Unknown US HALE design to ID

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Does anybody know what this is? I've never seen it before. Not even sure if I'm in the right topic...
 

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Matej said:
I have no idea but to me it does not look very stealthy against standard 1 - 5 GHz radars.
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No, especially not the air intake.
 
looks like something from Firebee era...but I may be plain wrong
 
circle-5 said:
Does anybody know what this is? I've never seen it before. Not even sure if I'm in the right topic...
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If you look closely you can see a square leading edge. I'd say it's a really small kitbash model - or the air force has finally begun issuing their own line of Batman's Batarangs.
 
The leading edges are normal. What you're probably seeing is my poor setup in Photoshop edge detail, when I removed the background.

The model's provenance is US military. Other models in that group included a Douglas MOL, a Titan IIIA and a Hughes kinetic energy (SDI) weapon, all original manufacturer models. In addition, the model is a solid resin casting, nearly two feet across, which requires mold fabrication, as opposed to the "kitbash" you describe.
 
circle-5 said:
The leading edges are normal. What you're probably seeing is my poor setup in Photoshop edge detail, when I removed the background.

The model's provenance is US military. Other models in that group included a Douglas MOL, a Titan IIIA and a Hughes kinetic energy (SDI) weapon, all original manufacturer models. In addition, the model is a solid resin casting, nearly two feet across, which requires mold fabrication, as opposed to the "kitbash" you describe.
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You can ship me the model and I'll do a really good photospread of it..... :)
 
Do we know the dimensions or the scale? This will be kind of wild speculation, but what about air launched HALE?

For sure it does not fit to AARS/Tier III specifications. The only similarity that I can see is the Loral/Frontier Systems style aft fuselage with exhaust, but it can be seen on other aircrafts too. For example Global Hawk has the similar one, so this is not a right way to identify it.
 
Matej said:
Do we know the dimensions or the scale? This will be kind of wild speculation, but what about air launched HALE?
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I wish knew the scale. Whenever a model like this gets separated from its stand, it becomes very difficult to identify. I have others that have puzzled me for years. This is obviously some kind of long-range, single-engine, high altitude UAV, not particularly stealthy and of American origin. If nobody knows, I might just put a Batman logo on it anyway...
 
circle-5 said:
Matej said:
Do we know the dimensions or the scale? This will be kind of wild speculation, but what about air launched HALE?
Click to expand...

I wish knew the scale. Whenever a model like this gets separated from its stand, it becomes very difficult to identify. I have others that have puzzled me for years. This is obviously some kind of long-range, single-engine, high altitude UAV, not particularly stealthy and of American origin. If nobody knows, I might just put a Batman logo on it anyway...
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I am quite confused, the members here usually go COMPLETELY apesh*t for something new like this. Could be they are actually out getting some sun on their pasty skin. Maybe somebody will have something constructive by Monday....
 
I think it looks very cool. I'm trying to figure out what the bumps in the wingtips are for; Aerodynamic control or to place sensors in?
 
I think sensor placement is as good a guess as any, physical separation of identical or complementary sensor packages can provide some advantages.... well that's David Attenbrough tells me about the hammerhead shark ;D (although at > 70,000 ft, the degree of "depth perception" this sensor separation may provide could be limited at best).

All speculation without knowledge of the operating altitude of the concept that gave birth to this model, assuming it even was a concept?
 
circle-5 said:
Does anybody know what this is? I've never seen it before. Not even sure if I'm in the right topic...
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Still no takers on this one??? Somebody always has a good explanation around here....
 
Having an indication of the source document for that picture might be a good start... ::)
 
As with most things posted by Circle-5, its a photo of an original manufacturers model, likely one of his own collection or a photo he took of someone else's model. Presumably there's no documentation or information on the model itself.
 
Pardon me for circling back to an old topic...

circle-5 said:
Does anybody know what this is? I've never seen it before. Not even sure if I'm in the right topic...
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The "hammerhead" wingtip pods suggest doing some interesting things with sensor triangulation, but your accuracy would be complicated by how much the wings flex. You'd need to be actively measuring wing flex to tell the distance between the two wingtip pods.
 
Scott Kenny said:
The "hammerhead" wingtip pods suggest doing some interesting things with sensor triangulation, but your accuracy would be complicated by how much the wings flex. You'd need to be actively measuring wing flex to tell the distance between the two wingtip pods.
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Rumint: Supposedly, the there were to be a GPS system at each end of the barrel on the DDG-1000 gunnery system in order to measure barrel distortion. YMMV.
 

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