*Hunting the Fast Movers*... back to the past!

a reply to: nelloh62
Im in central cal, as far as i can tell its silent or high enough up to be silent.
Both small planes were prop jobs, one 2k' up, the other maybe 5-7k, i could barley hear its engine and see its markers.
I could hear one of the commercial jets
It is white white, and is directional, when it turned away they light became almost none existant until it turned back toward me, then it disappeared.
Couldnt tell you if the light went out or it just got to far away.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Interesting white light. I thought you were talking about red lights.

White light only visible from the front of the aircraft. If not a landing light then i wonder what.

Did the light have any tinge to it like say a pale hint of blue. Or maybe faint yellow.

a reply to: punkinworks10

We were across the street from Creech last year, watching a Reaper do pattern work, and maybe heard it for a few seconds. And we were closer than that. Small prop engines have gotten scary quiet.

a reply to: SpeedFanatic

I'm not going to address aircraft specific questions about what it might or might not be. That's a bad habit to get into. But I will say that with it that light the odds drastically decrease for it being something black.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

no tinge and its white white, steady state no pulse or flicker, as it turn away to the south you could still tell it was there, just like looking at car with real real bright headlights moving away from the observer.

a reply to: punkinworks10

Could be just a light on the plane. How fast you think it was travelling. Commercial aircraft speed?

a reply to: Zaphod58

This for sure is no prop driven drone, way way way to fast for that, it covered 2/3 of the visible sky in 60-90 seconds.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: punkinworks10

Could be just a light on the plane. How fast you think it was travelling. Commercial aircraft speed?

The thing is they always come from from just alittle n of west or from the due west, there is absolutely nothing in that direction to be flying from, and its the direction we never ever ever see commecial aircraft coming from.

a reply to: 1947boomer

thats funny i thought that was something still being figured of it 2017. I wonder if he was referring to the missile type PGS or aircraft PGS maybe he let the cat out a little on that one

a reply to: penroc3

Technically we have had missile defense for years. It just sucks against anything bigger than a theater class missile. It's damn good against medium range missiles though.

a reply to: Zaphod58

i thought there was some hang up with if we were to launch a PGS style missile it would be hard for other people to tell if it was a conventional strike or a nuclear one based on the trajectories and missiles used.

if we could get a aircraft into the air or even better SSTO and then releases the impactor over the target from orbit you wouldn't have to worry about attracting the whole world you were about to strike, well i assume it would be less detectable than a ballistic missile fired from a sub or land.


goo.gl...

cool picture of PGS test exploding over alaska

a reply to: penroc3

They wanted to convert some ICBMs into conventional warheads. They eventually decided that it would be better to just use more conventional methods. Not as fast, but got the job done.

a reply to: Zaphod58

flatter trajectories on smaller missiles are one thing but it you are targeting someone like Russia they are going to see in there early warning sats a missile coming at them from the ground.

if you can take off from a runway as a 'regular' airplane, get to where you are clear overhead and maybe some neat stealth tricks a have SSTO available to you, if i were a general i would use that.

and when that missile launch site or whatever blows up you could say we had no missile launches or aircraft in the skies,(because the are in space) and with kinetic bombardment would leave no bomb fragments or chemical residues

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: 1947boomer

thats funny i thought that was something still being figured of it 2017. I wonder if he was referring to the missile type PGS or aircraft PGS maybe he let the cat out a little on that one

I think that what these UK sightings and Bob Gates' comments are telling us that the situation is complicated. It's simultaneously true that PGS is being worked on in 2017 AND true that there was a black program operational around 2010.

As implied in your statement, there are two parallel approaches to hypersonic Strike--air breathing cruise and rocket powered boost glide.

The technology to implement rocket powered boost glide has existed for probably 40 years or more. The technology to implement air breathing cruise in missiles small enough that they can be produced in quantity is still being worked on.

In order to be useful for most strategic purposes, a PGS platform has to have a minimum range of probably 5000 miles or so. (That's so you can stand off over international territory and hit targets in central Russia or China.) You can do that with hypersonic gliders on the top of ordinary ballistic missiles that are no more sophisticated than the AMARV system that was demonstrated back in 1980. The problem is that, in general, the hypersonic gliders would go after the same target set that ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons would go after, so you would need about the same number of launchers. To a peer enemy, launching a bunch of hypersonic gliders would look the same as a nuclear first strike.

The last time I worked on a national security study was about 10 or 12 years ago when I was loaned as a subject matter expert part time to DARPA. At that time we were studying a system that was supposed to deliver a "package" anywhere on the planet on short notice and one of our ground rules was that we had to use one of the approved launch facilities (like Cape Canaveral, for instance) to avoid looking like a first strike. So that's why we don't already have PGS hypersonic gliders sitting out in missile silos.

However, the system that the UK investigators describe doesn't have that problem because it is a single stage vehicle and (I believe) fairly short range (about 2000 miles). It takes off like a conventional jet aircraft, flies out to its initial point, refuels if necessary, lights off its rocket motors, climbs out of the atmosphere on a parabolic arc, re-enters the atmosphere a few hundred miles down range, pulls up into a glide, over flies its target, does whatever it's going to do, and then glides to its recovery air field. At no time is this system going to be mistaken for a nuclear barrage.

There are also a fairly limited number of places in the world where a system like this would and could be used (you have to have a target country that is not so big that you can't glide all the way over it and you have to have one or more friendly bases next door). The obvious candidates are (more or less in order) North Korea, Iran, and perhaps Pakistan.

So I see this system (which I assume is the same one that Gates spilled the beans on) as a fairly specialized system to address particular concerns (of exactly the kind that we are currently experiencing with NK).

a reply to: 1947boomer

Why not a hypersonic limited strike aircraft?

Why not a hypersonic limited strike aircraft?

Dream mode on...F111 shape and swing wing but quicker....

a reply to: Zaphod58

777's leave contrails that are often bigger than A340's and can rival those of a 747, from what I've seen.

A380's are in a class all their own, though.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: 1947boomer

Why not a hypersonic limited strike aircraft?

What do you mean by " limited"?

a reply to: Barnalby

The A380 has an epic contrail I usually see the Calgary-Heathrow flight coming in over my house on its way back.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Ie its got a small payload of only a few munitions and is intended to strike a single target.