aliensporebomb
If it flies, it's probably interesting...
Hi. Todd from Minneapolis here. Systems Administrator in I.T. for the day gig, sometime musician, sometime road cyclist but always interested in aircraft since I was a child.
Why this was interesting starts back in 1976/1977 in sixth grade my school friend told me that the government was working on a new kind of "Stealth" plane invisible to radar. I thought that was very weird because it was an interesting concept but as time went by, I wondered how my sixth grade friend knew about this and how he was so sure it was being worked on. It's not like it was publicized in the newspaper or television. Or was it? How did he know? He said he heard it in the newspaper but I never did really find out for sure.
That lead me to doing some crazy things - I used to lie on my back in my parents backyard with binoculars looking straight up hoping I would see something interesting. Well, once I did: a weird blue F-15-ish type aircraft but more streamlined that I caught a glimpse of that made me wonder if there were "other kinds of planes that nobody knew about out there".
I would read articles on aviation, build aircraft models and marvel at planes like the SR-71 and the swing wing F-111 and thought "the people behind these designs not only have a knack for interesting looking airplanes...they have to be smart too." I was fascinated and got into aviation. During high school there was an aviation class you could take and a lot of the stoner kids would take it thinking it would be easy but it was full of navigation and flight stuff like you were preparing for your license.
One of the stoner kids stole the teachers grade book right before the end of the class quarter and he based our grades on the final test. I got an A- in that one and the very last day of class we all got trucked to flying cloud airport in Eden Prairie Minnesota to check out our teachers plane - a Piper Cub if I recall. Everyone got to go up and he'd take turns flying everyone around the airport.
I was in the last group to go up and he let me fly his plane - the only student to get that privilege - and our flight lasted longer. It
made a big impression! I soon learned that flying for a hobby was an expensive endevor and that also my vision was pretty poor.
I needed horrible thick corrective lenses and soon got into computers and started playing with flight simulators. Today I use X-Plane
to fly my virtual aircraft around.
Anyway, the biggest impetus for me being on this forum is what I saw on 2/14/89 with an ex-girlfriend in Biscay, Minnesota. Two black
unacknowledged VS/TOL aircraft hovering low over a field, passing low over our stopped car and slowing to walking speed, then turning
quietly and flying to the southeast. It was amazing to see what I believe to be classified aircraft flying right in front of me. And two of
them to boot. With the quietest jet engines I've ever heard. At first my ex-girl thought they were UFOs coming to take her away!
I later talked to my neighbor about it who was a pilot for Northwest Airlines for many years and asked if there was anything special
about Biscay in terms of aviation. He did mention it was a transit corridor for aircraft moving from one area of the country to the other.
Then I passed what I'd seen to Steve Douglass since he's seen interesting flying "somethings" and he passed it to Jim Goodall who
believed they were prototypes "flying in the midwest and Michigan".
I've never seen those craft again, before or since and I still describe them the same way: Overall "truck like" appearance with stubby downwardly canted tailplanes on the empennage and not being particularly streamlined overall. The cockpit being somewhat raised up above the nose not too recessed into the body. Two dim yellow lights at the back of the wings pointing downward (behind the landing gear which was raised under covers) . A red rotating beacon under the front of the nose and the standard red and green navigation lights on the wingtips. The nose seemed like it may have had hexagonal faceting on it but it was at dusk and it was kind of hard to see sharp details.
Amazing that happened 22 years ago and whatever they were they apparently are still classified or never went into production.
Why this was interesting starts back in 1976/1977 in sixth grade my school friend told me that the government was working on a new kind of "Stealth" plane invisible to radar. I thought that was very weird because it was an interesting concept but as time went by, I wondered how my sixth grade friend knew about this and how he was so sure it was being worked on. It's not like it was publicized in the newspaper or television. Or was it? How did he know? He said he heard it in the newspaper but I never did really find out for sure.
That lead me to doing some crazy things - I used to lie on my back in my parents backyard with binoculars looking straight up hoping I would see something interesting. Well, once I did: a weird blue F-15-ish type aircraft but more streamlined that I caught a glimpse of that made me wonder if there were "other kinds of planes that nobody knew about out there".
I would read articles on aviation, build aircraft models and marvel at planes like the SR-71 and the swing wing F-111 and thought "the people behind these designs not only have a knack for interesting looking airplanes...they have to be smart too." I was fascinated and got into aviation. During high school there was an aviation class you could take and a lot of the stoner kids would take it thinking it would be easy but it was full of navigation and flight stuff like you were preparing for your license.
One of the stoner kids stole the teachers grade book right before the end of the class quarter and he based our grades on the final test. I got an A- in that one and the very last day of class we all got trucked to flying cloud airport in Eden Prairie Minnesota to check out our teachers plane - a Piper Cub if I recall. Everyone got to go up and he'd take turns flying everyone around the airport.
I was in the last group to go up and he let me fly his plane - the only student to get that privilege - and our flight lasted longer. It
made a big impression! I soon learned that flying for a hobby was an expensive endevor and that also my vision was pretty poor.
I needed horrible thick corrective lenses and soon got into computers and started playing with flight simulators. Today I use X-Plane
to fly my virtual aircraft around.
Anyway, the biggest impetus for me being on this forum is what I saw on 2/14/89 with an ex-girlfriend in Biscay, Minnesota. Two black
unacknowledged VS/TOL aircraft hovering low over a field, passing low over our stopped car and slowing to walking speed, then turning
quietly and flying to the southeast. It was amazing to see what I believe to be classified aircraft flying right in front of me. And two of
them to boot. With the quietest jet engines I've ever heard. At first my ex-girl thought they were UFOs coming to take her away!
I later talked to my neighbor about it who was a pilot for Northwest Airlines for many years and asked if there was anything special
about Biscay in terms of aviation. He did mention it was a transit corridor for aircraft moving from one area of the country to the other.
Then I passed what I'd seen to Steve Douglass since he's seen interesting flying "somethings" and he passed it to Jim Goodall who
believed they were prototypes "flying in the midwest and Michigan".
I've never seen those craft again, before or since and I still describe them the same way: Overall "truck like" appearance with stubby downwardly canted tailplanes on the empennage and not being particularly streamlined overall. The cockpit being somewhat raised up above the nose not too recessed into the body. Two dim yellow lights at the back of the wings pointing downward (behind the landing gear which was raised under covers) . A red rotating beacon under the front of the nose and the standard red and green navigation lights on the wingtips. The nose seemed like it may have had hexagonal faceting on it but it was at dusk and it was kind of hard to see sharp details.
Amazing that happened 22 years ago and whatever they were they apparently are still classified or never went into production.
) At the current time that interest resulted in my doing some searching on the web on some topics that ended up with my finding this site. I figured I would join and participate.
