Mystery aircraft photographed in California

www.thedrive.com...


Seriously have no idea what this strange machine is. However it looks funky and quick.

Any members know what it is.

Can't add much else since it's such a mystery

a reply to: blackbird9393



It's not often you see a forklift on the tarmac either.

With that spindly little landing gear, and skinny wings and vertical tail. I'm going with private space craft, similar to SpaceShipOne.

a reply to: blackbird9393

Flying ped-egg?

terrible cockpit view from the looks of it aswell. wouldnt want to land it. nice find though hopefully we get some info on it

More than likely private spacecraft. That would be my guess. The design of it looks like it would not be a feasible to fly in a normal atmosphere environment.

a reply to: 4N0M4LY

But it needs wings to fly in space? How does it get back to Earth if not designed to fly in the atmosphere? Why does it have a prop?

originally posted by: Sublimecraft
a reply to: blackbird9393

It's not often you see a forklift on the tarmac either.

Makes me think its a glider and the forklift is to move it.

It looks like something that Burt Rutan would have designed.

a reply to: dragonridr

It is not a glider, the person who took the pic says it has a pusher prop.

Its a glub

a reply to: blackbird9393

Glider... High altitude

originally posted by: butcherguy
It looks like something that Burt Rutan would have designed.

Thats what I thought when I saw it the other day in the approach path for Moffett. It caught my attention due to its distinctive prop noise that I associate with drones or 'pushers'.

Burt Rutan's planes

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: butcherguy
It looks like something that Burt Rutan would have designed.

Thats what I thought when I saw it the other day in the approach path for Moffett. It caught my attention due to its distinctive prop noise that I associate with drones or 'pushers'.

Burt Rutan's planes

The landing gear appears to be very much like Spaceship One and the fuselage is similar, but slimmer. Past tgat, the similarity ends.

originally posted by: butcherguy

originally posted by: intrptr

originally posted by: butcherguy
It looks like something that Burt Rutan would have designed.

Thats what I thought when I saw it the other day in the approach path for Moffett. It caught my attention due to its distinctive prop noise that I associate with drones or 'pushers'.

Burt Rutan's planes

The landing gear appears to be very much like Spaceship One and the fuselage is similar, but slimmer. Past that, the similarity ends.

Space ship one is rocket powered, not prop driven.

And I agree, a quick search didn't reveal a match, unless the angle of the photo is misleading. How far back are the personnel from the nose in the OP image?

a reply to: ChipForBrains

But it needs wings to fly in space? How does it get back to Earth if not designed to fly in the atmosphere?

Probably does not make a full orbit , only goes Sub Orbital , with a very small re entry angle depending on how much the craft can take.

Wings would be to generate enough lift to not fall like a brick back to earth but rather glide to a altitude and airspeed at wich they can turn on whatever engine they got packing and land it.

I am not a expert though , maybe some come along and explain what this craft does.

Meh... Zaphod gets better pics of mysterious aircraft while driving along airports.

It could be a proof of concept plane for something else to test out certain parts and theories before scaling it up to its proper size, perhaps it gets launched by a standard aircraft bit like the did with the shuttle for testing and see how it performs perhaps with remote drone controls incase it all goes wrong so no one gets hurt.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Agreed. My money is on it being a mock-up or a movie prop.

From aviation stack exchange.

stack exchange aviation

@mins, let's consider it is not a "ground mockup", from what we can see: - fuselage shape - the propulsion arrangement - the high aspect ratio wing Could be a flying prototype to test Boundary Layer Ingestion. So first they keep an open propeller to test the (unusual) configuration, and then once vrified it is flyable, they will install the BLI equipment. I would not know why that airfield tough, I would expect something like that from NASA... – GHB 7 hours ago

Looking at images for the Boundary Layer Ingestion aircraft. They have that type of long thin wing in the back.

< br />
Maybe Zaph can shed some light on this.