_are_so_fe/
 
All very interesting. However, if we assume that that this stealth transport is for say, the covert insertion of S/F, it's a bit of a downer that the moment you open the fan doors to transition to thrust borne flight, you instantly have the RCS of a semi detached house.

Also be careful of any 'saucer like' Coanda VTOL system. There are significant engineering problems with them. Yes there is a UAV company touting one around but try operating one on a windy day......nuff said.

S
(raining on parades)
 
Orionblamblam said:
AeroFranz said:
Is there supposed to be a lift post at the back as well?
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That's a problem I've got with this as well. There pretty much *has* to be something further aft.
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I'd surmise that it's similar to the aft thrust post in McDD+NG's JSF proposal.
 
shedofdread said:
All very interesting. However, if we assume that that this stealth transport is for say, the covert insertion of S/F, it's a bit of a downer that the moment you open the fan doors to transition to thrust borne flight, you instantly have the RCS of a semi detached house.

Also be careful of any 'saucer like' Coanda VTOL system. There are significant engineering problems with them. Yes there is a UAV company touting one around but try operating one on a windy day......nuff said.

S
(raining on parades)
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Well thousands of people from different countries have reported various flying triangles, which would seem statistically unlikely to be part of a combined hoax. I believe when you have access to the smartest guys on the planet, and combine them with the biggest black budget on the planet, engineering problems are transformed from "impossible" to just "expensive".

Some air group somewhere has something triangular and very awesome. Its just a shame that the geniuses behind it wont get their Kelly Johnson "rock star" celebrity status for what they've done. I hope the pay was good at least.
 
sublight said:
Well thousands of people from different countries have reported various flying triangles, which would seem statistically unlikely to be part of a combined hoax. I believe when you have access to the smartest guys on the planet, and combine them with the biggest black budget on the planet, engineering problems are transformed from "impossible" to just "expensive".

Some air group somewhere has something triangular and very awesome. Its just a shame that the geniuses behind it wont get their Kelly Johnson "rock star" celebrity status for what they've done. I hope the pay was good at least.
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You seem to be implying that making a triangular aircraft is difficult. The A-12, B-2, RQ-170, and others fit this description easily and were not particularly impossible aerodynamically.
 
quellish said:
You seem to be implying that making a triangular aircraft is difficult. The A-12, B-2, RQ-170, and others fit this description easily and were not particularly impossible aerodynamically.
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No, I was making the argument that the other seemingly impossible aspects, either coanda or lift fan with terrible RCS must have been overcome with ridiculous amounts of funding.
 
sublight said:
No, I was making the argument that the other seemingly impossible aspects, either coanda or lift fan with terrible RCS must have been overcome with ridiculous amounts of funding.
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Money does not change the laws of fluid dynamics, unfortunately.
 
Just logged back in. However, Quellish has rather made most of my points for me (the cheque's 'in the post'). One further one is that IF such a platform existed, the most dangerous time for it would be when it is on the ground. Sadly, all it would take is one RPG round and on the ground it would stay. So, it's highly unlikey from a CONOPS point of view that you would want to land such a cutting edge platform. That rather negates it's usefullness. Put another way, it's like landing one of your B2s outside a FOB in Helmand (were it to have STOL / rough field capability).

On a vaguely related note, I seem to recall seeing a WW2 F-W concept for a fan in wing VTOL system.

S
(Who joined this forum because of the apparent standard of debate and information disseminated - Not been dissapointed)
 
Well since we can all mostly agree that it or a variant exists, howabout instead of debating the possibilities of its lift system, you guys theorize on where it might be stationed so some of us can try and get a shot of it.... :)
 
sublight said:
Well since we can all mostly agree that it or a variant exists, howabout instead of debating the possibilities of its lift system, you guys theorize on where it might be stationed so some of us can try and get a shot of it.... :)
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Oh no, nothing like this is operational. If anything was flown, it was as a demonstrator and nothing more. The existence of current, well funded programs that are trying to fulfill essentially the same requirements is just one of many indicators that SENIOR CITIZEN never went into even limited production.

But to more directly answer the question...
If it's AF Special Operations, it's based at Hurlburt/Eglin.
If it's a covert program, it's based at either TTR or Edwards/DET3.

If it were an operational aircraft, there would need to be a unit to fly it. Prior to the late 90s these were easy to find - any AF unit with a 4xxx number was almost certainly doing something shady. For example, the 4200th Support Group. Now that is not true, but nonetheless the recent disclosures surrounding the RQ-170 program highlight current USAF best practices for covert programs.
You also need spare parts, personnel with the right training and experience, fuel, and of course money. For any given program you should be able to find documentation in the public domain disclosing some of these things being diverted somewhere. For example, you can find plenty of information on fuel and construction contracts for TTR at the time that the "classified predator unit" was starting up. You can also find there were no Predators allocated to the unit, and that it was the wrong kind of fuel.

As far as SENIOR CITIZEN, it remains something of an enigma. The program definitely had money allocated to it in amounts that indicated either a demonstrator was being tested. Later programs, such as JSF and AJACS seemed to benefit from prior work that could have been conducted as part of SENIOR CITIZEN. At the same time, if SENIOR CITIZEN was a powered-lift V/STOL aircraft it would need a hover pit for testing. Those are kind of hard to hide, and DET 3 did not have anything like that during the years that SENIOR CITIZEN was running. If the demonstrator was simulating something the size of a small transport, it would have to be a hover pit designed for more stress than the ones used for JSF - which should be easy to find. So far, I have not located any new test facilities that could support such a program.
 
If such a platform were to be tested for conceptual viability, I would suggest that a sub scale (maybe not even manned) demonstrator would be a good way of proving the technology (control systems particularly) and hence 'de-risking' the project in later, far more expensive phases. Should this be the case, the hover pit you would need might only be sort of size that you would ground run a Harrier over....

S
(anticipating the time when project 'Senior Moment' is revealed)
 
From a Michael Schratt interview.... What is that document?
 

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sublight said:
From a Michael Schratt interview.... What is that document?
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I know what this is.
That is an espresso machine.
No wait. It's a snow cone maker.
Is it a water heater?
 
aim9xray said:
Tom Servo?
Crow?
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The Governator B)

Orionblamblam said:
Ballsy. Stupid, but ballsy.
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Is that an Arnocorps reference? ;D

Seriously, Schratt's document looks like nothing more than a collection of fan-art and patent material. Most of it looks familiar, even at that low resolution.
 
Stargazer, may I ask where you got the following verbiage?

As it had to be invisible to radar, infrared and acoustic sensors (even to the naked eye), the ASALT/SENIOR CITIZEN is something of a technological challenge. The aircraft is of triangular shape and fitted with three lights of variable intensity, positioned on each of the three angles. Their purpose may be to conceal the aircraft's true shape at night. In daytime, other lights may be used in greater number to hide the plane, making it invisible beyond 3 kilometers. More recent information has transpired about SENIOR CITIZEN. In 1990, additional flight testing is said to have taken place in Tehachapi Mountains, near Northrop's Tejon Canyon microwave research center. Witnesses describe a flat, triangular aircraft with rounded nose and leading edge. The example observed presented a black area in its middle.

Because if that info is correct, then this is very likely the Senior Citizen...
 

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sublight said:
Stargazer, may I ask where you got the following verbiage?

As it had to be invisible to radar, infrared and acoustic sensors (even to the naked eye), the ASALT/SENIOR CITIZEN is something of a technological challenge. The aircraft is of triangular shape and fitted with three lights of variable intensity, positioned on each of the three angles. Their purpose may be to conceal the aircraft's true shape at night. In daytime, other lights may be used in greater number to hide the plane, making it invisible beyond 3 kilometers. More recent information has transpired about SENIOR CITIZEN. In 1990, additional flight testing is said to have taken place in Tehachapi Mountains, near Northrop's Tejon Canyon microwave research center. Witnesses describe a flat, triangular aircraft with rounded nose and leading edge. The example observed presented a black area in its middle.

Because if that info is correct, then this is very likely the Senior Citizen...
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Ha! This originates in an unpublished 2004 web page on secret aircraft in which I basically tried to synthesize all the info I found on other sites and give them some coherence (and also chop off all the garbage). As some of you may know already, most of my pre-2006 files, sources, documents (including many of my Rutan-related material) disappeared in a computer crashdown and as I didn't always specify my sources at the time, I have utterly no idea where I got this one from, sorry. However, it would be reasonable to add a mention on that page that most of the info, if plausible, is still unverified.
 
sublight said:
Stargazer, may I ask where you got the following verbiage?

As it had to be invisible to radar, infrared and acoustic sensors (even to the naked eye), the ASALT/SENIOR CITIZEN is something of a technological challenge. The aircraft is of triangular shape and fitted with three lights of variable intensity, positioned on each of the three angles. Their purpose may be to conceal the aircraft's true shape at night. In daytime, other lights may be used in greater number to hide the plane, making it invisible beyond 3 kilometers. More recent information has transpired about SENIOR CITIZEN. In 1990, additional flight testing is said to have taken place in Tehachapi Mountains, near Northrop's Tejon Canyon microwave research center. Witnesses describe a flat, triangular aircraft with rounded nose and leading edge. The example observed presented a black area in its middle.

Because if that info is correct, then this is very likely the Senior Citizen...
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That is DEFINITELY an espresso machine.
 
quellish said:
That is DEFINITELY an espresso machine.
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And this is a snow cone maker (you can guess who the driver is).

Now, can you imagine this - french fry smell or not - driving into the black lighted thing pictured?
 

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Regardless of how odd it looks, thousands of people saw the craft in that picture. It matches up rather nicely with what stargazer posted.
 
sublight said:
Stargazer, may I ask where you got the following verbiage?

As it had to be invisible to radar, infrared and acoustic sensors (even to the naked eye), the ASALT/SENIOR CITIZEN is something of a technological challenge. The aircraft is of triangular shape and fitted with three lights of variable intensity, positioned on each of the three angles. Their purpose may be to conceal the aircraft's true shape at night. In daytime, other lights may be used in greater number to hide the plane, making it invisible beyond 3 kilometers. More recent information has transpired about SENIOR CITIZEN. In 1990, additional flight testing is said to have taken place in Tehachapi Mountains, near Northrop's Tejon Canyon microwave research center. Witnesses describe a flat, triangular aircraft with rounded nose and leading edge. The example observed presented a black area in its middle.

Because if that info is correct, then this is very likely the Senior Citizen...
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Well... The craft in the 1990 Belgian UFO wave did do some incredible manoeuvres on this vid, so I doubt it would have been a transport aircraft.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3qA-TY6rFg&feature=related
 

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