LRS-B (Time to Vent)

a reply to: BigTrain

Would active camouflage do it for you?

a reply to: aholic

Active camo has some....interesting issues.

a reply to: Zaphod58

One of our players has that pretty well nicked. Fun fact, they aren't calling it active camouflage.

a reply to: aholic

Be interesting to see how they did it. It didn't go so well on the F-22.

a reply to: Zaphod58

All I heard is some daylight testing is going to be necessary now to calibrate certain “systems”. Where this will take place is beyond me.

a reply to: aholic

That's why the rollout. They weren't going to yet but they had daylight flights necessary.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Yup. But just a few more genuinely sensitive things to check off before the public knows where and what to look for. My guess is the UFO forum will get some hits in the next dozen weeks or so.

I should add that if many of us saw an aircraft materializing above we'd probably post it there too.

a reply to: aholic

From reading the suggested possibilities in many of the scientific papers it seems that "Active Camo" significantly undersells the next gen capabilities of these types of systems.

Optoelectronic Chromatic Tactical Observation Prevention Unified System- or OCTOPUS (for short) might be a better name.

originally posted by: aholic

I should add that if many of us saw an aircraft materializing above we'd probably post it there too.

I should clarify my obcession with us pursuing hypersonic is so that commercial high mach speeds will evolve from the military advancements. My utter disdain for 500 mph transcontinental flights is a 11 on a 10 scale......it drives me up the wall knowing we can economically do mach 2 or mach 3 commercial but we don't.

a reply to: BigTrain

Thank the NIMBYs who were shocked, SHOCKED that their choice to live near an airport meant they had to deal with noise pollution, "environmentalists", cranky flyover staters who didn't want to deal with sonic booms, and deregulation for killing high speed air travel.

In 1969, all signs pointed to the 2707, L2000, and the like as being poised to be to the Concorde what the 707 and DC-8 were to the DeHavilland Comet.

Just as the Comet proved that jet air travel was possible, the Concorde proved it could be done. Like the Comet, Concorde was also a little too ahead of its time, and as a result was a compromised aircraft from the get-go that was only economically viable in luxury service, the same role that the Comet played relative to the DC-7, Connie, etc. We all know now that it was the 707 and DC-8, bigger, faster, and much more efficient that brought the jet age to the masses and paved the way for everything we have today.

IF the L2000 and the 2707 had been built (and flown on ALL routes), and IF consumers had been given the option of paying a business-class fare to get from A to B in a third of the time, then things might have turned out differently. Instead, commercial high-speed travel, like Nuclear power, became a victim of political hysteria and late-20th century luddism.

a reply to: BigTrain

Until quiet boom technology is perfected high speed commercial flight is not economically feasible.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: BigTrain

It's a recon platform without a strike capability.

Still works if it doesn't carry the payload, but sneaks in and directs a payload delivered from a safe place? The Navy successfully tested "synthetically guided" Tomahawk missiles in January using F-18's to guide Tomahawks into a moving target container ship. If the new platform can move into "view" of the target area undetected, another one (aircraft, ship, artillery, etc.) can send the goods.

Get there quietly, paint the target in any number of colors, watch artwork get whacked, stick around, confirm whacking, float away into the night.

To expand one step further on that line- perhaps a flashy hypersonic platform could get there quickly, deliver ordinance from over the horizon, peel out well out of AA range, and the payload then gets directions from the aforementioned stealth platform watching overhead. The missiles just get directions from two drivers, instead of one?

Janes link to the synthetic missile guidance sauce:

Tomahawk Demonstrates "Synthetic Guidance" in Moving Target Test

Liveleak video with multiple angles, including cockpit view of missile impact from the F-18:

U.S Naval Air Systems Command test of a Tomahawk Block IV guided by a F/A-18 into a moving ship target

a reply to: Viking33

The speed of the platform would make that extremely difficult to do. Tomahawks are slow platforms, so you would have to launch them hours ahead of a hypersonic platform for it to get anywhere near the area before the missile. Depending on some features of the hypersonic platform a two way datalink would be problematical.

Here's a great write up on the Tac Tom missile and the chase plane from Tyler over at foxtrot...
foxtrotalpha

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Viking33

The speed of the platform would make that extremely difficult to do. Tomahawks are slow platforms, so you would have to launch them hours ahead of a hypersonic platform for it to get anywhere near the area before the missile. Depending on some features of the hypersonic platform a two way datalink would be problematical.

zaphod

Just saw a brand new lockheed martin commercial on youtube....they show the sr 72 two times in detail....are they actively building this airframe.....will they? Seems they are heavily indicating that they are.

link to such video?
I'm trying to find it, but dont see what you're mentioning
a reply to: BigTrain

a reply to: BigTrain

OK so BigTrain, I did my due diligence and searched around yt, and was able to pull these CGI out of lockmart videos, but you're saying the images you have are different/better?? do show!
(also threw in a 6th gen fighter image from lockmart for giggles)

I wonder how long it will be before we have experienced pilots sitting in a room, thousands of miles away piloting these aircraft with just BCI's (brain-computer interfaces)?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Great speculation!

May I add that brain computer interface may open the remote control pilots to having their brains directly haxored!