Looks like our boys saw something cool out there

a reply to: Zaphod58

Again with the b2, funny these new aircraft fly out of bases where they are and the AF even went thru the trouble of having a formation follow a test or demonstration of something with multiple B2's the day after the pics showed up online.


Great way of give a hand wave explanation that the unwashed masses will eat up.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Power units don't sit 50 feet away from the aircraft. They're maybe 10 feet away at their farthest. You can't move the power unit too far away from the aircraft and still have the power cable reach it.

I understand that Zaph but you are assuming the power-cart is in use and that the power cart hasn't been moved away from the aircraft or just out of the way for one of a hundred different reasons.

Maybe it was time for an internal power check, who knows.

I've certainly seen them sitting a couple hundred feet away when not in immediate use, hell I've seen them 50 feet away and plugged in, are you really saying that you haven't?

(I'm speaking of various aircraft, neither one of us has been around a B-2 enough to speak authoritatively on the air-frame but I guarantee you if there is a USAF regulation on power cart placement near low observable aircraft it is definitely farther away, not closer.

Its not like the Buick 401's and Chevy 454 start carts for an SR-71 where you have to tow the thing under the engine nacelle and plug it in to spin it up, its a just an APU limited only by the length and gauge of cable per whatever the internal power requirement is.

Just for grins,60 foot GPU output assemblies are common

So, Just exactly how far is the 'ol Essex Electro Engineer sitting in front of the wing leading edge? Could be 10 feet, could be 50. I can't tell and that photo is unquestionably the best view you had as well because we both know about optics versus eyeballs.. at night... from 10 miles away.



is it farther than this?


or this?




B-2's and power cart in 2nd and third row, taken from about 32 seconds here.


Not everyone on here is a nitwit.
Edit to add: Except for the person who starred your comment.

a reply to: Drunkenparrot

none of them are connected in those pics, is it possible that a apu could have had unnecessarily long cable? sure but why would they in the picture in question.

originally posted by: SonofaSkunk
So, Zaph, straight up, what do YOU think? B-2, B-21, RQ-180, or?

Based on what we saw and being there at the time It was NOT a B-2 . What it was/is of course up to interpretation.

a reply to: FredT

It might not even be the 180 or 21.

I'm going with my statement in the other thread

originally posted by: penroc3
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

none of them are connected in those pics, is it possible that a apu could have had unnecessarily long cable? sure but why would they in the picture in question.

Are you sure the power cart is connected in the photo under discussion? It looks like it probably is but I cant tell definitively, can you?

Somebody in the comment section on a different website noted that using the power cart for scale is problematic because it seems to be in the foreground of the photo.

chris p moore • a day ago
The comparison to the Essex apu would only work if they we're in the same plane of alignment which they are not. It's obvious it is some distance closer to the shooter. The aircraft is back and at an angle.

theaviationist.com/What’s this mysterious aircraft spotted at Edwards AFB? The secretive B-21 Raider, the RQ-180 drone or “just” a B-2?


I asked a page or two back if that could be the reason behind the discrepancy between the known 172' known wingspan of a B-2 and the calculated 132' in the unknown photo that could be a B-2. I just used 50' as a reasonable number pulled out of nowhere that seemed enough to affect parallax trigonometry calculations.

originally posted by: Drunkenparrot
He has a point, however would the APU cart sitting say 50 feet closer to the observer in the foreground account for the roughly 30% variance between the size calculations of the object in the photo and the known wingspan and height B-2?

Zaph, responded with a post I took to be a dismissive reply that was incorrect and I perceived in the same tone I expect from replies regarding silly stuff like TR3-B sightings, Aurora hypersonic capabilities or anytime Zaphod and ATS poster Gariac interact.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Power units don't sit 50 feet away from the aircraft. They're maybe 10 feet away at their farthest. You can't move the power unit too far away from the aircraft and still have the power cable reach it.

I'm not saying that it is '50 feet away, maybe its 15'. I'm not saying its not plugged into the aircraft, it probably is. I feel I posted a legitimate point of consideration that might go a long way towards explaining the size discrepancy between whatever is in the photo and a B-2.

Thus I posted photos of power carts and B-2's which I feel conclusively prove that a power cart can be photographed sitting 50' in front of a B-2.

I guess I should do the math and see how far in front the cart has to be to make a 172' seem like 132 using the same scaling technique.

a reply to: Drunkenparrot

I'm pretty sure it is, it could be an illusion but from the small sliver of experience i have it looks right.

Even if you dismiss the inlet discrepancy the landing gear shows it to not be a B2, in my humble opinion.

As far as the response I wouldn't read to much into that

B-2 has a huge front gear door, you can see this doesn't.

a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Fine, just for you and for accuracy, power units that are IN USE don't sit 50 feet in front of aircraft. Sorry for not being exact in my wording, apparently I have to be from now on.

a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Power unit aside what's your opinion on the odd cockpit area and the leading edge just directly below it that doesn't seem like a b2 at all.

Then what about the engine cowlings are we really sure those are cowlings at all. There's enough there to make me wonder if they're not something else.

it looks like a RQ-180

a reply to: Damla

Well the b21 inlets are supposed to be close to the body and this thing has humps out on the wings.

Inlet look rectangular , and the cockpit area doesn't look like a B-2, the wingtip shape on the picture look curved down when the B-2 is straight. Dont' know what it is but a B-2 it doesn't seem. In fact we don't know what the B-21 will look like and RQ-180 the same, IF it exist, there is no proof. Surely there is not a lot of program running now so , what are the great chance this thing could be ?

a reply to: hawkguy

Well.... I will throw the cat amongst the pigeons and say we are looking at it back to front maybe, and for my 2 cents worth it could be a new stealthy drone refuelling platform

spacing in the exhaust looks right

a reply to: nelloh62

It could be a few things but I'm going with its not a B2. Again too many things look off.

Hey, i just saw your PM from months ago and responded. Check your inbox. Sorry. I haven't been on ATS much.

a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Lets explore the math for a moment. Please bear in mind, I am not a mathematician and I could be completely off base here but if the GPU was sitting right under the wing of the aircraft the distance to the GPU would have been 56,165.52 ft (10.64 miles), assuming the aircraft was centered in the apron.

If the GPU was indeed some distance away, lets for the sake of trying to sway the numbers in favor of it being a B-2, say 320.15 ft away. That would have put it at the edge of the tarmac, almost in the dirt, between the building and the water tank in view.
That puts the distance to the GPU at 55,845.37 ft. A difference percentage of 0.0057. If we apply this to the estimated 132.06 ft wing span the calculation should look like this (132.06 x 1.0057) that increases the estimated wing span to 132.81 ft, which is still no where near the B-2's 172 ft span.
Even if the aircraft wasn't centered in the apron and pushed closer to the blast deflector, it still wouldn't be enough variance in the calculations to get close to 172 ft.

It seems to be a stealth plane hybrid B2/SR-71 of the refueling type for B-52 bombers and C-70 aircraft. Does anyone know what stagecraft means? Is Universal Studios Sky Beams on lock for the brigade of new or relatively unknowns?

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Fine, just for you and for accuracy, power units that are IN USE don't sit 50 feet in front of aircraft. Sorry for not being exact in my wording, apparently I have to be from now on.

You are absolutely correct, my point was just an off the cuff question posted by somebody else in the comment section of an avgeek website that often publishes poor analysis based on bad facts.

Your fellow spotting partner posted a very eloquent and conclusive answer just below...

originally posted by: Sammamishman
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Lets explore the math for a moment. Please bear in mind, I am not a mathematician and I could be completely off base here but if the GPU was sitting right under the wing of the aircraft the distance to the GPU would have been 56,165.52 ft (10.64 miles), assuming the aircraft was centered in the apron....

....Even if the aircraft wasn't centered in the apron and pushed closer to the blast deflector, it still wouldn't be enough variance in the calculations to get close to 172 ft.

Thank you for the insight, your work makes sense and seems conclusive.

I wasn't sure how the much the apparent size of two objects relatively close to one another would be influenced when viewed from an exponentially greater distance under magnification.

The answer is quite clearly very little.

It seemed plausible that the scaling would be off if the APU were offset from the geometric plane of the airplane (get it, plane of the plane )

I thought the correlation of roughly 30% difference in both height and width between what you guys calculated and the wingspan of B-2 was an interesting coincidence ( Yes, the history of the Flying Wing is full of coincidences )

The suggestion was clearly off the mark.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Drunkenparrot

Power unit aside what's your opinion on the odd cockpit area and the leading edge just directly below it that doesn't seem like a b2 at all.

Then what about the engine cowlings are we really sure those are cowlings at all. There's enough there to make me wonder if they're not something else.

Yes, I agree with you on all the above.

To my eye the contour and size of the cockpit/dorsal bulge look very wrong for a B-2 , the leading edge as presented in the photo seems more reminiscent of the Blackbird family chine than the rolled "beak" of a B-2 and the engine nacelle placement seems both the wrong shape and seemingly placed too far outboard.

However ....

Its a highly magnified, low contrast blurry photo taken at night from 10 miles away. The seemingly odd cockpit and engine cowlings could just be a product of a slightly off center perspective enhanced by fuzzy shadows and light reflecting in a way to appear as a more substantial structure.

I don't see any hint to suggest a windscreen of any-kind. I see two open (weapons/sensor?) bay doors and a front gear door but I would expect an open crew access door. Maybe its closed, maybe its unmanned and there is no crew access?

The odd looking nacelle could just be the B-2 secondary intake doors on top of the cowling in the open position combined with fuzzy shadows etc to look like they do in your photo.

They could also be fairings covering satellite/line of sight data link antenna and the "cockpit" structure looks so odd because there is an engine inlet hiding center-line in the shadows?

The B-2 airfoil employs a complex, variable radius continuous curvature across the leading edge, using a mix of RAM composites.

I think its at least possible it could reflect the tarmac lighting in the way we see in the photo.

It could also easily be the reflection off of a blended chine, similar to Kelly Johnson's Archangel 12 family as above or the more contemporary RQ-3 DarkStar?

It was seen in a place where B-2's are a common sight, Zaphod says there was a B-2 out there that night, the DOD looked at it and said B-2.

On the other hand, if the photo scale using the power cart is accurate its not a B-2.

Great mystery to say the least. Certainly puts my prize picture standing next to the A-12 at on Ave P back in the mid 1990's before Blackbird park was on the map to shame.