Current mystery aircraft / urban legends

[phrenzy]

This thread has moved on a little from the first page discussions but coming late to party...My theory as to why we have so few new birds is that there aren't as many out there. The majority of funding is going into new sensors, networking, C&C, incremental upgrades for legacy aircraft and weapons. The USAF is committed to a few types of interesting aircraft for the next couple decades at least so there Is relatively little need for new airframes. There are notable exceptions that have been mentioned here and I'm sure we're in for some cool bomber prototypes sooner or later (depending on your interpretation of recent photos mauve we already have one). Unfortunately all the money is being eaten by hyperspectral imaging sensors and F-35.

I think its easy to forget that we've been spoiled for for Chinese aircraft lately though.

 

[Ian33]

Boomer135 just gave out that he has refuelled the YF-24 as 'one of three demonstrators' he has refuelled over area 51. The kicker is that it had retractable canards.
The other being a mini B2'esque flying wing. Here is the link to the entire thread.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1015080/pg1

 

[Black Dog]

pure fantasy?

http://www.kgraradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AX-12.pdf

 

[Mr London 24/7]

From that author: Yes

 

[robunos]

pure fantasy?

http://www.kgraradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/AX-12.pdf

Well, we all know this guy's reputation, but from the link posted here :-

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,21745.msg223433.html#msg223433

'The hunt for the Flying Triangles is charging a head with the revelation that it is an off shoot of the cancelled Navy A-12 Avenger II and is called the F-119A. In reality it is a stealth cargo and SEAL team insertion craft. From what we, "The Interceptors" can surmise, it is a larger version of the Navy A-12, about 70% the size of the B-2A Stealth Bomber and is now operational.

The Inceptors, me being one of the original one's, are on the search for the home of this new stealth bird. It is believed it started out as a GD/FW and MacAir project that was taken over by the Skunk Works around 2000. It is also believed that Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works built 18 of these special purpose transports. There is some speculation that the operational base is Cannon AFB near Clovis NM. We, "The Interceptors," will nail down where it's not as time goes by and hopefully by elimination, figure out just where do you call home of a very big, 120-140 foot wide flying triangle.

In the for what it's worth department, my long time friend, Bill Sweetman and I go back about 40 some years and we coauthored the very first book on the F-117A Nighthawk back in 1990.'

cheers,
Robin.

 

[flateric]

...

 

[quellish]

Annie Jacobson, is that you?

 

[Black Dog]

...

;D hahaha I guess that settles that

 

[dannydale]

Oh hell.


I was wondering what trouble Ensign Prune and his damn girlfriend got into after stealing one of my prized antique shuttles from my starship. We were on a time travel archaeological SIGINT study mission back to mid-20th century Earth. These numbnuts promptly went AWOL on our arrival into low Earth orbit then divebombed right into the atmosphere somewhere over western North America before I could order phasers or get a transporter lock. Never saw those two p'takh or that super rare* expensive antique toy again.


*Just how rare? They owe me a Lockheed-Chevrolet Model Year 2149 Mk IV planetary scout observation vehicle in mint condition, four months travel time, and five thousand lightyears' mileage on my ship's warp drive to pick the shuttle up from way out in Wild Space after I paid for it. That thing was over a hundred years old!! There are only two originals in existence in the whole galaxy by 2264, and these idiots crashed one of them right through the Prime Directive into the planet we're studying on a Timewarp Slingshot mission!


Sorry for the bloody mess, yall. I need a drink ;D

 

[Black Dog]

http://www.dreamlandresort.com/trip_reports/trip_020.html

Saw this mentioned just briefly before in this thread on Pg3. Maybe this could be the F-121 Sentinel (Centennial?) from the Hughes Electronics picture/poster?

 

[Stargazer]

Saw this mentioned just briefly before in this thread on Pg3. Maybe this could be the F-121 Sentinel (Centennial?) from the Hughes Electronics picture/poster?

The Fastmover/Sentinel connection has been rumored for 15 years. This page already existed in an earlier form back then.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Ummm.....NO!

 

[John21]

What I'm wondering is how the abovetopsecret.com members boomer135 and Zaphod58 can get away with discussing classified aircraft like they do? Boomer135 even mentioned that photos of the YF-24 have hit the deep web.
Here's the page with the info:
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1015080/pg1

 

[Black Dog]

Good luck finding that photo...

 

[John21]

Yeah, well it probably doesn't even exist, or if it did its been scrubbed by now. I don't have access to TOR/.onion/deep web anyway. I'm still wondering what the point of a black YF-24/fighter competition would be any way since during the time period it was supposed to be in development we also had development of the F-22,JSF, and Super-Hornet?

 

[Black Dog]

From what I read it was either supposed to some cheaper backup in case the F-22 got axed or an early prototype for JSF/JAST, but I could be wrong.

 

[bob225]

Re the comments of posters on other forums:

You're assuming they are genuine and what they claim, both about projects and what they've seen / done is true.


I think, in my opinion anyway, that the comments on other forums need to be taken with a sizeable pinch of salt.


I have the feeling the "pictures" referred to are probably those patent drawings, rather than actual photos of the real deal.


Just a lurkers opinion

 

[John21]

From what I read it was either supposed to some cheaper backup in case the F-22 got axed or an early prototype for JSF/JAST, but I could be wrong.

Why would something like that remain in the black/gray for so long though? Seems kind of contradictory compared to all the other stuff that could be out there.

 

[Flyaway]

From that author: Yes

Just out of interest I don't really know the history here but what's your background on this statement?

 

[Mr London 24/7]

I feel no particular need to go into anything: be my guest to Google Michael Schratt....

 

[phrenzy]

From what I read it was either supposed to some cheaper backup in case the F-22 got axed or an early prototype for JSF/JAST, but I could be wrong.

Why would something like that remain in the black/gray for so long though? Seems kind of contradictory compared to all the other stuff that could be out there.

It's acknowledged that there's all sorts of interesting stuff buried on the desert or warehoused. They may want to revive it for a fb-22 style program or employ it in some other way, no need to show it off more than required. Perhaps it employed some technology that would be obviously visible in a roll out (faring for a DEW or the like, unlikely as that specific example is). Perhaps they came up with some new stealth shaping technique or new approach to thrust vectoring. Any of those things would warrant keeping it under wraps since they might be employed in something else later or even picked up if the yf-24 is ever needed.

I suppose the real question is why they would roll it out?

Regarding scrubbing ATS posts, the cats out of the bag, nothing would lend more credence to their claims than that thread being deleted on the servers and backups. Of course to avoid that I'm sure any interested parties would just kill the forum so as to avoid looking like it was targeting something specific. Can you imagine if that happened? Their little paranoid minds would explode. Everyone who posted in the last couple days would assume that their freshly posted pet theory or tidbit was as good as confirmed. Orbital water fluridation Chem trail space planes were already common knowledge, but now we know for sure!

Killing any picture, if it ever really existed, on the darkweb makes more sense though. It's become a bit if a joke though. If you know where to look it's all there apparently, a picture if a tr-3 from an arial refuel during desert storm, pictures from the Machrihanish crash, brilliant buzzard footage and now the yf-24. Of course nobody using Tor has figured out how to use the advanced copy and paste technology to put it on the regular Web.

 

[Flyaway]

I feel no particular need to go into anything: be my guest to Google Michael Schratt....

Well so he's a CT of some type, hardly unexpected.....

 

[hesham]

From Les Avions Furtifs.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Schratt sometimes posts interesting potential conventional aircraft line art - he's a bit frustrating in that he sometimes straddles too far into the "ufos from space" thing but then he produces art that is definitely a conventional aircraft that would seem to indicate that he is a black aircraft watcher/enthusiast.

Much of his art is based on sightings that other people describe though so maybe he just isn't discerning about what he receives and just cranks it out.

The two pictures towards the end of the thread here (the red white and blue aircraft and the aircraft with the canards) sure seem plausible. Many of the myths/legends in the thread here over time seemed "too futuristic" whereas some seemed entirely plausible.

At any rate, it will be interesting to see where this develops over the next few years.

 

[Dynoman]

The picture looks a little like the ATF project. There are rumors of a bomber variant of the YF-23, which was first proposed in the early 2000's. Northrop (along with Lockheed) submitted a proposal to the USAF for an F-111 replacement aircraft. They took PAV-2 and modified it as a mockup of what the variant would look like (since then its been returned to its original configuration and placed in a museum). I've not seen any pictures of the reconfiguration or any additional information on the variant having progressed further than the mockup. USAF wanted a longer range system and pursued what became the B-21 program. Yet rumors persist.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

Maybe the journalist who coined the designation TR-3 mistakenly thought that ER-2 was part of the R-for-reconnaissance series, unaware that ER stood for "Earth Resources", not Electronic Reconnaissance. In any case, TR-3 is best considered a fictitious designation invented by someone who had little technical knowledge of military aircraft designations.

No. The designation was from a top decider's words, someone from Congress, DoD or such. I wish I could get my hands on the article... I saved it somewhere. But it may take me a while until it resurfaces.

In a 2006 article published in Space Review, titled "Six Blind Men in a Zoo", Dwayne Day states that William Scott became aware of the development of the Tier III stealth reconnaissance drone program (a follow-on to Quartz, a cancelled CIA program for an SR-71 successor), and thus he misinterpreted Tier III as TR-3. Because he knew of the Tier III program, Scott speculated that America was deploying a stealthy reconnaissance flying wing.

 

[Vahe Demirjian]

The TR-3 was probably the confluence of several things: Misreporting of the Tier UAVs early in the program, and eyewitness sightings of other triangular aircraft flying on the western test ranges at the time.

That's right. In a 2006 article published in Space Review, titled "Six Blind Men in a Zoo", Dwayne Day states that William Scott knew of development of the Tier III stealth reconnaissance drone program (a follow-on to Quartz, a cancelled CIA program for an SR-71 successor), and thus corrupted the Tier III name to TR-3. It's possible, though unconfirmed, that Lockheed, Northrop, and other major US aerospace companies were testing subscale demonstrators for their Tier III proposals (not to confused with Tier III Minus, which led to the Lockheed Martin RQ-3 DarkStar), which could account for sighting of mysterious flying wings over Antelope Valley in the early 1990s.

 

[quellish]

It's possible, though unconfirmed, that Lockheed, Northrop, and other major US aerospace companies were testing subscale demonstrators for their Tier III proposals

There were no solicited Tier III proposals from other companies, only Lockheed/Boeing. It was to be a "consolation prize" for QUARTZ. As Tier III evolved into Tier III- the "consolation prize" continued, which is why there was no open competition for that project.

 

[Archibald]

I often think that growing up in the 1950s must have been a marvelous experience, what with all the rapid technological advances and powerful visions of the future. Every month you had magazines such as Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and the likes full to the brim with all sorts of innovations and hundreds of possibilities to improve our daily life in the near future... or so they thought. Today you get a new plane every year or about, and even then it's rarely very different from what already exists.

Spot on. Imagine, going from Boeing P-26 Peashooter to Apollo and Viking within a mere 40 years (1937-1977). With the innumerable technological steps between them.
The 50's and the "race for the ultimate nuclear vector" are mind blowing. From B-29 to Polaris nuclear subs within 15 years.

 

[RavenOne]

As i mentioned in the TR-3A Manta thread ..dug up my late 90s F-117 collection (t shirt from RAF Mildenhall Air Fete from the 117 Unit).

Anyhow like to draw your attention to extract from my first book ..AirPower Special published in1995.

The author mentions some unmanned vehicle tested few times then broken up and buried deep in the desert when explaining the myths of the TR-3.

 

[In_A_Dream]

I believe these two aircraft coalesced eventually for a strategic purpose.

Both going dark heading into the 70s.

 

[quellish]

As i mentioned in the TR-3A Manta thread ..dug up my late 90s F-117 collection (t shirt from RAF Mildenhall Air Fete from the 117 Unit).

Anyhow like to draw your attention to extract from my first book ..AirPower Special published in1995.

The author mentions some unmanned vehicle tested few times then broken up and buried deep in the desert when explaining the myths of the TR-3.

Hypothetically, an AARS airframe was built and flown, succumbed to flutter and was destroyed with the wreckage disposed of.
Hypothetically.

 

[Nik]

Consider the alternative hypothesis that a quorum of these rumours are modern equivalent of the wilder stuff in eg 'Modern Mechanix' etc during WW2. Given how hard to prove a negative, and given eg Barnes Wallis' all-too-real 'Bouncing Bombs', those 'artistic license' whatsits must have given many 'Durch Technik' guys a drink problem. Knowing much may just be misdirection / mind-games just opens the mirror-maze to nigh-infinite recursion...

 

[Dynoman]

I was wondering where the 'Fire Eagle' rumor originated? I have read that the "Fire Eagle' was associated with the YF-24 designation and then I've read elsewhere that the 'Fire Eagle' was a tailless F-15. The patch below has also been linked to the Fire Eagle. I have also heard a rumor that the aircraft crashed and that a USAF test pilot flying the aircraft ejected with severe injuries, but recovered.

 

[Whisperstream]

I was wondering where the 'Fire Eagle' rumor originated? I have read that the "Fire Eagle' was associated with the YF-24 designation and then I've read elsewhere that the 'Fire Eagle' was a tailless F-15. The patch below has also been linked to the Fire Eagle. I have also heard a rumor that the aircraft crashed and that a USAF test pilot flying the aircraft ejected with severe injuries, but recovered.

That patch was from a Groom Lake project circa late 1990s. It was one of two patches associated with Col Joe Lanni, who made two "first flights" in secret aircraft. One of those was supposedly the YF-24 as mentioned in his USAF bio. I have been told that the patch signified "a demonstrator program for which there was a later follow-on." It's strictly hearsay but the source seemed credible.

 

[In_A_Dream]

I was wondering where the 'Fire Eagle' rumor originated? I have read that the "Fire Eagle' was associated with the YF-24 designation and then I've read elsewhere that the 'Fire Eagle' was a tailless F-15. The patch below has also been linked to the Fire Eagle. I have also heard a rumor that the aircraft crashed and that a USAF test pilot flying the aircraft ejected with severe injuries, but recovered.

If that patch is authentic, it does have references to Groom Lake & Det 3, but the Latin phrase at the bottom looks to be referencing space.

 

[Dynoman]

I believe it means "Freedom throughout the Cosmos"

 

[uk 75]

The RAF's first large bomber entered service in 1916 and retired in 1922.

Handley Page Type O - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Vulcan B2 managed some twenty years. The RAF's last bomber (well sort of) Tornado managed some thirty years.
That lifespan would have seen 0/400s bombing Germany throughout WW2.
By the same token the SR71 looks as futuristic now as it did when I was nine years old!

 

[Dynoman]

It was one of two patches associated with Col Joe Lanni

What was the other patch associated with Col Joe Lanni?

 

[Whisperstream]

It was one of two patches associated with Col Joe Lanni

What was the other patch associated with Col Joe Lanni?

It was an emblem that seems to have very close association with what we now know as the Dark Knights. That is to say there were a number of common design elements and themes but with some significant differences. The interesting thing is that the emblem in question dates to sometime between 1992 and 2002. That is quite a long time prior to the F-117A fleet retirement. I received a Dark Knights challenge coin from Tonopah Test Range (TTR) in 2014, the one with the current unit emblem.

I wondered at the time whether the F-117A might be serving the Dark Knights in a similar capacity to that of the A-7s assigned to the earlier 4450th Tactical Group at TTR. Back when the F-117A was still classified, the A-7s provided both a plausible cover story for the existence of the 4450th and a platform for daytime proficiency flying. Those A-7s also served in a variety of unclassified mission support roles including flying chase for cruise missile testing. Now, the F-117A is providing support in a "Red Air" capacity. This is happening in a very visible way, and attracting a great deal of attention. Is it distracting us from something else? I don't have the answers but it is interesting to ponder.