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

a reply to: mbkennel

That was one of the reasons that the reactions to the idea are unprintable on ATS.

a reply to: Jukiodone


Well I've never been called "provocatively named" before! haha

And as I mentioned, my mate is RAF, not me, I get mud on my boots when on dry land

And since I still have to work for a living, getting computer access isn't a regular thing for me.

As for that last pic being a 71 or an A12, nope - too many wrong details, even banked, turning or stretched it simply doesn't match either airframe, Zahpod is right that Black projects very very rarely see the light of day but it does happen for various reasons.

And that pic certainly isn't the famous Green Lady nor is it the equally notorious Phantasm

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

Great to see you again.
Could you provide some hints to the last pic?

I suspect you know what the platform actually is, was it flying in 90s? While telling about larger platform(the one that the aircrew being swapped during one landing of it) do you mean about the bird from the last pic?

Last pic(to remind):


Was it operating to and from any of these two RAF Scotland bases: Lossiemouth or Tain?

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

They're generally damn good ones, and I've seen them cancel flights because there were people along the fence line.

a reply to: 1947boomer

I agree that there is no opportunity to turn around. On the other hand, at high enough altitude and with moderately maneuvering missiles and bombs, wouldn't you be able to target perhaps 2 or 3 locations, as long as they were part of the allowable kinetic envelope?

E.g. you may release some at minute 3, and some at minute 6. Agree that the allowable target locations aren't large---probably a very elongated elllipse.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh I completely agree, I've watched RAF Tornados being ordered into the air the last minute and given supersonic permission over land as misdirection (to look like emergency intercepts) when one of BAE's quiet projects was due to fly back in the late 90's and some groups were actively watching known flight paths.

Test projects do suffer failures and schedule slips though, the full scale sort-of-cousin of Taranis was seen at dusk once by few folks and photographed almost by mistake in scotland due to an engine failure and so had to limp back to it's reserve landing location. that caused a few headaches convincing those folks to stay quiet, most Scots near certain bases are pretty good about not blabbing what they see usually though.

As for Speedfanatics question, yes I know what one of the platforms was (is) and yes it was operational back then but like a few others on here, I still have to salute so some details will remain quiet. ;-)

originally posted by: GrumpyBollocks
a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh I completely agree, I've watched RAF Tornados being ordered into the air the last minute and given supersonic permission over land as misdirection (to look like emergency intercepts) when one of BAE's quiet projects was due to fly back in the late 90's and some groups were actively watching known flight paths.

Test projects do suffer failures and schedule slips though, the full scale sort-of-cousin of Taranis was seen at dusk once by few folks and photographed almost by mistake in scotland due to an engine failure and so had to limp back to it's reserve landing location. that caused a few headaches convincing those folks to stay quiet, most Scots near certain bases are pretty good about not blabbing what they see usually though.

As for Speedfanatics question, yes I know what one of the platforms was (is) and yes it was operational back then but like a few others on here, I still have to salute so some details will remain quiet. ;-)

I thought BAE quiet projects were flown overseas due to very tough regulations? I know the Italians flew development Eurofighters with 'issues' that would have grounded then in the UK and that was not at Deci it was mainland. Talking about paperwork in some cases.

Why would they fly Taranis only at Woomera if they could have done so from the UK? Wharton gets them pretty much straight out to water. As for it predecessors, Herti, Thorax, Raven, Mantis etc they were not really secret enough to need to convince people to stay quite, they were concept demonstrators, in the case of Herti based on a commercial glider and some were joint university projects little more than RC aircraft, we had photos in reception and the canteen of what I thought were all the cousins pretty soon after their first flights?

Mantis was the only viable one IIRC. Like a twin engines predator? No idea where that flew, perhaps that's the cousin?

a reply to: Forensick

I couldn't have put it better myself Forensick.

As for Warton, I was in 1 hangar last week...have been fairly regularly since the hawk jigs went in. You're right about Warton being close to the coast, but it's not always direct out to sea. Just wondering Grumpybollocks, since you 'still salute' surely you're on questionable ground suggesting you have operational knowledge of a classified platform being covered up using Tornados on a public forum yet you can't name 'certain bases' in Scotland. pppffft.

Struggling to understand why tonka's were 'given supersonic permission' as a diversion....for what exactly? If something is coming in supersonic in daylight then the Tornado's would hardly be a distraction. If it were coming in at night....well nobody would know what aircraft it was, only that it was supersonic. If it were on an overflight...same.

If it were testing then it wouldn't be flying supersonic here anyway...in fact it wouldn't be flying here.

Taranis cousin??? hmmm

Cheers
Robbie.

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

As to your first paragraph. One day I was able to find a post on the other forum that partly matches with what you have told. Here is a said post:

I heard a story floating around the web that one of these black-aircraft made an emergency landing in England during the late nineties. It was supposed to be doing a training flight over the Baltic and developed engine trouble. Dutch radar was able to track an unknown aircraft crossing it's airspace. By the time they were able to react, it was over the North Sea. The aircraft recovered to an undisclosed RAF base. The extend at which the U.S./U.K. went to cover this up included scrambling F-111s and Tornadoes into the pattern to drown out the unusual noise created by the "Pulse Detonation Engines". The entire airbase, Alconbury I think, was locked down. Everyone indoors , and stay there until told. The fire crews were turned back, and the security forces were able to place a tarp over the vehicle as it was towed away to a hangar. The tarp did not fit, leaving the tail and nose exposed, also the aircraft did not fit exactly into the hangar, and stuck out. Someone got a picture, but never posted it online. Probably a smart idea there. Like I said I heard this, and have no accountable proof.

The above quote surely is in error especially when it comes to the base and PDE but other parts may have a sense

- - - - -

Now as to your response to my question:

originally posted by: GrumpyBollocks

As for Speedfanatics question, yes I know what one of the platforms was (is) and yes it was operational back then but like a few others on here, I still have to salute so some details will remain quiet. ;-)

Are you telling about this bird in your resposne to my question? :


Is it also the same bird that you named as "larger platform that aircrew being swapped during one landing of it"?

Give us some hints

a reply to: stratsys-sws

The Tonka's were used to give a little diversion from the cousin (technically I spose Taranis is the cousin )taking off , not from any fast movers coming in (US cover from Lakenheath, Mildenhall or Alconbury dealt with that), that project was only ever subsonic (as far as I'm aware) and I never heard of it being in the UK again after 2 or 3 flights, most likely stayed in the ME until it was retired due to unreliability of the no-control-surface portion of it's design. If it ever came back to the UK it would've been in bits in the back of a couple of Hercs or a C5 via Germany

Warton is a bloody circus, always was, same as Boscombe, always made us all piss ourselves that people thought both locations were flying so called deep black stuff (apart from that pathetic yank nosewheel failure job, what a f***ing farce that was) you don't fly anything even remotely sensitive from bases next to well populated areas, makes security a total joke, may as well invite the bloody newspapers. used to be little groups of spotters at both with NVA's looking for anything lifting off. The jock bases got all the juicy stuff, still do even now (LRSB stuff)

It's quite correct that by the time they'd gone down the route of that cheap bag-of-spare parts-Taranis, too much 3rd party oversight had come into place and hence it went down under for all of it's real testing.

as for sharing 'operational information'? pmsl I've done no such thing, try other forums if you want to hear some of the BAE and Canadian tech boys drop massive hints about what they got upto back then, I know very little, certainly no useful technical info , I'm no tech and I've never compromised OPSEC , we're talking well over a decade ago and over 20 for the fast mover stuff, nothing I've said has any relevance now really as BAE has virtually given up designing anything anymore as the UK can;t even afford to maintain what they already have.

I'd never be that dense as the MoD keep a watchful eye on various forums (public and private) just as their US counterparts do.

And Speedfanatic, no I don't think that's the larger platform, it may well be the smaller single seat one though, no way of verifying it for sure of course.

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

Now I'm asking about US 'fastmovers' not BAE projects. Were both platforms(the smaller one and bigger one that crew being swapped during one landing of larger platform) flying in the 90s? Were both of them ever on the ground at any of the RAF bases you listed in last post?

By the way, you mentioned about LRS-B. I suppose LRS-B birds were visiting RAF L#####M###h few years ago. There is a big green hangar at the north side of the base where mind blown


Also, look at the upper left corner of ATS page. You should see white letter icon near the search button. Check it out

a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

Are you talking about something pre-FLAVIIR?

I agree that Warton and Boscombe Down are easily observed and regularly have spotters along the fences, but as I'm sure you are aware, lots of highly classified work definitely goes on at both sites. Extremely rarely does it fly from them though, so again I agree with you.

The 'nosewheel job' was a farce, it was also nowhere near as interesting as some would believe.

Your statement about BAE giving up designing stuff is unfounded and not true I'm sorry.

It seems that both LRSB demonstrators were in Scotland.

Sorry for the accusational tone in my earlier post, it's just that it always sounds very suspicious and rather tiring when people on here use phrases such as 'certain Scottish bases' etc...there's just no need.

@speedfanatic - Which hangar on the northside of Lossiemouth are you talking about, 3 or 4?

Cheers
Robbie

originally posted by: stratsys-sws


Your statement about BAE giving up designing stuff is unfounded and not true I'm sorry.

Well, what are current BAE programs? They are probably involved for managenement and development of other systems like F-35 but I think that BAE, today, is after its golden age. They will make another evolutions of EF-2000, Harrier and other already existing systems, they will make upgrades and testing another variants but I doubt they will allocate money for entirely new design/aircraft. This is my view on it at the moment, time will tell...

As for green hangar at Lossiemouth. I don't know to be honest. My best guess would be number 4, however, what I've wrote here is exactly the same what I've heard and read about it.

a reply to: stratsys-sws

Yes, the cousin was pre FLAVIIR, it had normal control surfaces but very early on in it's design they were trying to move forward in their goal for the best broadband stealth profile and of course a big part of that is the IR signature so during the design work to redirect the hottest exhaust gases through colling vanes, they utilised the idea of routing those gases along most of the trailing edges , spine and belly, it was from what I was told a decent success and the airframe could fly for most of it's flight envelope using just those outputs , the normal surfaces only needed for very aggressive manoeuvres.

After they went public with Taranis which was never really deepluly classified they decided to tell everyone about plans for FLAVIIR, classic case of telling everyone they're thinking about it way after they first had it working .

It did give the cousin a very low IR profile and some weird flight characteristics from what I could gather with a chat with a couple of BAE boys back then

I doubt they will allocate money for entirely new design/aircraft. This is my view on it at the moment, time will tell...

Think BAE will be going from strength to strength with potential projects worldwide.They are pretty renown to do good work.Only thing that will kill them off is government meddling like they did with the Tsr2 and BAC.

I realize I’m late to this thread, just got done reading through, and have some observations. On a humerous level:

originally posted by: Kandinsky
a reply to: penroc3
I think the member was really alluding to an ATS member who charted a very similar course to '2495.' ATS search for 'forever men.'

That was good for quite the laugh. I especially liked the part where he knows all this stuff but thinks other galaxies are 100 light years away.

On a more serious note, trying to be helpful here:

originally posted by: wirehead
a reply to: GrumpyBollocks

I'm very interested in Middle East / wartime sightings, if you have any links or stories on hand to share. It's very easy to dig up sightings or reports or rumors from southern California, but I've hardly heard any stories from someone's tour or time in the military even though we all know there must be plenty.

Generally, I repeat, generally, you won't hear a lot of these types of stories of pilots seeing black aircraft in war zones. Pilots are all officers and most have Top Secret clearances. They're not low-paid enlisted guys that post sensitive info on their Facebook. This is coming from a retired enlisted guy by the way, before anyone tries to dog on me for talking down at enlisted people, I'm not. This is just how stuff works. Now for ground sightings, generally, you’re still not gonna hear much of that for the same reason. They don’t tend to land black aircraft in the middle of the day on busy airfields where hundreds if not thousands of low-ranking guys will see it and just hope none of them talks about it. As a general rule, everyone who sees it knows not to talk about it and takes that obligation seriously. They believe in the reasons why the government wants to keep such things secret.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
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.

This is part of the reason why it is so dumb to expect Iran isn't intent on developing nuclear capability is it not? Obama admin allowed them to continue to work on their ICBMs, the only reason to do that is if you are going to develop nuclear weapons. You could deliver a conventional warhead, but it's just not economical. Am I on track here?

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: SpeedFanatic

i think he is referring to the JP7 in the GAO paperwork. wasnt allot but was enough for people to notice, and why were the tankers still plumed and carrying the JP7 if no declared craft were using it.


was probably used in test of ram jet and aerospikes ADVENT type things, makes more sense with the amount of fuel

According to Wikipedia, the X-51 uses JP7.

Regarding the debated SR-71 pic, early on in that program weren’t they testing different configurations to see what flew best? Would that not be a simple explanation for why the dimensions don’t exactly match re-scaled pics of the production model?

And, just for gee wiz, I was stationed at RAF Lakenheath from 04-07 and we did not have any alert birds there. So the concept of the US scrambling planes on short notice out of Lakenheath to help cover for a black aircraft just doesn’t hold water. We also had no-fly hours after a certain point at night until the following morning to keep the locals happy. The locals were meticulous observers too, there were people on the fence and around the area every day taking notes of what tails took off when, where they went on their training runs, etc etc. Not very practical for helping out with black projects. Granted I was only there for 2 and a half years but from what other folks I ran into from there have told me over the years not much has changed.

And to the OP, S&F. Interesting thread. This is the kind of stuff I started coming to ATS for.

a reply to: face23785

You'd be surprised at what gets out. Reports get filed by pilots that see something, someone sees said report and tells a buddy, who tells a buddy, etc. Sooner or later someone gets hold of it and it gets out into the wild.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: face23785

You'd be surprised at what gets out. Reports get filed by pilots that see something, someone sees said report and tells a buddy, who tells a buddy, etc. Sooner or later someone gets hold of it and it gets out into the wild.

Good point, that's how the few stories we do hear about wind up seeing the light of day. My intent was to explain to him why after the last 16 years of nonstop war you don't hear more of them than we do.

a reply to: face23785

Thanks for your informative post!

a reply to: face23785

Great post Face, agree with you on every point.

Cheers
Robbie