TR-3B

Cheers Zaphod and Boomer....i'm learning more by the day about your line of work...hey, i'm a spray painter...the closest i'll ever get is coating the buggers with Poly or whatever they use.

Boomer...quick question...if you were refueling some aircraft and all of a sudden a Bona Fide flying disc or something really freaky hoved into view, (say one of these supposed 600 foot wide craft)...what would your reaction be.....would you try and sneak a pic of it, or just pretend you saw nothing, or would you requisition brown combat trousers for every flight from now on...???

Ah loaded question! lol actually I've never been "shocked" at what I've seen behind me because we are given briefings before taking off from Edwards on the receivers we "may" see that day. The document was classified TS and usually listed two or three aircraft by code names. I was flying in the early 2000's so the F-22 was always on the top of the list. The other aircraft gave general refueling speed ranges and how many pumps to use to refuel so we could tell the type anyway. We knew that if A/R speed was 330 KIAS and using one refueling pump, that it was a fighter. The slower the speed and the more pumps used, the bigger the aircraft. If security flew with you then it was a different matter all together.

If you look at any boom operator in the world that gets off a jet after a mission other than a round robin/local, he/she has a black backpack locked up with them at all times. This backpack contains many things, but when flying in the box it contains the briefing documents I spoke about. NOBODY is privy to this information, nor do they have the need to know other than the boom. It was classified SECRET until the added material, which bumps the bag (and the jet now) to TOP SECRET (Imagine dropping off a jet at a PDM for maintenence and flying back commercial, having to walk through security with a backpack that is illegal to open, along with a signed letter from the Secretary of Defense authorizing me to carry the bag on board with no objections!).

Back on track, when we have security on board, one sits in the boom operators seat up front (the boom now sits in the old NAV seat), and the other guard sits in the first crappy seat he gets to in the back. The guy up front is responsible for ensuring the pilots don't try to leave the cockpit and wander to the back of the plane during A/R! The second guy is a magnet on us from the minute we board, until the minute we land, including A/R. Sometimes they are cool and ask to fly the boom around, other times they tell you when your done with A/R, not the other way around! The only good thing about them flying with us is that we know we are doing something new and extrememly compartmentalized. I've flown with them about half a dozen times and on a couple occasions they may have fell asleep in the front and allowed a snapshot or two maybe...

So AFTER signing a NDC (again, every flight), here's whats funny...
The kicker I think is the tanker pilot's not being able to see it. I find that hilarious. So this is how a conversation would go:

F-16 chase plane shows up:

"Pilot, Boom, Chase is at two miles, F-16."
"Boom Pilot, roger showing two miles on TCAS"


"Pilot Boom, Precontact"
"Boom, pilot, checklist complete, Speed 335 KIAS, altimiter FL200, cleared for A/R"
COMM1: "Boom, Chase cleared to contact"
COMM1: "Chase, Boom, Roger, cleared to contact."
REFUELING...

During refueling, (insert call sign here, lets say Aurora 1 for fun), Aurora 1 comes into view:
"Pilot, Boom, receiver at 2 miles"
"Boom, Pilot, nothing on TCAS"
(Boom thinks to self, no # sherlock)

Chase done with fueling.
COMM1 "Chase, Boom, cleared right echelon."
COMM1 "Boom, Chase is cleared right echelon, I'm outa here anyway..."
(This is where it's gets real quiet during refueling and on the radio)
"Pilot, Boom, receiver at 200 feet, increase to 345."
"Boom, Pilot copies up to 345."
"Co, Boom, one refueling pump."
"Boom, Co, copies one pump, What is it?"
"Co, boom, shut the fu@k up butterbar!!!" (j/k)
(Boom gives manual signals via lights outside the jet to let the receiver know to come to contact)
Boom "Contact"
Co "Pumping"
(radio silence rest of time, no matter how many contacts it takes)

After A/R receiver leaves without saying a word. Nothing gets wrote down on the jet. Helmet bags are searched along with a slight patdown of the body (very slight )Boom is taken to command post secure building to finish refueling log with actual callsigns used, but not aircraft type.

(Rest of the trip the Pilot and Co are constantly asking what it was....It costs them bigtime, like a trip to vegas...)

As for the brown trousers....I never wore underwear under the flight suit! (HAHA j/k)

reply to post by Soloprotocol


Hi Boomer, thank you for your post very interesting,
What do you think of the CuriousR cousins sighting, is it possible a plane like this can exist? And if it exist it must need a lot of refueling, so many boomer can have a contact with this plane. A thing is sure what are this black triangle every body saw around the world?

We used escorts all the time when refueling classified aircraft simply because the tanker pilots did not have the need to know what we were refueling. So it's possible that they always had escorts when flying

F-111s over the north sea and triangles... them big bad boys made tonnes of noise and had a massive radar reflection to hide within.

As for the 'other stuff', any of you ever seen a graphene 'feather'?

reply to post by Astr0


Working with graphene now. Looking for a two-photon dye trigger to "rapidly oxidize" graphene, but only when you want to. Also buckyballs, and/or fluffy carbon nanotubes. Any of them would work, if I could get the flash reaction to only work when I want.

edit to add: it's a home project. Officially, my company can't work on that sort of design anymore.

Thanks for the info boomer. It's kinda cool to talk to someone who has been in these kind of sittuations, and learn how things are done. I bet you've seen some cool stuff in your field. Probably some that you can't talk about, and I for one respect that.

I saw something like this about 4 years ago in the summer I think, but I never found out for sure what it was. It happened probably around 1 in the morning. I was sitting on my bed and saw some lights coming up above some trees in the distance and was curious what it was. It ended up flying right by my house almost directly above it. It was a triangle, and there were 3 large circular lights (I didn't see a middle one, just the 3 near the corners of the triangle), it was grey or black in color, and I can't recall that it made much noise.

My first thought was that it was a Stealth bomber or something, since I'd seen those before at an air show when I was younger, except all sides were smooth, rather than having any jaggedness like the stealth has, so I realized this was something else. After doing some research online (since I know nothing about aircraft myself), the TR-3B was the closest thing I could find to match what I saw.

The only problem is, this type of stuff always seems to happen out west, and I'd heard people see weird ships out there when they're doing test runs of things. But I'm in upstate NY, so why would they be doing a test run over here?

It kills me that I didn't think to get my camera and run outside to try to record it. I think in addition to being tired, I was also so confused by what was going on that I wasn't thinking right.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it flew pretty low to the ground. My house has 2 stories, and it probably wasn't flying much more than twice, maybe 3 times the size of my house above ground. We have an airport about 20 minutes from where I am, so I'm used to seeing planes flying in the night here and there, but nothing so low to the ground.

Perhaps the TR-3B works in conjunction with the F-117? I ran across this comment on Reddit:

The F-117 has a companion every mission, it provides laser designation for the F-117's targets...ask your dad

The aircraft hasn't been released yet but watch his response.
Edit: Sorry, I meant EW and/or A2A support for the F-117

Take it for what it's worth, just passing along the info from public sources I came across who know their *.

I was reading some topic about the SR-71 and I saw this comment. It made me wonder if these "black triangles" operate like an AWCS for other advanced craft?

Originally posted by MystikMushroom
Perhaps the TR-3B works in conjunction with the F-117? I ran across this comment on Reddit:

The F-117 has a companion every mission, it provides laser designation for the F-117's targets...ask your dad

The aircraft hasn't been released yet but watch his response.
Edit: Sorry, I meant EW and/or A2A support for the F-117

Take it for what it's worth, just passing along the info from public sources I came across who know their *.

I was reading some topic about the SR-71 and I saw this comment. It made me wonder if these "black triangles" operate like an AWCS for other advanced craft?

Semi correct...although it's NOT the TR-3B. There's a very good drawing on the internet I came across the other day that looks exactly like the mystery plane that flies with the F-117. If only I could figure out how to post a pic or link to a random site....

reply to post by boomer135


Hey Boomer,

Because you've signed an NDA could you get into trouble for giving is a link to a drawing of the craft? Because technically the photos in the public domain already so anyone could see it? It's just something I've wondered for a while actually. Also say if somebody took a real picture of a black project would you be able to confirm that it's a real plane or not?

Thanks.

reply to post by Stealthbomber


Not boomer, but it would depend on how the DIA felt that day. I've heard where they've hammered people for speculating about projects, without naming them or going into detail. Then other times they've basically ignored things that were said. I would assume that out would depend on the project mentioned.

Originally posted by Stealthbomber
reply to post by boomer135

 

Hey Boomer,

Because you've signed an NDA could you get into trouble for giving is a link to a drawing of the craft? Because technically the photos in the public domain already so anyone could see it? It's just something I've wondered for a while actually. Also say if somebody took a real picture of a black project would you be able to confirm that it's a real plane or not?

Thanks.

Yes, he could. Even if the subject is out in the open, your NDA still holds. The only way not is for them to formally release the NDA signatories from the NDA (that has happened), or if the NDA has a clause in it that automatically frees you from the NDA in the event that it becomes widely known (that happens sometimes, but not with DOE or military, you see it sometimes with NASA and the like).

In fact, I got snagged with a dozen other folk over at FARK in 2004 by DIA, which is maybe what Zaph is talking about. I posted something at another forum member because something had occurred (actually it was the Ryanggang thing) and I was out of position to get data I wanted from JWICS. So I asked another military guy I knew IRL if he could log on and read me out some numbers from some sensors in the area, as I thought it was likely to have been..um..a undisclosed weapon system. It leaves a really special signature on some satellites.

So a few months later, they found that post as they were trolling the site manually. Searching for keywords doesn't help you a lot when the 'real' guys are obfuscating to avoid them. But when they read the post, they figured out pretty fast what they were seeing. SO, they freaked, picked out some other posts of mine, saw who I normally posted with, then sorted the entire website (they keep archives forever) for any post we had made.

Unfortunately, we were then using old threads for a sort of spook cafe. On FARK they don't pop to the top when you post. So at that time, if you picked some old thread about Britney Spears or edible underwear or whatnot, you could have your very own private chat room that no one in their right mind would ever see. At that time, the threads never closed and there was no thread subscription process like on ATS, so you never knew if someone was banging around in a six month old thread.

So the DIA downloaded the entire website one night and started sorting through it, and found a whole bag of snakes. Skipping out on the really bad parts, I had also posted a really nicely written set of posts on Sandia's new nuke design. That didn't go over with the DOE, whom they shared with. All of us got dragged in eventually, although it took them a while to associate me with my online ID. Actually they had to get my buddy and grill him for a few days, when I found out I turned myself in.

In the end, some guys got in some really bad trouble, I ended up with a derog and had to be nice for years (still am) and I get polys annually. I dodged out on any really punitive measures (kept my clearance) BUT among many things I got reamed on was connecting the dots on projects I wasn't read onto, but "due to my special knowledge and exposure to other projects" I had "a unique perspective" that would allow me to blow projects I wasn't on. Which, yeah, I had done. So they killed off all the threads that had anything really interesting, Fark added a subscription thing and now threads close in a few days. We sort of made the news for a while, in the trade rags. I'm not sure if it went national.

I'm not nearly as talky as I once was. Alas. They do get pissy about people connecting dots, even when the dots are all public, if you were NDA'd to the dots at some point. Just saying "hey read THIS and THIS and THIS, and think about it..." is verboten.

reply to post by Bedlam


Without going into detail about who was involved, but yes, that massacre.

reply to post by Zaphod58


I know it made some trade mags because when I brought it up over on military.com someone had the whole story. The lesser folk such as myself weren't named, but a couple of guys were "famous" later.

reply to post by boomer135


Hey Boomer, you know somethin man...what is it?.....

Im Scared Poochy.....

Boomer, you aint affraid of no man........

There's something out there Poochy, and it aint no Alien....we're all gonna live.!!!!

The man's losin it I tell ya!! Its just nothin but a dude on a hangglider, being towed by a dude in a boat....nothin I tell ya.....got it.!!!

I havent seen any F-117, but I have seen a black triangle over two consecutive nights.

Classic case, just as everyone else describes.......

Fly very slow, just above the tree tops, completely silent, not a peep, no FAA navigation lights (red and green) but do have beacon lights in sequence, Orange centre, two white "Wing" lights.

There are dozens of witness reports from ATS members of these craft.

Not to mention all the 2nd hand, 3rd hand reports from Military Nextdoor Neighbours/Cousins/brothers girlfriends father etc etc, who say they see them at USAF or Army bases, flying in late at night or very early morning. Anywhere in size from a football field, to a 50 foot span.

They are real, and my feeling at the sighting, they are ours..........as other people say they are....

I would just love to know which company or many companies build them, and I guess only the final assembly people know what they really are......other companies just build components of a military "Plane".

reply to post by Bedlam


reply to post by Zaphod58



Thanks guys,

Always very informative posts. I was also wondering if a civilian connects a few of the dots can the DIA make them sign inadvertent exposure to classified information documents?

Cheers.

Originally posted by Stealthbomber
reply to post by Bedlam

 

reply to post by Zaphod58

 

Thanks guys,

Always very informative posts. I was also wondering if a civilian connects a few of the dots can the DIA make them sign inadvertent exposure to classified information documents?

Cheers.

Nope, if YOU do it, it's no big deal. It was only a big deal to DIA because I was asking for a set of numbers from JWICS, at least initially. However, it ended up a big DIA thing when everyone in the spook cafe was governmental, at least to some degree. We had folk from State to DARPA, with contractor sauce. It wasn't pretty.

In a real sense, they couldn't get ME on it as I wasn't NDAd to the stuff I was making the most stink with. But it was one of those projects you could reasonably determine what it was about in pretty good detail, if you knew how these things worked to begin with. That's what they focused on. And I sort of glancingly mentioned some projects to one of the AFFTC guys that he had commented on first, which was what they actually deroged me for. If you didn't know what we were talking about you couldn't have gotten the reference, but they wanted something to smack me with so they did. Alas.

reply to post by Bedlam


Ok great thanks for clearing that up. Do you think sites like this one would have been monitored to make sure no classified info gets out? I've tried to find out a bit about the ryanggang explosion but there isn't really much on it, do you think the DIA would have gone through and had a lot of the info deleted or most people just wouldn't have been able to join the dots?

Cheers.

Originally posted by Bedlam

Originally posted by Stealthbomber
reply to post by boomer135

 

Hey Boomer,

Because you've signed an NDA could you get into trouble for giving is a link to a drawing of the craft? Because technically the photos in the public domain already so anyone could see it? It's just something I've wondered for a while actually. Also say if somebody took a real picture of a black project would you be able to confirm that it's a real plane or not?

Thanks.

Yes, he could. Even if the subject is out in the open, your NDA still holds. The only way not is for them to formally release the NDA signatories from the NDA (that has happened), or if the NDA has a clause in it that automatically frees you from the NDA in the event that it becomes widely known (that happens sometimes, but not with DOE or military, you see it sometimes with NASA and the like).

Thats correct I could get into some trouble. Especially now that I made the post about there being a drawing on the internet and then posting a link. The NDA's are no joke. A couple years ago I got brave and posted a picture on another website that lasted a total of six hours on the web. It wasn't because of the type of aircraft it was (common fighter), it was because of what it was carrying. The item made the fighter a top-secret aircraft, and I had signed the daily NDA at Edwards before takeoff. The picture was taken down all of the sudden. And about two days later, I got a phone call from someone claiming to know me and work for the government reminding me of my NDA's and asked for my discretion in the highly classified project. He asked if I had the original picture I posted and I told him I did, and he said (Not even kdding) "well keep it secure and to yourself, if you can't secure it, we can send base personel to retrieve it". LMAO! I told him I would comply with his request and that's the last I heard of the situation. So in my case, they were nice. But as was stated above, the situation can get out of hand depending on how far it goes.

So yes I could still get in trouble for linking to drawing or even posting the image myself. To the people that are messaging me, sorry...But when the next plane becomes public knowledge, I'll have some pics to share from my little collection.

Originally posted by Stealthbomber
reply to post by Bedlam

 

Ok great thanks for clearing that up. Do you think sites like this one would have been monitored to make sure no classified info gets out? I've tried to find out a bit about the ryanggang explosion but there isn't really much on it, do you think the DIA would have gone through and had a lot of the info deleted or most people just wouldn't have been able to join the dots?

Cheers.

I would say that 99% of the classified information that shows up on ATS is not known to be classified except by a select few individuals. If for instance, somebody posts a "hey what if we have this type of capability" question or answer in a response and we in fact do have that in a top secret black world project, they would probably skip over it. Information that is deliberately divulged, well that's another story.