Mysterious Aircraft Spotted At Area 51

flateric said:
IRL it takes one truck, several men with poles and minutes to make your airframe shape hidden before you install something more serious above it. And I bet that Area staff are big profi in things like that.
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It may have been too windy to cover it safely. During the days it was present there were high gusty winds in the area.
 
Dew said:
Oh give over
edit: fine to put up a frame of makeshift shelter but too windy to put a tarp over a sight sensitve airframe. Please...
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40-60mph winds can ruin your day.
 
Does anything about this incident really provide us with any information regardless of what assumptions one has about the circumstances?
 
Josh_TN said:
Does anything about this incident really provide us with any information regardless of what assumptions one has about the circumstances?
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No, it's not worthy of any interest at all. Nothing to see here.
 
quellish said:
It may have been too windy to cover it safely. During the days it was present there were high gusty winds in the area.
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Come on, you can’t be real. If that was the case they could have towed it to the scoot ‘n hide hangar about 30 meters from the aircraft. I’m sure that in almost every situation the people at Groom Lake are capable to get an aircraft out of sight very quickly.

Also, you can see a lot of these hangars in regions hurricanes and typhones occur, so I’m sure they can withstand quite a bit of wind (although I do agree that you can’t build a hangar when it’s that windy).
 
Q-nimbus said:
Come on, you can’t be real. If that was the case they could have towed it to the scoot ‘n hide hangar about 30 meters from the aircraft. I’m sure that in almost every situation the people at Groom Lake are capable to get an aircraft out of sight very quickly.

Also, you can see a lot of these hangars in regions hurricanes and typhones occur, so I’m sure they can withstand quite a bit of wind (although I do agree that you can’t build a hangar when it’s that windy).
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Look at the original photo again. As Flateric noted, it's quite possible that a brownish fabric cover/tarp may have been quickly placed over the aircraft as soon after it stopped on the taxiway. That would have been a highly plausible COA for such a contingency. Whatever caused it to stop moving most likely required assessment and/or repairs.

It then may have been determined that towing this likely one-of-a-kind aircraft would have caused further (and possibly irreperable) damage, so a decision was made to erect a temporary hangar. Better (and much cheaper) to repair it in place than to risk breaking something else that could cost millions of dollars and months of downtime to repair. Erecting a temporary structure can usually be completed quickly, but the high winds that Quellish mentioned would have delayed things. Otherwise we would have just seen a tensioned temporary hangar on the taxiway.

My contractors regularly construct temporary buildings and hangars, identical to the one in the photo,in hurricane prone areas. If there are high winds, they can erect the aluminum skeleton, but obviously windy conditions would preclude installing the tensioned fabric components.
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Dew said:
Oh give over
edit: fine to put up a frame of makeshift shelter but too windy to put a tarp over a sight sensitve airframe. Please...
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There certainly seems to be a dark brown or olive tarp/fabric cover over the airframe in the photo. This would obviously be much easier to secure in windy conditions than large fabric panels, roughly the same size and shape of sails.
 
xstatic3000 said:
There certainly seems to be a dark brown or olive tarp/fabric cover over the airframe in the photo. This would obviously be much easier to secure in windy conditions than large fabric panels, roughly the same size and shape of sails.
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Sometimes even they have to make do with what they had. Ken Dyson remembered helping pull a parachute over a stricken HAVE BLUE prototype stuck on the runway during a Soviet optical bird flyover. Even stuck out a hand flipping it off, but that's how it went, they always knew or got word of orbital changes that could make or break that morning's opportunities.
 
xstatic3000 said:
Look at the original photo again. As Flateric noted, it's quite possible that a brownish fabric cover/tarp may have been quickly placed over the aircraft as soon after it stopped on the taxiway. That would have been a highly plausible COA for such a contingency. Whatever caused it to stop moving most likely required assessment and/or repairs.

It then may have been determined that towing this likely one-of-a-kind aircraft would have caused further (and possibly irreperable) damage, so a decision was made to erect a temporary hangar. Better (and much cheaper) to repair it in place than to risk breaking something else that could cost millions of dollars and months of downtime to repair. Erecting a temporary structure can usually be completed quickly, but the high winds that Quellish mentioned would have delayed things. Otherwise we would have just seen a tensioned temporary hangar on the taxiway.

My contractors regularly construct temporary buildings and hangars, identical to the one in the photo,in hurricane prone areas. If there are high winds, they can erect the aluminum skeleton, but obviously windy conditions would preclude installing the tensioned fabric components.
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So it will say there is some classsified plane under the cover for what it is .......
 
xstatic3000 said:
Look at the original photo again. As Flateric noted, it's quite possible that a brownish fabric cover/tarp may have been quickly placed over the aircraft as soon after it stopped on the taxiway. That would have been a highly plausible COA for such a contingency. Whatever caused it to stop moving most likely required assessment and/or repairs.

It then may have been determined that towing this likely one-of-a-kind aircraft would have caused further (and possibly irreperable) damage, so a decision was made to erect a temporary hangar. Better (and much cheaper) to repair it in place than to risk breaking something else that could cost millions of dollars and months of downtime to repair. Erecting a temporary structure can usually be completed quickly, but the high winds that Quellish mentioned would have delayed things. Otherwise we would have just seen a tensioned temporary hangar on the taxiway.

My contractors regularly construct temporary buildings and hangars, identical to the one in the photo,in hurricane prone areas. If there are high winds, they can erect the aluminum skeleton, but obviously windy conditions would preclude installing the tensioned fabric components.
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All very true, but some observations:

If an airframe has a failure such that it can’t be moved anymore, it’s unlikely (although not impossible) that it happens during a non-critical flight phase. So not during taxi out/in or an engine run up, but likely severe damage to the undercarriage that happened during take off or landing - most probably during landing. In any case, in 90% of the cases it would happen during a high speed critical phase of flight on a runway, not on a taxiway. The location of the airframe in question is in an unlikely place for a critical failure to happen - unlikely, but not impossible.-

Secondly, if they want to hide an airframe, they would cover the top for passing satellites first. They wouldn’t erect the sidewalls and leave the top open for days - then they might as well not have bothered with erecting the structure at all. It could still be seen from Tikaboo Peak, but the distance and the shade provided by the cover would make it very difficult to see any details.

Third, I think that in case of high winds a hangar like that can’t be build at all - it’s not like they can erect the walls during a storm, and then wait for the storm to pass before they cover the roof. You either build the whole hangar at once, or not at all.

Lastly, a reminder that usually you first build a hangar, and then tow in an aircraft. It seems some people think that the structure was build around the airframe, which is possible, but usually it’s the other way around. I also think it’s unlikely that the people who build the hangar have a clearance to see classified projects - especially since it can be seen from the shadows that the aircraft was hidden from all the staff on base, and was only visible from high up in the air. Apparently they didn’t want anyone on the base to lay eyes on it - let alone a construction crew. Then there’s also a lot of risk involved with constructing a hangar around an airframe. Just imagine someone dropping a tool on the airframe; that might seriously damage it.
 
timmymagic said:
And no-one in the right mind would procure a transparent one, particularly not at Area 51 where they'll want it opaque for surveillance, but also temperature control...sticking anything in a transparent tent there would boil it...
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There's some specific reasons related with composite work that you'd want to absolutely sun-bake things.
 
That’s what I was thinking—cover the cockpit to prevent crazing?
 
Scott Kenny said:
There's some specific reasons related with composite work that you'd want to absolutely sun-bake things.
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I really doubt anybody was trying to "sun cure" a high performance aircraft structure. Besides, I expect all of the critical composite structures were autoclaved. Additionally, out of tool curing is not a good idea if high tolerances are required.
 
xstatic3000 said:
My contractors regularly construct temporary buildings and hangars, identical to the one in the photo,in hurricane prone areas. If there are high winds, they can erect the aluminum skeleton, but obviously windy conditions would preclude installing the tensioned fabric components.
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There is an almost identical fabric structure at 37.241336, -115.813212 .
There are a number of videos online showing how these kinds of structures are erected. The process of putting the fabric on would be very hazardous in windy conditions. I've seen similar structures rated for 110mph winds - once they are constructed.

The aircraft - and structure - appeared together on the same day. Several days later both disappeared. There were no visible changes to the structure or aircraft during that time.

Different satellite images show the aircraft as different colors - this is to be expected, as satellite images are rarely "true color" as the eye would see it.
 
djfawcett said:
I really doubt anybody was trying to "sun cure" a high performance aircraft structure. Besides, I expect all of the critical composite structures were autoclaved. Additionally, out of tool curing is not a good idea if high tolerances are required.
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This would be for repairs, not initial structure work. At least not initial structure work for a high performance aircraft. I've heard of it being done for homebuilts to bake the stresses out.
 
Why would this facility even have transparent shelters? I understand there is also a fabric cover that goes over the top, but I'm sure they could get some sort of shelter that is covered from the get go. The whole point of this facility is to essentially be hidden, but their 'in case' shelter is transparent and requires the cover to be put on seperately... the whole thing is still very odd
 
Scott Kenny said:
This would be for repairs, not initial structure work. At least not initial structure work for a high performance aircraft. I've heard of it being done for homebuilts to bake the stresses out.
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I have seen homebuilt guys doing hand layup room temperature cure and then put the parts in the sun. Unfortunately when using the sun as your oven, there is a reasonable probability the parts will be warped unless you keep them in the tool. As far as repairs, I have never seen it done, but I suppose it could, but it would be in a non-critical areas.
 
That is the same reasoning that I was working on dark sidius, something to replace the U-2 and have a strike capability thrown in for good measure. Lockheed tried to have an armed variant of the U-2 in the early years but nothing came of it.
 

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