Northrop Grumman "RQ-180"

coanda said:
It does look a bit like Polecat, with a ventral bay similar to the RQ-170.

IF it's not a fake it's likely mostly a scaled up RQ-170. Ha, maybe if it is a fake too!
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Hasn’t that website The Drive claimed on a couple of occasions there is a so called ‘super’ RQ-170. Which is like a scaled up & improved version? An RQ-175?
 
The Lockheed Martin Manta was a sub scale technology demonstrator. One could argue that subsequent models (P-170 Sentinel, P-175 Polecat, etc.) are growth designs that sprung from the Manta family tree.

The P-170/RQ-170 was a limited-production operational platform. I would never call it a demonstrator.
 
It certainly looks a lot like the model we saw for the NG Sensorcraft proposal.
 
Flyaway said:
The question to my mind is why would a supposedly classified project be flying around in bright daylight like that?
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Perhaps posturing, the USAF has been very busy lately, the next Cold War is at our door step.
 
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In_A_Dream said:
Flyaway said:
The question to my mind is why would a supposedly classified project be flying around in bright daylight like that?
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Perhaps posturing, the USAF has been very busy lately, the next Cold War is at our door step.
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One of the posters on Dreamland Resort was saying there had recently been a lot of U-2 activity around the base where this was spotted.
 
I think this might answer why the RQ-180 has now put in a public appearance.

Perhaps most surprisingly, the flying branch also wanted to retire 24 of its 34 high-flying RQ-4s. The older Block 20 and Block 30 versions of the 1990s-vintage spy drone would retire while just 10 of the latest Block 40s would remain in the force.

The Air Force claimed the retirements would save $21 billion over five years. The purported savings don’t appear to have swayed skeptical legislators.

The Air Force wouldn’t say what it would deploy to make up for the gap in aerial surveillance that would result from a big reduction in Global Hawk patrols. No regional combatant commander ever wanted less surveillance.

But service leaders made it clear that something is available to take the place of the Global Hawks, if and when Congress approves of reductions to the RQ-4 fleet. “Most of what we’re giving up is unclassified,” the Air Force’s then chief of staff Gen. David Goldfein toldDefense News in February. “What we’re buying—not all but a lot of it—is in the classified realm.”
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www.forbes.com

The U.S. Air Force’s Secret Spy Drone Makes Public Debut—On Instagram

The U.S. Air Force’s secret RQ-180 spy drone apparently has broken cover.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
Is it me or this thing should fly upside down to have that pattern of shadows on airframe?
 
The original photo has now been removed. Make of that what you will.

The image has been replaced on his Instagram Feed with a big black box that says [REDACTED]

Comments from the photographer say "until I dot the I's and cross the T's ... I pulled it until I can verify that I did not violate any security clearance parameters that I hold."

According to his Flikr account, he did 20 years in the Navy before moving to LA to become an actor and a professional photographer.
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Apparently others have deleted it giving the same reason. The thing is if they are worried about national security then they should have checked first before publishing it online. Secondly, it’s a bit late now being as organisations such as AW have picked it up & it’s all over social media. Thirdly, if the USAF were worried about it being seen it wouldn’t have been seen.
 
Has anybody searched the Picture variables for date, place and time and cross checked that with ADS-B data?
 
TomcatViP said:
Has anybody searched the Picture variables for date, place and time and cross checked that with ADS-B data?
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I don't beleive that any copy posted online contains that information (i.e. EXIF data). If a copy with that information did exist it would certainly be helpful.
 
Flyaway said:
Apparently others have deleted it giving the same reason. The thing is if they are worried about national security then they should have checked first before publishing it online. Secondly, it’s a bit late now being as organisations such as AW have picked it up & it’s all over social media. Thirdly, if the USAF were worried about it being seen it wouldn’t have been seen.
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I'm not sure how a photo taken by someone without a currently active clearance from outside a secure location of an aircraft flying in public airspace could possibly be considered classified. It's pretty much the definition of Publicly Available Information.
 
TomS said:
Flyaway said:
Apparently others have deleted it giving the same reason. The thing is if they are worried about national security then they should have checked first before publishing it online. Secondly, it’s a bit late now being as organisations such as AW have picked it up & it’s all over social media. Thirdly, if the USAF were worried about it being seen it wouldn’t have been seen.
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I'm not sure how a photo taken by someone without a currently active clearance from outside a secure location of an aircraft flying in public airspace could possibly be considered classified. It's pretty much the definition of Publicly Available Information.
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To me it just makes the whole thing look suspicious.
 
I can't access the original picture, so I have no way to tell if it's been "handled" in any suspicious way, but what I can tell is that it looks remarkably like LockMart Polecat rather than anything else.
 
This recent photo looks to be a much bigger vehicle than the Polecat.
 
Unfortunate that the photographer chose to capture a still and not a video.
Elapsing time and a few specs about the capturing lens would've revealed speed, altitude and size.
 
this is one of NG SensorCraft concepts
 
You do see a lot of comments online saying it looks like the artist images of the B-21 or looks like some other flying wing. But the thing is physics is physics and that drives similar designs.

One thing I’d like to know is if the RQ-180 designation is actually correct, especially if it is armed like I’ve seen some articles say it is. That hardly makes it just a reconnaissance asset then.
 
By the way LOL at a certain conspiracy aircraft forum convincing themselves that is a P-175, kind of ironic that. I’d rather go with the opinion of posters on here.
 
flateric said:
This is definitely not a Polecat
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The aircraft in the picture is banking and/or climbing, I don't think we can really compensate for that angle (with light and shadows) and compare it to a plan view without causing extensive distortions on such a small image. In my opinion this is quite similar to what happened with the B-2 photographed over Texas., but I'll keep an open mind and hope more details and other pics might surface sooner or later.
 
CiTrus90 said:
flateric said:
This is definitely not a Polecat
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The aircraft in the picture is banking and/or climbing, I don't think we can really compensate for that angle (with light and shadows) and compare it to a plan view without causing extensive distortions on such a small image. In my opinion this is quite similar to what happened with the B-2 photographed over Texas., but I'll keep an open mind and hope more details and other pics might surface sooner or later.
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But don’t the contrails indicate it’s a bigger vehicle than the Polecat which wasn’t that large a UAV, 90ft wingspan, compared to the RQ-180’s alleged 170ft.
 

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