the green flame

a reply to: StratosFear

It's not always coming out of NV.

a reply to: Zaphod58

That's right, because its in somewhat of an operational status rather than experimental one she could be coming out of Edwards, Langley and Guam I believe was mentioned before, Whitman AFB sounds familiar in this context as well. Am I sort of on the ball on that?

a reply to: StratosFear

Some of those.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Beale?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

You know I won't confirm any.

a reply to: StratosFear

Don't forget that little island in the Indian Ocean maybe......

I've been told that there are islands that are used as refueling stations that are scrubbed from all public satellite imagery.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

If there are, they can't go completely un-noticed. There would have to be nautical navigation charts with them on them so ships don't run aground around them.
Ask around to some salty sea captains, they might know the location of those mystery island.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Oh they're not "invisible" on maps...just that stuff like Google Earth/Maps imagery has been been sanitized.

It would be interesting to be the person who's job it is to clean up satellite images. You'd probably get to know about all kinds of stuff that most of us don't know/see.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

What about foreign sats that provide the same service that say google maps would. (not sure such a thing exists, but if they do) They scrub our stuff too?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Maybe not, but then again you'd have to know where to look in the first place!

a reply to: MystikMushroom

The Philippines have a billion islands that they could hide something on maybe.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The X-33 was a wonderful case of LM's lobbyists triumphing over common sense.

We HAD a working SSTO concept in the Delta Clipper, and if there was ANY further black world development of ANY SSTO, my money would be on the concept that resembled a giant rocket-powered MARV on stilts and blew through its development milestones with flying colors before being cancelled for no good reason. Then again, I've always been partial to the quiet competence of McD. Compared to L-M, they never gave themselves nearly enough hype for the awesome, awesome things they did.

Compare that to LM's bloated lifting body that couldn't hit a proper payload fraction if it tried, tempermental engines, imploding LH2 tank and all...

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
It would wink out and instantly reappear much further along on its path across the sky. Literally jump a quarter of the skyline and then keep going. One time when it reappeared after it made a jump almost halfway across the sky it was traveling at a 90 degree angle to it's original course. When it reappeared traveling 90 degrees different it also made a momentary bright blue streak and then continued on.

This was still "flying" during Operation Odyssey Dawn (Libya) in 2011, also over Europe.

a reply to: robi1000

Now that is fascinating. Any links or reports I can take a look at? This is pretty interesting news. Wonder what she was doing over there.

Interesting avatar BTW.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Makes me wonder if they aren't using one of these abandoned islands. makes sense. the runway is still there. all you need to do is park a ship and offload what you need.



I was looking at night time satellite images the other day to see if I saw anything interesting.
But nothing stood out.

This might be of interest.

Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields:

Western Pacific Islands

www.airfields-freeman.com...

a reply to: grey580

Depends on a lot of factors. Length of runway, reinforcement of the ramp and runway, environment around the island, etc.

Midway is a prime example. Not used, good facilities, etc. But has about a 75% chance of a bird strike. Phoenix Air used to fly a Gulfstream I to the island, and had two bird strikes in a couple months. Which doesn't sound like much, until you remember that some aircraft go from construction to retirement without a bird strike.

Nothing concrete, but I have a hunch we operate something out of "Oceania" (SW Pacific) that's not known to many. There are quite a few isolated islands located near the equator in that region.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Maybe the Solomon Islands. There are a few reports of strange aircraft overflying the Philippines that sound like they are ours. Philippines is in the way from the Solomons if you plan to fly over Asia or towards east Europe.