Photo and drawing of unknown craft over Afghanistan

There was "customer interest" in the design. That's pretty much all they would say even after the crash. LockMart's story is that it was a technology demonstrator designed and built in-house not as a commissioned project.


I don't think they've cut metal on the Dassault project yet.

sort of resembles the Horten Ho 229 Aircraft.





not exactly this one, but there are other various designs to this.

[edit on 2-5-2008 by Ramb0]

[edit on 2-5-2008 by Ramb0]

reply to post by Zaphod58

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It doesn't match the Bae or German project either.

I still think it's possibly a camera artifact obscuring the trailing edge (which would make a B-2 possible). But the OP seems to have said he directly observed a rounded trailing edge, so I'm going on the assumption he's correct.

reply to post by Ramb0

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As do most flying wings because they are all flying wings.
Simple fact and not much to speculate on there.

Hi all,

I recognised it immediately, the object in the picture is a UCAV, one which was launched from on of the aircraft carriers in the area. This is a black project that DARPA are developing. My contact in the UK's military aerospace industry has heard that this concept is also being developed in the UK too.

Please feel free to check the link below for more details.

www.defensetech.org...

By the way, the photo in the link is a photoshop

There is a possibility that it is a B2 as the photo is slightly blurry and the objects angle of attack makes the sawtooth trailing edge of the B2 hard to distinguish.



[edit on 2-5-2008 by djaybeetoo]

Carriers don't CARRY any UCAVs yet. They aren't even planning to START the testing for carrier ops until late 2009 or so. The J-UCAS that was going to be the X-47 program was cancelled. Northrup Grumman took over for the Navy in August of 2007. The first flight isn't until sometime late this year. It's hugely different from the X-47A that flew in 2003.

reply to post by djaybeetoo

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That'd be reasonable, except if you look at a planform of the X-47B it doesn't look like the photo. And the X-47B won't fly from carriers for another two years roughly.

[edit on 2-5-2008 by _Del_]

reply to post by djaybeetoo

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CAre to clarify what u mean, is it a UCAV or is it a B-2 in your opinion? Also its not photoshoped its just a blurry photo where the camera was focus on the plane carrying the photographer and not the "B-2" thats flying away from it. Not the easiest picture to get in focus and hence why its not.

On to why I think the image is the B-2 here is some work that I did looking at the photo blown up. The resolution of the root file is nice but unfortunately it doesn't help a already out of focus object.


The above image shows the shape from the rear that I can make out of this image. Its very blurry but you can see the way the pixels fade and move and get a good idea what is going on.
Take note of the wing "tip area" where is the ailerons etc are located and their size in comparison to the body of the aircraft. When you compare the proportions of the image to that of the polecat it stands out to me that they are similar but different. Different as in more along the lines of the B-2.


Now to look at its butt end.

A lot of our talk is revolving around its rear end here. I circled the area and if you look you can see the dark spots which is its exhaust ports. If you look at the distance between the ports its fairly large/wide and the Polecat has fairly central/closely spaced ports in comparison to the image and the B-2. When you look down from the right exhaust port you should be able to see where the end of the plane straightens out from the plane and not the curve that the Polecat has. This straight end is much more in line the the shape of the "beaver tail" of the B-2. See the image below for comparison.


I'm not saying this is definitive or final but just observations I have as someone who works in PS for a living and has been looking at planes etc for over 15 years now. Let me know what your guys and gals think about where I could be wrong or if you agree.

For myself since we have an image here to go off of and not just a sketch and description the hard evidence is the image and will confirm or not what is being said or at least help bring clarity.

[edit on 2-5-2008 by Canada_EH]

reply to post by Canada_EH

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I agree, its a B2. The Polecat crashed in 2006. The image was just blurry that we could not get a detailed outline of the aircraft.

It does look like some sort of UAV! I am not sure what type though!

This is a B2, you cant see the trailing edge because the quality isn't good enough for it.



Haha I think Zaphod is becoming useless

[edit on 5/2/2008 by Masisoar]

And that's the problem. There are several UAV designs that are similar to the B-2. Without being able to see the trailing edge we can't tell what it is. His description of the wingspan, and the trailing edge as he saw it fits a UAV much better than a B-2. Not to mention that I can't see a B-2 flying this close to another aircraft, or flying as low as this one appears to be in a combat zone.

reply to post by Zaphod58

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I agree Zaph the situation revolving around this photo seems weird which is why I looked so close at the photo for a clue. Your point about a number of UAVs with a similar flying wing layout is also valid and I wont say i know I'm right because there is questions to be answered still about this photo.

I would like to know the date and approximate time and place, flight number,
possible altitude etc, type of plane you were flying in..and try to figure out where you were when you crossed paths...Military tech fly's over civil flight lanes in my understanding. Knowing the flight number may give us a ground track...and knowing a departure time and a cruise speed we can figure out approx where you ran into this thing which may yield some more clues.
So where were you going? What time did you take off? What time did you see this thing? Anything else anyone can add?

en.wikipedia.org...


Pentagon Sets Plan For New Bomber, Terminates J-UCAS Program
www.globalsecurity.org...

Long-Range Strike Aircraft X (LRSA-X)
www.globalsecurity.org...

Next Generation Long Range Strike (NGLRS)
www.globalsecurity.org...

I think what we are looking at may be a Long Range Strike unmanned combat air vehicle based on the Polecat.

Ok.. let's assume that this is some kind of UAV. Isn't it strange that we would be test flying a UAV in Afghanistan, of all places? And unless it came from a base in Afghanistan, then it means that it would have had to fly from a carrier and over Pakistan. That's not exactly the country that I'd want my experimental aircraft possibly going down in, regardless of them being our "ally".

But I suppose if you want to maintain some level of secrecy, the vast wilderness of Afghanistan, along with a largely camera-less population that stopped advancing a thousand years ago, is the place to do it. I just think that it presents some concerns, especially regarding the safe recovery after a crash. We wouldn't want some rebels grabbing the thing and smuggling it over the border and giving it to Iran or anything.

I'm hardly an expert when it comes to this stuff, especially in comparison to all of you guys. But barring any photoshopping, which I don't think is the case here, and based on the fact that this picture was taken over Afghanistan (if I read everything correctly), then I would have to say it's a B2. That being said, I don't understand why a B2 would have been flying over Afghanistan in 2007. We have air supremacy there without any legitimate threat from SAM's and zero threat from any aircraft. We also ceased large-scale bombing there a while ago. So why would we be using a B2 there? Or was there a time in 2007 when we started basing B2's in Afghanistan in an attempt to scare Iran into negotiations, as though we were making plans for an imminent attack on them?

I just think that whether this is a B2 or some UAV, there are some significant questions that need to be answered regardless. Then again, I'm clueless when it comes to all of this, so there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for it all that I don't know about!

My apologise for not replying sooner (have to log on at work at the minute).

First of all let me say that the aircraft was not a B-2 bomber, the trailing edge was one piece as i tried to show you in the picture. It also was not that massive, alot slimmer and again no cockpit.

It had no cockpit, it was just a smooth skin.

As for that video on metcalf, that unmanned plane was almost identical, except the engines had a curved lip over the intakes as i tried to explain, as did the exhaust - other than a slightly larger bulge and slightly wider too it is 90% identical to what I saw.

The picture is blurry and for that I make no apologise - its simply all i could get.

As for what aircraft - It was carrying NGO staff and other British and American civilian persons (halliburton, KBR and assorted engineering companies).

The picture has the time and date on it.

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reply to post by Rasputin13

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There has never, and probably will never be a B-2 based in Afghanistan. As for testing, they probably are flying out of one of our bases in country. If something were to happen, and they couldn't recover it very quickly, I'm sure they would hit it with an airstrike ASAP.