yeah i have encountered many pic to supposedly be the b-2 but are really the black manta

Originally posted by InvaderZoch

Originally posted by ShatteredSkiesThe TR-3A Black Manta

According to that designation, it's a reconaissance trainer.

Don't go by the designation. The Miltary ofter Misdeginates it's reconnassance aircraft.

Acording to the same designtion system the fallowing would also be true (Note:none of the fallowing are accurate):

-The CIA's A-12 Blackbird would have been an attack aircraft

-The SR-71 Blackbird would have been primarly an antisubmarine warfare aircraft and reconn plane

-The F-117 would be an air to air fighter

-The U-2 would be a light utility aircraft, and the TR-1 would be a Reconn trainer

-The F-111 would have been a fighter (even the airforce is now listing it as a tactical attack plane)

The point here is many aircrafts are misdesignated by the military for political or secrecy reasons, so don't always go by a designation.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

very true ghost, the designation system is misleading in many instances.

Remember that the "SR"-71 was supposed to be the RS-71, but because of a presidents confusion, it was changed.

IMHO, the Black Manta is not the B-2. It may have a lot of the same tech, flying wing, bla bla bla - but what everyone forgets here is that the B-2 was designed during the cold war, with one mission in mind: to sneak through soviet airspace and drop nuclear weapons on known targets. The B-2 doesn't have the speed that a spy plane would demand, and when the B-2 came to service, the blackbird was already acomplishing the same mission that the black manta would.

What would make sense is that the Tier 3 spyplane could share much the same design airframe as the B2, this is not uncommon as the JSF airframe is basically a scaled down and moded F22 frame, but at the same time the mission profiles are so different that I would doubt that the planes would bear anything but a passing simmilarity to eachother.

I was wondering though if anyone had heard if any Tier 3 tech is being used in the lightly rumored European Crescent heavy bomber project?

May Peace Travel With You
~Astral