Weird California sighting

a reply to: Zaphod58

I've heard the meteors can be quite a sight sometimes. pretty too.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

The skies are amazing that late at night.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Zaphod58

Wouldn't the x48 be Boomers territory? Gotta think the rumors are true because it would fill a need that's needed for the new fleet. Can't let a sore thumb stick out and ruin the party.

As far as I know there isn't a stealth tanker yet...there were plans to use the lrs-b as a platform in the future but who knows. Since kc-x was already given out with the kc-46, kc-y will be after that and the rumor is kc-z will be a stealth tanker. Guess we will wait and see.

a reply to: boomer135

guess they'll just have to work on improving the burn rate and "MPG" the birds have until then.... .... .... But it is something that's going to have to be invented eventually. I think there's still a need for it. Even if only semi stealthy. Just stealthy enough so that it's harder to pinpoint if you were a ground crew with portable SAMs. That way the tankers can be deployed just a little bit more forward and increase the efficiency of the air fleet overall. even small differences add up in big ways sometimes.

A totally stealth tanker would be magnificent. Have it hang out say near a totally stealth awac and other assorted EW craft and their raptors. Pretty safe there and forward deployed so that everyone in need can get it quicker and sooner. And probably safer.

Can we just build one even if there is no need for it so at least we have an all matching fleet of next generation stealth?

a reply to: Tajlakz

Thank you... I missed that... (breathes out heavily).

Okee-dokie... I can take everything but the sleep-consciousness sucking jarheads ... the only thing they'd get outta my sleeping head is some nubile girl from 40 years ago washing her dads car... sigh...

But we are skimming close to mind reading in the public arena... (sucks in breath again)

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: boomer135

guess they'll just have to work on improving the burn rate and "MPG" the birds have until then.... .... .... But it is something that's going to have to be invented eventually. I think there's still a need for it. Even if only semi stealthy. Just stealthy enough so that it's harder to pinpoint if you were a ground crew with portable SAMs. That way the tankers can be deployed just a little bit more forward and increase the efficiency of the air fleet overall. even small differences add up in big ways sometimes.

A totally stealth tanker would be magnificent. Have it hang out say near a totally stealth awac and other assorted EW craft and their raptors. Pretty safe there and forward deployed so that everyone in need can get it quicker and sooner. And probably safer.

Can we just build one even if there is no need for it so at least we have an all matching fleet of next generation stealth?

We could...but it wouldn't do much good. If its around the same fuel offload as the kc-135 then it wouldn't be able to support too much. Keep in mind that we would launch an entire tanker tasked to keep AWACS airborne 8 hours more. Or we could support raptors for a few hours on station.

If you have only one payload (no air to air re-arming) then could you do without a stealthy tanker and just have a stealthy air vehicle with massive endurance?

Some threads in this forum are talking about joining multiple air vehicles to create larger vehicles, Air to Air refuelling seems to rely on the boomer and pilot working together (pilot being guided by lights assume sent by the boomer?) so it seems a ridiculous jump from that to automated refuelling systems.

BUT...if you are going to fly an aircraft (manned or unmanned) from say the US to the Pacific Theatre and you can refuel, what about a bomb magazine so a B-2 could drop its load and eject the bomb magazine then fly to a refueller and fly behind it to get fuel, then above it so have a new payload loaded.....

You could then have fewer aircraft on station longer rotating 3 crews or if there are no pilots, stay up there until there is a problem?

What about a smallish drone (fleet of) say 6 SDB each fly over to a war zone, perhaps attached to a large stealthy ship, in a beyond radar position the disconnect or leave the mother ship and fly with a manned stealth designator, the drones drop bombs as per the designator and when expended they fly back to the mother ship to refuel and re-arm.

Say you had 10 drones linked to probe and drogue on a mother ship which stays out of AA radar intercept, you could send in 2 at a time and the kicker is an Air to Air re-arm, its an airborne carrier that could do say 2 days of day 1 warfare and be replaced after 2 days with another.

a reply to: SirDrinksalot
ABRA comes to mind, now which spec ops squadron uses C-130's

a reply to: Zaphod58

Are you possibly talking about something like this?

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Ive been lurking here for years and this thread made me join. I couldnt stay silent anymore. The information in this thread is incredible. I am a military brat, father in the airforce. He is an airplane mechanic and has been sent to the Nevada area a few times as I was growing up but could never speak much about what he saw other than some creepy biological stuff called Big Eye. He is retired now. I am going to show him this thread and see what he might had to say about it, just sounds too incredible to be true! I've seen quite a few things I cant explain growing up mostly on Eglin AFB

a reply to: IBossJekler

Big Eye was a binary chemical weapon program in the late 80's and 90's. It was/is a roughly 500lbs glide bomb designed to carry two chemicals, that when combined created VX nerve gas.

a reply to: boomer135

Since we know the Blackbird is getting replaced there has to at least be something in the works right? I thought the SR-71 already had to drop down to just about it's lowest speed while the tanker was in it's upper limits. Is that accurate? Or is it possible that won't be a concern?

It still seems like a stealthy tanker would make a ton of sense. I think Zaphod was saying that they had problems with the RCS on the boom, but it was workable, just difficult. Even if they couldn't get that lower, it still seems like it would make a lot of sense to only be vulnerable while refueling.

originally posted by: Domo1
a reply to: boomer135

Since we know the Blackbird is getting replaced there has to at least be something in the works right? I thought the SR-71 already had to drop down to just about it's lowest speed while the tanker was in it's upper limits. Is that accurate? Or is it possible that won't be a concern?

Something in the works like the sr72 or a stealth tanker? And your correct, the tanker had to fly at its upper limit with the sr71 close to stall speed. interesting though, when the blackbird was getting close to full on the fuel, it had to use one of its afterburners to stay at the speed. lol.

Im going to assume that the sr72 will refuel the same way the blackbird did, with the tanker (prob kc46T) hauling ass with the sr72 at stall speed. It would be the same since the ramjets are the extra speed compared to the sr71. under mach three I would assume the two sr's would be pretty close to the same.

It still seems like a stealthy tanker would make a ton of sense. I think Zaphod was saying that they had problems with the RCS on the boom, but it was workable, just difficult. Even if they couldn't get that lower, it still seems like it would make a lot of sense to only be vulnerable while refueling.

It makes a lot of sense, but building one big enough to hold a lot of fuel and also be stealthy would be a problem. That's kind of why I would go with the lrs-b type aircraft as a tanker and use it for limited strikes since it wont hold a lot of fuel.

they did do rcs tests on potential tanker designs back in the early 2000s at Edwards, around the same time the whole Kc-767/boeing scandal was around. And zaph is right, they had a mock up of a boom that was faceted and that layed flush against the belly of the tanker to get a lower rcs. But these were just models. I don't know if they ever actually built them (I doubt it)

But heres the kicker anyway. When you refuel any stealth aircraft such as the B-2, F-22 and F-35, as soon as they open that receptacle door every radar station near you is going to light it up anyway. Opening it basically takes the RCS of a bird and turns it into a barn door. So for now I don't see how it would make too much of a difference to have a stealthy tanker going closer to the shore if the a/r doors will just light up the radar anyway.

a reply to: Sammamishman

"Uh, your dad worked on nerve gas bombs. Sorry."


O.o well that's like ufos I guess lol

a reply to: boomer135

If I'm right about the engines it won't be as big a problem as the Blackbird.

a reply to: framedragged

He witnessed what they do to a herd of sheep but his work was on planes. That's the stuff he won't talk about. So I'm so intrigued that there is so much of this information on this thread.

So it's safe to say that the SR-71 records have been shattered. And by shattered, I mean, "what were those Blackbird pilots doing, walking?"

a reply to: IBossJekler

He might have worked on the aircraft systems that control the weapon. Big eye had two separate inert chemicals that needed to be combined in flight to the target to make the VX agents.

a reply to: Zaphod58

This is something you just found out? What stage of testing of the plane in? This one interests me more than any other

a reply to: quatro

Post IOC, but hasn't reached FOC yet. It's doing operational testing and operational missions though.