Unidentified Plane - Can anyone Identify???

Guys, if Bios has a mystery photo puzzle to solve then you can take it from me it's legit.

To me it seems reminiscent of the D-21 drone with what appears to be a slight bulge on the right hand top side that could either be a fore body strake, or a cockpit canopy. It may be a scaled manned prototype of a UAV for reconnaissance (a la' D-21) or strike, although why it would have been flying anywhere near a place where it could be seen if it is a black program is odd.

Bios, do you have any idea of approximate size or speed, I take it we are talking subsonic even if it was in a supersonic corridor at that altitude? And have you been able to run this by Intelgurl yet as she may have some ideas or hints she can share?

LEE.

I think your best hope is that Intelgurl takes a look as she seemed to be involved in the UAV world. She might be able to shed more light.

The funny thing is that the shape reminds me a bit of the boeing X-32 from that angle sort of deep body delta shape, but of course it can't be that - so may be a boeing UAV of some description?

Double post

[edit on 12-10-2009 by Popeye]

reply to post by thebozeian

It was probably 500-1000 ft above us, fast subsonic speed, black or dark gray in color, very loud jet engine(s), seemed to have a cockpit, had no visible markings, but who knows.

Intelgurl has seen it but has had no time to make comments that she could send back.


[edit on 10/12/2009 by bios]

The angle of the wings is wrong to be F117A.

The craft looks very much like the photos in this thread:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by spikedmilk
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/0d52fb41484a.png[/atsimg]

Very nice!

In the bottom pic theres a lamp post. Is there a way we can try to size this thing?

Refuseorders in that thread said it looks similar to the FB-22, so I have to wonder if it could be a secret prototype of that?

Originally posted by refuse_orders
It looks to me very much how i imagine the FB-22 in flight would look from that angle. Anyone else think so? Heres a diagram and info page on the FB-22.



www.globalsecurity.org...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/4f60adde0acd.gif[/atsimg]

That looks a lot closer to the photos than the F117A right? The wings are swept at a narrower angle than the F117A.

Of course if it's a secret prototype the real craft could have some differences from this line art.

I'm not sure that's a match but I haven't seen a closer guess yet.

Chadwickus and Arbitrageur have presented the best possibilities.

I think Chadwickus's video of the Blackswift presents an intriguing possibility. As you guys know I have been heralding that i believe the Lockheed Blackswift was not cancelled but rather went black.
SR-72 Confirmed: Mach 6 Project Blackswift

The extreme auditory volume of the jet could also be explained by the hybrid turbo/ramjet technology purported to be in use on the Blackswift.

That said, it could also be some undisclosed/secret version of a next gen/regional bomber in the same vein as the FB-22 as Arbitrageur posted.

Due to the jet engine sound I doubt that it was a "black triangle", as Bios said the F-117 is retired and it does not have the shape of a B-2, X-45, X-47, nor any of the long loitering ISR/Attack UAV's being developed.

What lends validity as well as intrigue to this photo is that it was taken along the test corridor for all things Lockheed coming out of their facility next to Dobbins AFB.
Blackswift IS a Lockheed project, but I would be surprised if there was an actual flying model at this time.

Good guesses so far - I look forward to seeing what others have to say.

Natalie~



[edit on 10-12-2009 by intelgurl]

Well, I guess I might as well put my thoughts in. I honestly don't have any specific guesses as to what it is, but I just want to point out a few things that might facilitate identification.

-The craft appears to be at a high angle of attack at low altitude. I'd be surprised if this was anything but a UAV, and I'd be more surprised if it was Blackswift. To be performing High-Alpha maneuvers this close to the ground doesn't seem to be in the realm of things you'd do with a manned black project or a high-speed/high-altitude recon craft. But I've been wrong before.

-It also appears that the wing extends straight to and joins at the nose of the craft similar to the nose profile of the B-2, or the X-45C. That same shape has pretty consistently shown up in a lot of recent UAV designs.

-The back end of the aircraft is a lot harder to discern. The trailing edge appears to start perpendicular to the fuselage at the wingtip and then curve smoothly rearward to join without any immediately apparent engine nacelles. I also notice that there's the shadow of what might be a vertical stabilizer (can't tell of it's straight up or dual-tilted), but it's very hard to say anything conclusive.

-One last thing I notice is a slight bulge towards the front of the aircraft where a cockpit might be were it a manned craft. I would suspect that if it's indeed a UAV that it's the engine intake hood, but it seems to be very high off the aircraft's wing to be that, unless the engine is absolutely enormous.

From this I really don't have any ideas as to what it might be. The orientation and apparent height almost steer me towards a standard delta kite, but if Bios says it was an aircraft I'll roll with that. Except that I can't, since I have no helpful ideas. Sorry.

Pr0

The image in the op is a little blurry so not really sure if it's in lvl flight or banking? but how about something like this? www.globalsecurity.org... 01.jpg not sure if theres any flying?

I was there with the guy who took the shot - problem is we cant agree on whether the plane was in level flight or banking. He says it was banking, i could have sworn that it was in level flight.
This is no doubt why UFO sightings are so easily discredited, sorry...

The X-32's wings aren't streamlined enough. This aircraft's wings waere pretty swept back.

[edit on 10/13/2009 by bios]

Originally posted by intelgurl
Chadwickus and Arbitrageur have presented the best possibilities.
What lends validity as well as intrigue to this photo is that it was taken along the test corridor for all things Lockheed coming out of their facility next to Dobbins AFB.
Blackswift IS a Lockheed project, but I would be surprised if there was an actual flying model at this time.

Good guesses so far - I look forward to seeing what others have to say.

Natalie~

Thanks for the feedback. You would know better than me if a working version of the blackswift might be flying yet or not, so if you think probably not yet, I wouldn't argue with that. Your thread on Blackswift is excellent by the way, it's the best thread I've read yet on ATS.

Lockheed has an interesting pictorial on their "Skunk Works Today"webpage here:

www.lockheedmartin.com...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/50397338c727.jpg[/atsimg]

They show the FB-22 though that rendering does not match the photos as closely as the line drawing I posted, because the wings are not swept back as far. One reason it seems possible the FB-22 could have a prototype or variant flying is that it's supposedly just a modification of the existing F-22 which should be a lot faster to develop than a new design. They also show the falcon in the lower right, and another mystery craft with swept wings in the upper right with no label. I'm not sure if this is supposed to imply some kind of unlabeled project or just an indication that they are working on projects that we don't know about yet like they always have in the past (as seen by the "present" section of some previously secret craft we now know about).

My initial reaction was that it was like a very skinny F117. The Have Blue was very similar. Who knows, perhaps there are spin off projects from there.

Wow its been awhile since I was last on and it seems like its the same for some others too! Hence the earlier responses covering ground about the F-117 etc. The hypersonic platform is possible due to shape but seems much too low to be in its element of testing and I'm not familiar with the location to know if its near a airbase to make sense of why this aircraft would be so low. Also a quick question I would pose is how accurate would you say the shape is on the photo to what you saw bios as I'm sure if it was going any sort of flight speed we could have heavy blurring.

reply to post by Canada_EH
The clear photographs I posted were taken in Greenville SC only about 150 miles away from this one in GA, which is a stone's throw for an aircraft. While the photo in the OP is blurry, it sure looks like the same craft to me, as much as I can determine from such a blurry photo.

Bios, do those clear photos I posted on page 2 look like the same aircraft as your sighting?

The altitude should be easy enough to explain, how does the aircraft get between the ground and its test altitude? Both the SC and GA photos show some cloud cover so that might hide the plane when above the clouds but it's exposed for a time during the transition below the clouds.

The issue is that if this is a test platform that is black/gray or even a normal one they tend to stay away from populated areas to begin. For a large number of reasons like safety of the vehicle and population and to not attract unwanted attention... But yes it is always possible to "catch something special".

reply to post by Canada_EH

I thought the same thing as you, that they wouldn't be exposing test aircraft in populated areas. So I'm a little surprised to see these photos in these areas of SC and GA, but here they are, and both photographers seem like credible sources.

But if it really is just an FB22 or variant, the FB22 project doesn't really seem to be much of a secret, the only secret might be that they've already built a prototype of it that hasn't been officially announced yet? Just guessing.

True the project could be black but the White world project was scraped along with other interim bomber projects about 2-3 years ago.

However, the FB-22 in its planned form appears to have been canceled with the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, in lieu of a long range bomber with a much greater range than the FB-22

wapedia.mobi... (provides links to review highlight cancellation, suggest downloading a copy for future forum threads.)

I have to agree with Chadwickus, this does look like everything i've been led to believe the Blackswift is, However - it is apparently not a UAV (note the bulge on the left side near the front - must be a cockpit) and it is low altitude.

Plus, even though it is a Lockheed project I dont understand why the Blackswift would be on the Supersonic Highway bewtween Dobbins and Knoxville because i was led to believe that it was not yet flying but when it did (probably Spring of 2010) it would fly out of Groom lake with turnarounds at Tonopah, China Lake and eventually one of the US AFB assets in the Pacific.

So to see this image is a little disturbing to me on at least a couple of points.

Natalie~

Originally posted by Chadwickus
Falcon HTV-3X?

[edit on 10-18-2009 by intelgurl]

[edit on 10-18-2009 by intelgurl]

Originally posted by smurfy
There is cloud cover and obviously the 'plane is below it. It would be helpful to know how high was the cloud cover in your area at the time. The blurring in the picture is a bit confusing since you don't say exactly in which direction the 'plane was going.

I'd take a wild stab in the dark that the most "pointy" end was the front of the aircraft hence you can work out the direction from there

reply to post by intelgurl


Thanks for the reply Intelgurl, if anyone on ATS knows what's getting round the skies it's you.

My best guess would be a member of the SAAB Draken family.