Weird California sighting

its an orange 'star' that steps in very long arc's and i imagine the enertia going from zero to 1/4 the horizon away on man or machine would be alot to overcome, obviously they did it.

Another platform...Ooohhh we need another thread Rabbit hole to start chasing again...

a reply to: Blackfinger

we should hang out next time I'm around your parts.

a reply to: BASSPLYR
Will chuck the Bbq on for you

Speaking of glowing green things...

www.dailystar.co.uk...

Sounds like it was spotted near DFW metro area.

a reply to: DirtyBizzler

definitely not her. in fact at the two seconds I glanced at it. I have no idea what that is but it's not no greenlady.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

I mean, it's says it's a TR3B right in the article. Duh!

a reply to: DirtyBizzler

how was moorea?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Amazing. I'm about all vacationed out though. Thank God hail season is here, so I can get back to work soon.

This one popped up this morning..D21 out of retirement or reinvented?
Contrail

a reply to: Blackfinger

Why? Its just a jet passing a larger airplane.

originally posted by: kingofyo1
Well I can finally say that I saw a fastmover in person! was in florida this weekend doing some family vacation stuff with the cousin and nieces at the beach on the panhandle. We were looking at stars, at approx. 8pm CST and I saw one moving fairly quick across the sky. from southern to northeastern direction but faster than an airliner, slower than a meteorite. Same visual reflection of lighting as a satellite, but it pulled S turns! At that point, I knew what I was seeing. No green lady style exhaust, unfortunately.

If what you saw was really, truly doing energy management S-turns, then it was a hypersonic glider not too far from landing. This is reminiscent of the sightings reported off the UK coast 10 or 12 years ago. Given the trajectory you report, it would have reached ground level somewhere up the Atlantic Coast. I would suspect maybe it used the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point runway; that runway was an alternate landing strip for Space Shuttle flights.

a reply to: 1947boomer

they usually do that from the west coast dont they? so they can ditch into the ocean without having to fly over land?


it could also be something at 60K or above, at night time a smaller aircraft would seem like a dot. i'm sure it was in side of the atmospheres influence if it was doing s turns.

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: 1947boomer

they usually do that from the west coast dont they? so they can ditch into the ocean without having to fly over land?


it could also be something at 60K or above, at night time a smaller aircraft would seem like a dot. i'm sure it was in side of the atmospheres influence if it was doing s turns.

Of course, the Space Shuttle is no longer flying, but when it did the two main landing sites it used were Edwards AFB (on the West coast) and Kennedy Space Flight Center (on the East coast). When it was landing at Edwards, it did, in fact, do S-turns out over the Pacific Ocean, but that had nothing to do with plans for ditching.

In order to understand S-turns, it is useful to consider the difference between powered flight and gliding flight. Whenever a heavier than air craft is flying it is, by definition, inside the atmosphere and moving fast enough that its wings (or other lifting surfaces) are creating an amount of lift that is approximately equal to the weight of the aircraft. If the lift is a little bit greater than the weight, the aircraft will gain altitude; if it's a little bit less, it will descend; if it is exactly the same as the weight, it will fly at a constant altitude.

Whenever an aircraft is generating aerodynamic lift it is also generating drag. In a powered aircraft, that drag is being overcome by the propulsion system (rotor, propeller, fan, jet, etc.) supplying thrust. Roughly speaking, the propulsion system is converting energy from the fuel being burned at the same rate and at the same time as the power needed to overcome drag. When landing a powered aircraft the pilot attempts to put the aircraft on a glide path that will intersect the runway at exactly the desired touchdown point. Often times it is difficult to judge the glide path perfectly on final approach so sometimes the aircraft will be set up to land beyond the desired touchdown point and sometimes in front of it. On short final, the pilot of a powered aircraft can reduce or advance the throttle to adjust the touchdown point. In the worst case, the pilot can apply full power and go around to attempt another landing.

In a glider, there is no ability to add or subtract propulsion in order to adjust the touchdown point. A glider starts in a condition of fixed, excess energy (measured as altitude and speed) and continuously converts that stored energy into forward motion via the lift-to-drag-ratio (L/D) of the airframe. The higher the L/D, the further a glider can go before it touches down, but for a given airframe, the gliding range is completely determined once the initial speed and altitude is fixed. The goal of the glider pilot is to make sure that the distance to the touchdown point on the runway is always less than or equal to the remaining gliding range. That's why a glider pilot is continuously estimating the remaining maximum glide range, based on the known L/D of the airframe, the altitude, the speed, and any winds.

There is a complication when the glider begins flight at hypersonic speeds (M>6.0). At hypersonic speeds you are covering ground so fast, that you can't wait until the end of the flight in order to make corrections to the touchdown point; you have to be making them continuously. However, at hypersonic speeds the L/D of the Space Shuttle (for example) is about 1. At subsonic speeds, the L/D is about 4.5. This means radically different glide ratios during different phases of flight and is why they broke the Shuttle approach profile up into two phases. The hypersonic phase is designed to deliver the vehicle overhead the landing field (assuming a hypersonic L/D of about 1) at a speed and altitude such that a subsonic approach and landing can be executed with confidence (assuming a subsonic L/D of about 4.5). They use shallow S-turns during the hypersonic phase to adjust the trajectory because that tends to keep the vehicle at a fixed angle of attack and therefore a fixed L/D and also a fixed aerothermodynamic heating profile.

As I recall from watching Shuttle landings at Edwards, the shuttle would still be going about Mach 2 at about 10,000 ft directly above the field and then go out about 20 miles or so and do a steady turn to final followed by a touchdown at around 200 kts.

I just leave this here...

twitter.com...

edit fake unfortunately

a reply to: mightmight

That is the Boeing SST..

They ID it on Twitter in the same thread.

Here is the video the image is from:



Nice plane..

BT

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: kingofyo1
Well I can finally say that I saw a fastmover in person! was in florida this weekend doing some family vacation stuff with the cousin and nieces at the beach on the panhandle. We were looking at stars, at approx. 8pm CST and I saw one moving fairly quick across the sky. from southern to northeastern direction but faster than an airliner, slower than a meteorite. Same visual reflection of lighting as a satellite, but it pulled S turns! At that point, I knew what I was seeing. No green lady style exhaust, unfortunately.

If what you saw was really, truly doing energy management S-turns, then it was a hypersonic glider not too far from landing. This is reminiscent of the sightings reported off the UK coast 10 or 12 years ago. Given the trajectory you report, it would have reached ground level somewhere up the Atlantic Coast. I would suspect maybe it used the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point runway; that runway was an alternate landing strip for Space Shuttle flights.

OK since some of us have seen this thing in Central Wisconsin, where's she landing?

originally posted by: TheGoondockSaint

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: kingofyo1
Well I can finally say that I saw a fastmover in person! was in florida this weekend doing some family vacation stuff with the cousin and nieces at the beach on the panhandle. We were looking at stars, at approx. 8pm CST and I saw one moving fairly quick across the sky. from southern to northeastern direction but faster than an airliner, slower than a meteorite. Same visual reflection of lighting as a satellite, but it pulled S turns! At that point, I knew what I was seeing. No green lady style exhaust, unfortunately.

If what you saw was really, truly doing energy management S-turns, then it was a hypersonic glider not too far from landing. This is reminiscent of the sightings reported off the UK coast 10 or 12 years ago. Given the trajectory you report, it would have reached ground level somewhere up the Atlantic Coast. I would suspect maybe it used the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point runway; that runway was an alternate landing strip for Space Shuttle flights.

OK since some of us have seen this thing in Central Wisconsin, where's she landing?

How high was it and which direction was it heading when you saw it? When did you see it?

When we saw it in SW Wisconsin it was headed west to east. It was night so I couldn't tell you how high it was but I would estimate it was way up there, maybe 120k+. It was moving at a speed relative to the sky similar to a satellite before it was maneuvering. Not saying the same speed, but it traversed a similar section in the same time that the sats were. This was around 1:00am this past July and three of us saw it together as we were using heavens above app to watch the sats go by. This was not listed.

This was also different than the one my daughter and I saw a few years ago in the fall. It was going north to south and was not the color of a sat but it was hauling butt. It was not on FlightRadar or Heavens Above.

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: TheGoondockSaint

originally posted by: 1947boomer

originally posted by: kingofyo1
Well I can finally say that I saw a fastmover in person! was in florida this weekend doing some family vacation stuff with the cousin and nieces at the beach on the panhandle. We were looking at stars, at approx. 8pm CST and I saw one moving fairly quick across the sky. from southern to northeastern direction but faster than an airliner, slower than a meteorite. Same visual reflection of lighting as a satellite, but it pulled S turns! At that point, I knew what I was seeing. No green lady style exhaust, unfortunately.

If what you saw was really, truly doing energy management S-turns, then it was a hypersonic glider not too far from landing. This is reminiscent of the sightings reported off the UK coast 10 or 12 years ago. Given the trajectory you report, it would have reached ground level somewhere up the Atlantic Coast. I would suspect maybe it used the Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Cherry Point runway; that runway was an alternate landing strip for Space Shuttle flights.

OK since some of us have seen this thing in Central Wisconsin, where's she landing?

How high was it and which direction was it heading when you saw it? When did you see it?

.

It was about 5-6 years ago. West of 54956 zip code. It was going left to right and back and then we couldn't see it as it dipped below the tree line but I would guess it was heading west. It was very high.

One candidate landing site might be Michael Army Air Base (Dugway, Utah). That would be about 1000 miles from where you saw it on a heading of 260 degrees. Only about 15 minutes away if it was going about Mach 10 when you saw it.

Did the object seem to be self-luminous? Was it maybe high enough to be reflecting sunlight?

a reply to: TheGoondockSaint