What crashed at Boscombe Down?

While trying to find the illustration of the FOAS that supports my earlier post (I haven't yet) I came across this article that talks of a 2 seat aircraft that crashed on take-off from Boscombe Down in 1994. Apologies if this has been done to death already but does anyone else know what happened? apparently it had twin inward canted fins like the "F-19" that Testors made and the airfield was sealed by the SBS while a 737 carrying the same markings as those seen at Groom Lake flew in and a modified C-5 Galaxy landed and winched the wreck in through the nose door and flew off with it. The official story was that the DERA Tornado had crashed but why would the USAF fly in and leave with that?

www.dreamlandresort.com...

having read further, the final paragraph about UK involvelment in the F-117 and proposed F-117B for the RAF (would'nt that make it the F-117K?) does seem to support my FOAS claim after all.

[edit on 21-7-2004 by waynos]

Probably one of the black aircraft currently based at TTR, it is officially in "caretaker" status but that is nonsence, Janet traffic is in and out of there constantly providing engineering support for one or more secret aircraft projects.

what ever crashed [HAD to be American. Thats a given.

Originally posted by iamthemissinglink
what ever crashed [HAD to be American. Thats a given.

Why was it a Boscombe Down then? I go there for Air Experience flights and it looks normal....only thing different from most other bases I have been on is that the Empire Test Pilots school is located there

Originally posted by Infidellic

Originally posted by iamthemissinglink
what ever crashed [HAD to be American. Thats a given.

Why was it a Boscombe Down then? I go there for Air Experience flights and it looks normal....only thing different from most other bases I have been on is that the Empire Test Pilots school is located there

It used to be the home of the RAF Advanced Projects Testing Facility, which was recently disbanded due to the advancement of 3rd party facilities.

If you read the article carefully, it sound like a Northrop built spy plane of some kind.

Tim
ATS Director of Counter-Ignorance

[edit on 3-8-2004 by ghost]

Maybe this TR-3A thingy?

Anyone know anything more on this crash?

a reply to: Blackfinger

I wish, it's so frustrating that nothing else has leaked out about this crash.

I did a full FOIA request on this back in 2013 and got the usual responses from the MoD. However after pursuing it to the ICO level they advised that a testing F-22 Raptor was the crashed aircraft and taken back to RAF Mildenhall for inspection.

There was high security following the crash due to the nature of the aircraft and its technology. This was no B2 or F117.

a reply to: PindarAln

That's a new one. That's actually not a bad story either for once.

a reply to: Zaphod58

The times would match up, still it stinks of misinformation to me though

a reply to: Bfirez

Oh it's BS. It's just good BS for a change. The YF-22 never left the country IIRC.

a reply to: PindarAln

Would it be possible for you to scan and post that FOIA response? With all personal info removed of course. I would love to see their wording and if it differs from US Air Force FOIA responses.

a reply to: Zaphod58

FB-23/RF-23? That would match the description to a T. And be reasonably close to the "YF-22" BS story...

a reply to: Barnalby

No, it's black world.

a reply to: Barnalby

The report was of an aircraft that had inward canted tails. Both the YF-22, at the time, and the FB-23 has or is supposed to have outward canted tails.
The canopy hinged from the front, the F-22 hinges from the back as did the YF-23 and most likely any FB-23 would too and actually conceptually have duel canopies like the SR-71.
There was supposed to be rather prominent chines that ran from the front to the back of the aircraft like the SR-71. The FB-23 concepts doesn't have the sort of chines that I think were described.
What was described seams a lot like those "F-19" models from the 80's.

Aomeone made a flying model of the Tester's F-19 that looked like a scaled down SR-71...www.youtube.com...

a reply to: cavtrooper7

At least we know the design is airworthy in the small scale.

a reply to: Sammamishman

At the risk of beating a dead horse (let's face it we're past that at this point), I think this might have been Northrop's F-117 companion.