Skunkworks reveals secret UAV

"Developed in only 18 months, using internal funding"

i.e. it's another non-event (like Boeing's Bird of Prey) which doesn't bring us any closer to the actual black planes the USAF spends its billions on.

img351.imageshack.us...

Now go look real hard for 'senior Ray'. the manned version. Before you all scream BS - think long and hard about the next paragraph.


WEEKS before Bae unvieled the swept winged corax I told you all about it here on ATS - and what do you know it got unveiled.....

Weeks before you all saw this 'new uav' you were told, here on ATS about a B-2 clone / similar layout type of craft craft that was flying.... now wet the bed you now get a picture.... of the UAV version that is - they are still hiding the manned versions and with good reasons actually as I now understand and have been told about.

The manned version is the control craft, two seat and guides and directs from the edge of the battle field. the uav goes in where it is highly defended. It is a HIGH ALTITUDE platform, where the origional B-2 plan form EXCELLED.

Now, think this flew in 2003? think again, it flew years before that. U2 pilots even repoted it because it raised concerns. Here, read this - I even gave you the link to read before.... 2002 / 2003 it was FLYING over Iraq.

aviationnow.com.../07073news.xml

people you may all have your views about me, but thank you.

I HAD THE LAST LAUGH. (oh and could not resist telling you I told you so)

Now the sad part. You get no more of my research or knowledge / and / or contacts photos.

The fully painted UAV actually shimmers...weird or what hey??



[edit on 20/7/06 by MadGreebo]

[edit on 20/7/06 by MadGreebo]

Oh forget it. It just ain't worth it.

[edit on 7/20/2006 by Zaphod58]

Thats a beautiful plane!

Is it going to be at an air show flying at all ?? I have started to get a fetish about stealth planes...

Ever since i saw a B-2 up close they have captured my imagination no end - But not half as much as the F-14 did when top gun was released!!!!!

(And as for Goose appearing in ER...well.....SWOON!)

Originally posted by Mike_A
There's a better picture of it on Jane's Farnborough site, though you'll have to log in (free).

farnborough.janes.com...

Oh yes LOGIN is free... if you don't mind full disclosure of your true identity..

but ummm maybe you ought to tell people about the PRICE LIST for copies of the really good documents

And access to search the libraries starts at $8 G and goes to $23 G [page 6 of price list]

Free HA!

But then those are the REAL files... to bad they don't have a UFO section...

Originally posted by MadGreebo
Now the sad part. You get no more of my research or knowledge / and / or contacts photos.

Now your just being plain MEAN.

I mean I wasn't even here to see your other thread. And I would love to post your info and contacts on our new research link website

Okay I am calm now... had my coffee...

I do understand your frustration though, most people don't even read the whole thread even when its a couple pages, so how can you expect them to pay attention acroos more than one thread? Its kinda like that Homer Simpson toon... where his head only holds so much... rest of the data falls out

But some of us want those cool links and info... but ummmm I will take em u2u if you want


Speaking of which...[a tad off topic here] but I am looking for any info on some new solar cells... they are lquid cooled, I believe the figures involved were 1200 sq ft provides power for 25,000 homes. I had the research links months ago and lost them on the HD, and now google isn't finding them. I know they were being tested at the Nevada test sight... but so far no luck

I got a new pic for my desktop!!!

Them boys did good!!!

Oh, it also reminds me Horten Ho-IX experimental that never had completed fully by Germans in World War II. I wonder, why so suddenly that Skunk Works built this aircraft without DoD and Air Force funding and rapports? That means Skunk Works shows us how talent they are with this kind of project. I'm still impressive with them.

Good to see that the boys from lockheed have some free time, when they arent reverse enginering alien tech or working on the replacement for the B2 And F117A this thing looks very cool indeed. and should help our friends in the CIA (friends?:lol spy better on North korea and iran, and anyone else they feel like.

What i want to know as mention before, what else are they playing with as they have finished with the JSF which they worked with BAE systems for, so what else have they got either on the drawing board or the production line.

Again props to Murcielago for an excellent post. keep up the good work mate

Polecat is the smoke screen people, here, read this - a direct qoute from Janes defence weekly - The UAV is a lead into a BIGGER AND BETTER PROJECT.


Budget document discloses existence of secret US Air Force UAV programme

Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works is believed to be developing a high-altitude, stealthy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) for the US Air Force (USAF) under a secret programme, funded with money taken from the terminated Joint Unmanned Combat Air System (J-UCAS) project.

The existence of a classified air force UAS project was disclosed in a navy Fiscal Year 2007 budget document, which stated that the Pentagon "directed the J-UCAS programme to split into two separate programmes: one air force classified programme and a navy UCAV [unmanned combat aerial vehicle] programme".

The new UAV, sometimes known as the Penetrating High Altitude Endurance (PHAE), is believed to be capable of operating at the 70,000-80,000 ft altitudes used by the U-2. One report refers to the aircraft using engines from an inventory that has been in storage since the 1970s. This almost certainly refers to the General Electric J97-GE-3 engine for the Teledyne Ryan AQM-91 Compass Arrow UAV (a project terminated in 1971). In 1998, a NASA paper reported that 24 J97 engines were in storage at the agency's Ames research centre. The Compass Arrow exceeded 80,000 ft during tests, the highest unclassified altitude ever recorded for a subsonic jet-powered aircraft. The J97 was rated at around 25 kN and the new UAV is probably a twin-engine design.

The new UAV is much larger than the small stealth UAV that has been evaluated operationally in Iraq. That aircraft - believed to be powered by one or two Williams FJ33 engines - has only eight hours' endurance, like DarkStar, and that is currently seen as inadequate.

greebo i have a simple question for you. Was i not right in say that the photos that were supplied to back up your statments can't be properly compared to the polecat? Did you get the right direction yes but 90% of the photos on that thread can't match up properly to the polecat. I give you a big tip of the hat for happening to more or less be ontrack with these facts: that a flying wing aircraft has been designed simalir to the B-2.
I'm interested Zaphod in what you where going to say since me and you both were very active in that thread.
Dont get cocky Greebo or I will actually spend more time debuffing the photos to show you that they aren't the polecat.

Hey MadGreebo you blow my mind every time Dude, thank you Fella !
As always it is just a minute teasing glimpse of the 'real' future technology that they have.

Thoughts on the shimmering;
First attempt at plasma stealth ?
Electrochromatic panels ?
Cheap camera taking the picture ?

Who knows ...

I dont think the photos that MadGreebo provided have any relation to the polecat.

Particularly the plane which he calls "senior ice" which to be quite honest I think I could draw a better version on photoshop. If this senior ice is a control craft for UAVs that means it can hang back and control from a distance so why does it need to sacrifice some of its functions for extreme stealth of the same order of the B-2?

Originally posted by snakebite
Good to see that the boys from lockheed have some free time, when they arent reverse enginering alien tech

Do you have some links for that reverse enginering alien tech? I would like to review it for the website....

should help our friends in the CIA (friends?:lol

spy better on North korea and iran, and anyone else they feel like.

Oh yes " the nice visitors that talk with a monotone, have no humor, and use black as the preferred aesthetic appeal in apparel." [as my colleague Matyas puts it] they ARE our friends. They really do get a bad rap by conspiracy nuts

What i want to know as mention before, what else are they playing with as they have finished with the JSF which they worked with BAE systems for, so what else have they got either on the drawing board or the production line.

Ummmm maybe THIS?

The Bright Star is a private venture of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. It is a Mach 2+ supersonic cruise/sonic boom research aircraft, which was used by the Skunk Works to raise DARPA's interest in QSP (Quiet Supersonic Platform) research. Although it is not a DOD project, the USAF provides some support (at least by providing a secret flight test location ;-)). The Bright Star has been flying for many years, and was the cause of some of the unexplained sonic booms over the western USA. The Bright Star is the most plausible cause for many so-called "Aurora" sightings.

Bright Star is said to be the cause for the famous "Donuts-On-A-Rope" contrails (for photos, see this page), often reported together with a "rumbling" sound. The rumbling is generated by the vehicle in the transoinc speed region, and is essentially a series of low-amplitude sonic booms at a frequency of 1 to 3 Hz. The "donut" contrail is formed by water vapor captured in the shock wave. The "pulsating" sonic boom is directly responsible for both the characteristic sound of the aircraft, and the "strange-looking" contrails.

Bright Star

Originally posted by Canada_EH
I'm interested Zaphod in what you where going to say since me and you both were very active in that thread.

Something similar to what you said. Along with the fact that I've searched for "Senior Ray" in many different combinations, with different things with it, and the only things I get are peoples names, and in some cases bits of their ranks if their in the military. NOTHING about any sort of plane or craft.

Canada,
I appreciate totaly where your coming from and what your saying. Im not even saying the pictures I have are of the Polecat, far far from it infact - what im trying to get across is that there is a plethora of aircraft in this category that bear a remarkable likeness to the B-2 EARLY planform, ie just one saw tooth, not multiples. This planform is excellent for fast high altitude penetration of highly defended airspace, and is actually stealthier - even northprop will tell you that - they just got forced into a design path due to the low altitude missions tacked on by the air force.

Senior Ray is a program I got tipped about a while back, and it is said to be a manned AND unmanned project - Working towards a penetrator and a sub system to provide fast and stealthy Recon platforms.

My apologise to you if you thought I was being rude - moving and getting sorted was making me pull my hair out - and the thought of having to pick up where I left off at uni was not making me sleep well - And neither was the flack I was catching here on ATS. i tried really hard to get people to look at an area that they had maybe not thought about / researched,and got ridiculed.

My apologise. But isnt it sweet that even the airforce have to admit theres a bigger / badder system out there?? we live in exciting times.

My search has netted these results...

Well it seems that Lockheed Skunk Works are probably the guys who are producing ... Origionally Code Named Senior Ice, the B-2 was the First stealth plane ...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Two cathode ray tube-based multifunction displays are used to call up digital maps, ... The first five Senior Trend aircraft built by Lockheed were to be ...
www.csd.uwo.ca...

The first operational mission, part of a program designated "Senior Bowl", was on 9 November 1969, with a D-21B sent to observe Lop Nor. The Chinese never spotted the stealthy drone, but it disappeared and was not recovered. Once again, the Lockheed engineers went back to the drawing board

Maybe this?

The project now had the codename "Tagboard".

The production UAV, the "D-21A", looked like a stovepipe with a cone in its inlet, with a tailfin and wings running the length of the stovepipe that gave the drone something of the look of a sweptback manta ray. It was mostly made of titanium, with some elements made from radar-absorbing plastic composites.

This site has COOL pictures

Project "Senior Bowl"

>>Based on this and other clues, I came to the conclusion, that 'Senior Citizen' >>could well be: >> - a 'manta-ray'/'triangular'-shaped, ...
www.netwrx1.com...

Nope Senoir Ray is a no show...

Originally posted by MadGreebo
Now the sad part. You get no more of my research or knowledge / and / or contacts photos.

The fully painted UAV actually shimmers...weird or what hey??

Hope you change you mind on that. Posts like yours - and like intelgurl's - are what I originally came to ATS for. Way cooler than the plans for the iranian UAV I posted awhile back.

Scary thing is these plans are likely to turn out a working UAV

[edit on 7/21/2006 by centurion1211]

Originally posted by MadGreebo
"the flack I was catching here on ATS. i tried really hard to get people to look at an area that they had maybe not thought about / researched,and got ridiculed.

That used to frustrate me a lot, and not only on ATS. Certain people toss out comments but never take the time to read back even a few pages so they actually know what they are commenting on... Very few ever take time to follow the links we add. [I assume this from the lack of response on some points]... and not to mention personal attacks, arogance, etc...

Then I realised that these same people never will be convinced of anything, probaly won't even look at your evodence to consider it with an open mind, and generally CONTRIBUTE NOTHING

So I post my stuff for the intelligent ones, the enlightened ones and the ones who don't take themselves too seriously.

I just hope that THOSE are at a higher percentage in here at ATS than the National Norm of 5 %

Code names.

Once they are used or 'outed', they are changed... So heres an example from an excellent and well rsearched page. As at the start he rightly says that if it is not public it will not be released as not to have to change the code words assigned to it.

www.designation-systems.net...

Senior Ray is a follow on and update of teal cameo, the project to replace the TR-1 with an unmanned vehicle.



"DARPA project to define a high-altitude theatre unmanned vehicle as TR-1 replacement"