West Texas Spanloader

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

Ask and ye shall receive:



Lightened the contrast a little to bring out what ever was in the hanger. Looks like a number of partitions inside the hanger to hide whatever is behind.

Thanks for posting the modified image. Noticed a posting today about subject hangar on Dreamland Resort:

"The Hanger in this shot is still under construction so it's not ready to house an aircraft the object seen inside is no doubt related to the construction works."

a reply to: cmdrkeenkid

Just a figure of speech.

a reply to: TAGBOARD

Yeah, that makes sense. My first thought on seeing the image was to question where the hangar door was.

Thanks for the picture, Sammamishman!

originally posted by: TAGBOARD


"The Hanger in this shot is still under construction so it's not ready to house an aircraft the object seen inside is no doubt related to the construction works."

Seems sensible.

The fence at the front looks like a temporary site safety fence.
You can see various piles of dirt on the rotated views and one of them shows a contractor truck loaded with dirt parked in front.

Not a good place to keep any type of aircraft.....if the site safety fence is 6 feet, the hangar entrance might be 18-24 feet high- allowing plenty of clearance for an excavator - which we might be seeing the rear of:



Maybe a Bobcat version in white.

The withe round thing in the hangar look like a white protection screen , the question is what is behind the screen ?

a reply to: darksidius

It could be industrial equipment or part of the facilities. I've seen plenty things shipped in that white shrink wrap. And, as Jukiodone pointed out, an active construction site isn't the best place to store any aircraft, much less a presumably top secret one.

My second revision of planform estimates of the Long-Range Strike-B finalists, based on several sources of information including photographs, second hand stories, patents, RCS design, aerodynamics, lessons learned, conops, released studies, stability and control and A-12 background:

Sketch of Both LRS-B Finalists (Rev B)

I wanted to add two more images. They are from an independent study I did on the Northrop planform, you commonly see in the patent and in articles since 2008.

Scaled Down Northrop Patent Vortex Lattice Model with Elevon Deflection

Scaled Down Northrop Patent Vortex Lattice Model Drag Polar, Pitching Moment and Glide Ratio Plots

What's interesting to me is that you can arrange the aifoil types (laminar flow) and their geometric twist to naturally trim these tailless planforms at glide ratios above 26:1 subsonically - without the need for elevator. This is compelling when you need longer range or endurance.

a reply to: TAGBOARD

Nice analysis.
The Boeing pic looks especially similar.

The following images have been posted on the Secret Projects Forum, but believe they may be outdated for several reasons:

a reply to: TAGBOARD

You mean the secret projects forum that doesn't believe anything secret is flying around unless they have budget line items, and the aircraft parked two feet in front of them? Heh.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Don't hold back - how do you really feel about that website? HAHA

a reply to: TAGBOARD

At one point in time I really enjoyed reading it. But they're all about denying everything now it seems.

I would like to add that the images above were supposedly from around 2009. At some point in every program, they need to "freeze" the OML - as early as reasonable. Perhaps that's what happened around that time, with the final planform looking similar.

If the commercial released by Northrop around the Super Bowl was indeed their LRS-B platform under cover, there appears to be a protruding and conic-shaped nose section that does not match the images above. In addition, if you trace the leading edge of that vehicle's leading edge (tangent to z-axis) and skew it in the body x-direction, the you will get a compound leading edge, similar to the shape I presented earlier in the thread.

Planform does not necessarily need to be fully aligned like the old school HAVE BLUE - if there's a combination of RAS and aligned structure below the surface and the fairings outside of it have bandpass characteristics (think radome).

a reply to: TAGBOARD

I don't think that was their bomber. Although it would make sense if it was, with them having lost out.

a reply to: Zaphod58

They wouldn't tease the -180 like that, would they?

Seemed a little large for a 111/117 replacement.

a reply to: Northernhollow

They sure might.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Northernhollow

They sure might.