'Fastmover' seen by Swiss guys from Tikaboo in 1999: discussion

a reply to: mightmight

Brilliant post! You have my star!

As for F-117 Companion.

Well the F-117/X-XXX combo went pretty well, so I don't see why they wouldn't replicate it. Nice thread ZAPh

We know that it was built for Electronic Warfare, among other things. Electronic Warfare aircraft has designations with beginning "E-..." and Air Force never goes over 100+ number with their designations for aircraft.
Then there is a hint:

They're probably using the F-117 to test with the **19 aswell, one flys outta tph the other out of groom.

Probably

To sum it up, my best guess is that "F-117 Companion" is *E*-*119*
where * stands for cover...

For my best guess

Also, do you think that the "Fastmover" that was seen by Swiss guys from Tikaboo in 1999 was NRO project??? Maybe Green Lady replaced aircraft that Swiss guys saw? What do you think?

a reply to: Zaphod58

I had fun pointing a really pretty one out to the lady a couple weeks ago over Hampden. It was coming off an A320 flying from Canada to the Caribbean. Spooky stuff, for sure!

a reply to: Barnalby

We were at the house a few weeks ago and watched every plane that went over leave one.

a reply to: mightmight

I'm convinced that a whole lot of the aurora fastmover talk in the late 80's was actually targeted disinfo to get people off the trail of the REAL direction that strategic recon was going in, which was the 90k cruising, subsonic, extreme-VLO and extreme-loitering AARS/Quartz program.

It's a lot easier to fly the unmanned bastard spawn of a U-2 and a B-2 over enemy territory if you have the intel channels all abuzz about new hypersonic fastmovers.

Not that I don't think there were any post-Oxcart fastmovers, I'd bet that there have been nearly a half dizen between all the possible programs and craft discussed here. But they're largely (relatively!) inexpensive projects that probably piggybacked off of the R&D data from white world projects like the A-12/SR-71/Kingfish, the XB-70, and the F-22/YF-23, and likely were procured to the tune of only a handful of ~$250-500m-apiece airframes per program.

Meanwhile, Quartz/AARS was a system that by all accounts pushed the technology envelope as hard as the Oxcart/XB-70 did in 1962, Apollo did in 1968, the Shuttle did in 1980, or the B-2 did in 1988, and in just as many different places, too. By all accounts I've read, the cost per unit for the AARS/Quartz was trending beyond even the B-2 and into the realm of the Space Shuttle at >$1 Billion a pop.

It's relatively easy to hide the couple billion it would take to update the XB-70 or build a stealthier follow-on to the Kingfish among white-world projects. AARS/Quartz, on the other hand, at >$10 Billion in development costs and likely far more, would be nigh-on impossible to hide at least some of the spending on, which makes the risk of accidentally disclosing a project that was truly "above top secret" in its need to keep a low profile, since its mission was explicitly to penetrate Soviet airspace ahead of a possible first strike to identify ground targets for the B-2's to neutralize, a mission that would likely involve violating Soviet airspace unnoticed during possible peacetime conditions. So what do you do? You don't try to hide some of the funds, but you fire the rumor mill into overdrive with stories of hypersonic spyplanes, leak a few patents, and have Reagan do a bit on how a scramjet-powered airliner to Tokyo is now a national priority. All to hide your big, silent wing.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Wasn't the PDW engine concept essentially a pulsejet with pretensions? I remember seeing the long-EX with the prototype that used a Honda cylinder head, and wasn't it barely more powerful than the stock Rotax?

I'd imagine that heat management would make such an engine nigh-on impossible to fly for any meaningful duration of time.

a reply to: Barnalby

Basically. It worked fine for small operations, like a cruise missile sized platform. Much bigger than that, and they ran into all kinds of problems. It never came close to what was claimed online.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Barnalby

Basically. It worked fine for small operations, like a cruise missile sized platform. Much bigger than that, and they ran into all kinds of problems. It never came close to what was claimed online.

Not that they didn't work at it. A lot.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

One thing to remember is that the F-117 was given a fighter designation soo possibly the companion was also given a potentially misleading one to hide its mission.

a reply to: Bedlam

I've seen dogs give up bones faster than they gave up the idea of a detonation engine. I wouldn't be surprised if they were still working on it in 20 years.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Rumor has it they have something much nicer now

a reply to: BASSPLYR

It would be hard to have something uglier than the performance they were getting.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The pulse detonation engine was just a way to 'prove' that stupid donuts on a rope contrail theory, must mean that 737's have PDE aswell lol

a reply to: Zaphod58

Like I said, a pulse jet with pretensions.

I'd also imagine that MBDA's solid fuel ramjet tech makes just about every other wacky high-supersonic missile propulsion system look ridiculously complex and inefficient.

Back to the topic at hand, though. It's generally assumed that the white aircraft spotted was Lockheed's 90s quiet boom testbed, and was most likely a contractor-owned aircraft.

So why haven't we seen more of it today? Why hasn't it gotten the Bird Of Prey treatment?

Snowballing here but, what about a smaller black version of the X-33 with linear aerospike engines?

Wacky bassplyr speculation time:

1.
I think aurora was a real program althpugh not in name....although the name woulda worked well.

2. Aurora was not a line item for b2 budgets nor an aircraft.

originally posted by: Barnalby
a reply to: Zaphod58

Back to the topic at hand, though. It's generally assumed that the white aircraft spotted was Lockheed's 90s quiet boom testbed, and was most likely a contractor-owned aircraft.

So why haven't we seen more of it today? Why hasn't it gotten the Bird Of Prey treatment?

Well, it clearly matches with this, dude:



a reply to: B2StealthBomber
I'm sure you won't reveal it but any clue on a letter before prefix in "F-117 Companion" designator?

Heres the L2000 mockup.Very Concorde like..But bigger..
Lockheed

a reply to: B2StealthBomber

Check out PM

@Barnalby
Yes pretty much.
AARS/Quartz is a fascinating topic, really pushed the envelope. Reportedly the NGB/ NGLRS-D testbeds were little more than the manned legacy of the VLO loitering platform cancelled in the early Nineties. Boeing even used the old Quartz model to showcase their NGB efforts, they just put a bit of tape on it to simulate a cockpit.

So if the manufactures kept AARS in their pockets to develop it into the B-21 two decades later, its no at all unreasonable to think that the NRO got what it wanted from the program as well. They were heavily involved in the project anyway, even took it over from the Air Force until it got officially cancelled entirely in 1992. This wouldnt have happened if they didnt want something from it.

Interesting factoid, the Director oft he National Reconnaissance Office from 1881 to 1988, Edward C. Aldrige was serving as Under Secretary and even Secretary of the Air Force as well during this time. According to whats available online, he was very interested in airborne reconnaissance assets and wanted to integrate them into the NRO. I bet he was successful in the end.

a reply to: Blackfinger

Sometimes I wish CERN would skip us back to the worldline where we got the L-2000 instead of the L-1011.

Pouring over the technical drawings, it's clear that she would have been an utterly magnificent bird in the flesh.