Any flight experts have any idear what i saw? very quiet, low altitude, high speed.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: mindseye1609

You should see the other one. Not as "oh my God" in the same way, but just as stunning in her own right.

I'm stalking that one until I can get a picture of it.

zaphod, I agree that we shouldn't be exposing all of our high tech "wow" aircraft...but, if they want to keep it that secret, they have a couple thousand square miles in Nevada to do the testing, or at least get it high enough where ordinary citizens don't see it....flying this low around civilian areas is inviting and perhaps promoting it's capabilities, and obviously scaring the crap out of some people. the military should keep it hidden, but if it brings it out where the general public can see it, let us know what the hell it is.

a reply to: jimmyx

Sometimes they have to. They have to occasionally show it off to people, and getting Mohammed to the mountain doesn't always work, so the mountain had to go to Mohammed.

They were scheduled to do this in Montana, but real world events got in the way, so it fell apart. The people that needed to see it had to be available to monitor events, so it had to go to them. It happens sometimes. Honestly though, just seeing it you won't learn a thing about its true capabilities.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: grey580

Look up. One of our friends came home recently and may have gone right past you.

Don't tell me I missed greenie coming back home.

originally posted by: Aloysius the Gaul
Horizon to horizon in 2 minutes?

Distance to horizon (in nautical miles) is 1.23 times the square root of the altitude in feet.

Example: FL350 being nominally 35000' above a sea level point. It also assumes the earth to be pretty much a perfect sphere.

Square root of 35,000 is 187.08 (plus some digits)
1.23 X 187.08 = 230.11 (plus some digits)

So the distance to the horizon is about 230 nm (370km) from 35000' - in each direction so that's 230 miles a minute, or 13,800 mph - not even hypersonics do that.

At 60,000 feet the horizon is about 301 miles away - so 18,000 mph, and at 90,000 feet it is 369 miles so 22,140mph.

Perhaps I missed something...but any body doing those speeds is not going to go unnoticed anywhere!!

I think you may have misapplied the formulas. That formula is used to calculate the distance to the visible horizon from an observer at h = height of the observer Using that formula as you did would be the same thing as calculating the distance to the visible horizon from on top of a 35,000 ft tall building.

Your maths are a a bit broken :-(

a reply to: parad0x122

There's a reciprocity principle. If something at FL 35000 can see 200 miles, then if you're 200 miles away, and with great eyes and no mountains, you could conceivably see it waaay on the horizon at 200 miles.

In practice I don't think you could usually do so unless you were an observer with binoculars on a small unobstructed peak.

a reply to: mbkennel

Very true, just wanted to point out that calculating what the OP saw is actually a pretty complex process. You'd need to know atmospheric conditions, his height ASL, his actual height...way too many variables to start throwing around figures.

a reply to: parad0x122

The biggest potential variation is obviously in the flight track relative to the observer as well - if it's not flying directly overhead then a whole other dimension has to be considered. When we're all talking rough numbers though it's enough to get a rough idea. That idea being that it's damn quick whichever way you look at it.

a reply to: Araqiel
Totally! I was thinking about that too...like what if it was, for instance, lowering its altitude as it traversed the sky. That would make it look like it was moving faster horizontally from an observer on the ground.

originally posted by: parad0x122

I think you may have misapplied the formulas. That formula is used to calculate the distance to the visible horizon from an observer at h = height of the observer Using that formula as you did would be the same thing as calculating the distance to the visible horizon from on top of a 35,000 ft tall building.

Your maths are a a bit broken :-(

Nope - if something at 30,000 feet can see the horizon 200 miles away, then someone on the horizon 200 miles away can see something at 30,000 feet.

In practice trees, buildings & terrain mostly mean we do not see the "natural" horizon at all of course - but the principle remains - line of sight works both ways.

a reply to: Aloysius the Gaul

Yeah I know, but we were trying to calculate the rough distance from one horizon to the other from the ground. Not 35,000 feet in the air.

I don't have much to offer on this at this time but I just wanted to say I have enjoyed reading this stuff and you guys got me looking up again. Half of what it's about if you love these birds and truly appreciate the effort that has been put into creating and maintaining them is getting your kids imagination running wild with possibility that they might have a chance someday of being involved in something bigger than themselves.

You can add me as another set of eyes and maybe some ears if I get motivated enough at following some of these new creations.

Really intriguing post! I'm in the UK and usually looking up for meteors and any other weird stuff, so will have to keep my eyes EXTRA peeled from now on if there's a chance to see something like this!

Hey Zaph, you seem like a really smart guy and I enjoy your posts. That said, don't go looking to film these craft. Here we have a program that has been witnessed by everyone and their mother, yet no good pics or footage. Probably a reason for that.

Just enjoy that we're allowed to see this for whatever reason and don't rock the boat.

a reply to: Arpad

This particular craft has only been seen by one person not involved with it, that I've heard of, and that is the OP.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Arpad

This particular craft has only been seen by one person not involved with it, that I've heard of, and that is the OP.

Then my apologies, was assuming certain "other" craft that are bit more common so to speak.

a reply to: Arpad

This is an entirely new aircraft, recently built that was going to be shown off to the people with the money to get them to buy more of them.

a reply to: Zaphod58

long skinny wings: U-3 ?

a reply to: mbkennel

No, and that's one of those "do not pass Go, here's your orange jumpsuit, your flight leaves in an hour" questions. Lol

Hi, my first time here, but followed ATS for many years. Spotted a strange aircraft whilst living in Calgary around Sept 2009.
Sometime around 11am I looked up and spotted an aircraft contrail that was strange. You could not see the plane as it was so high, not even a dot, but the contrail was definately pulsing, sort of pulse, swirl, gap. What was weird was it travelled from horizon to horizon in less than a minute, totally silent, straight as an arrow, and the trail never changed shape once.
It was clear blue skies, not even a hint of haze and my line of sight was clear all the way.
I, like the rest of us, have witnessed thousands of aircraft contrails, and a few obvious military, but have never seen this before or again. Now I tried to ring my daughter who was shopping downtown to look up and witness it, but before I could get through the whole event was over, including the contrail which seemed strange. Yes, my phone did have a camera, but like an idiot, I was so amazed my mouth was ajar and no photo. I cant put into words how fast this craft was travelling ( and yes, it was a craft, not a meteor or the likes ) but it was blistering across the sky and not commercial. Direction was something like NE to SW

a reply to: Zaphod58

ah so I take it this isn't the U-3, but maybe there is something in that space and asking about THAT ONE gets somebody all dressed up with nowhere to go for a long time.