West Texas Spanloader

reply to post by Tajlakz


Yes. Yes it does.

reply to post by cmdrkeenkid


www.abovetopsecret.com... .....enjoy.

You were actually the third to post in that thread.

Sammamishman
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Are we talking about the NM crash? When you say previously classified UAV, did the DoD release any info on it?

LOL - You go Sam!

You're like a well behaved but relentless terrier - I think it's great.

If you keep that up, you'll have to change your ATS custom title soon...

reply to post by Riffrafter


He may be, but he won't get anything out of me that I choose not to give up.

I only gave that much up because of the type going to grey from black. There's a lot that would have you guys sitting here going "Oh. My. God." if I gave it up though. *laugh*

reply to post by Zaphod58

Oh trust me, if they ever revealed a portion of the stuff about that aircraft, you'd go hyper.

Tell you what - I will if it does too. And that would *really* narrow the field...

It's a pretty amazing UAV.

Of that I have no doubt.

reply to post by Riffrafter


It makes up for the lack of hyperness with other cool stuff. I'd love to see see everyone's reaction to what it can really do. It would be so worth it.

reply to post by Riffrafter


Thanks......I think.

reply to post by Zaphod58

reply to post by Sammamishman


Sammish is relentless but I like it!


Haha

ANOTHER SIGHTING

Wow nice pic mate .. .. In your link it says temp lim saw the craft do a few 180 degree turns. I'd like to see pics of these

reply to post by ajsr71


It's possible that this is unrelated to the Amarillo aircraft. There are a couple aircraft that have a similar planform flying around.

reply to post by Zaphod58


It may be just the angle they were photographed at but they look like they have different wing sweep angles. It would be nice if we had more than the one photo or some wider shots to help with scale. For all we know it could be a hoax, hard to tell with just the one photo.
I suppose we will know soon enough.....

reply to post by Sammamishman


Thanks. I thought it didn't look right. I suspect I might know what this one is too, but I can't confirm it right now.

reply to post by Sammamishman


The one on the left bears a striking resemblance to the Avenger.

reply to post by Sammamishman


They like that planform. They've found that it works really well for various missions. Sometimes they have that planform for the center fuselage, with different wings on it. But it allows them to blend everything a lot easier than other designs.

If think I just might be able to loosely confirm that this newer one that was spotted, is the Avenger. A friend of mine works for GD and had shown me a few months ago, some photos of huge partial dorito-shaped mold. It didn't click for me, until just now.... I texted him and asked if it was the A-12 retrofit, he replied back with "can't say right now sorry"

Lol

originally posted by: weavty1
If think I just might be able to loosely confirm that this newer one that was spotted, is the Avenger. A friend of mine works for GD and had shown me a few months ago, some photos of huge partial dorito-shaped mold. It didn't click for me, until just now.... I texted him and asked if it was the A-12 retrofit, he replied back with "can't say right now sorry"

Lol

I thought as much..I am guessing we are looking at a dual purpose strike/electronic warfare aircraft built around the cancelled Avenger project.

Time will tell..

originally posted by: Zaphod58
reply to post by Riffrafter

 

It makes up for the lack of hyperness with other cool stuff. I'd love to see see everyone's reaction to what it can really do. It would be so worth it.

I'm sure it does. And speed isn't everything. It all depends on the mission.

And besides, a supersonic UAV loaded with other cool stuff is pretty awesome all by itself.

Guidance, command & control and targeting & tracking are really starting to catch up to engineering & propulsion. But my guess is that those areas remain the thorniest issues in the jump to the hypersonic UAV world.

We had the same issues with sats back in the late 80's-early 90's. Throwing a "rock" into space was one thing. Getting that "rock" to do something useful while it was orbiting around up there at 17.5K mph was a whole different kettle of fish...

a reply to: Sammamishman

Look at the left one, the dorito.

I find it striking that the leading edge appears to be lightened or illuminated, on both sides. A few years ago I would have assumed it's an optical artifact.

Ahem, Bedlam, you still owe us the core dump, right?

The other one with the angle in the leading edge looks very X-48B ish.