Pictures Of Mystery Plane Over Wichita

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: Soloprotocol
I just thought of something. The air resistance would melt the craft if it was travelling that fast prolly.

All depends what it's made of? the space shuttle held out well on re-entry.

a reply to: 1947boomer

You lost me when your physics went wonky.

A +/- pion will decay into an anti-muon and a muon neutrino (highest probability). A neutral pion will decay into two gamma ray photons (highest probability).

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: tanka418
I know some of the things in that link mention gravity propulsion. something that could easily render its mass to register as zero. when your mass is zero(due to gravity manipulation not anti grav) it stands to reason you would float.

Actually you'd be a photon or something like it if your mass were zero, you couldn't help but move at 'c'.

and If you could control your height you could in effect travel the entire world standing still as it would rotate at speed while you stand still. And how fast does the earth rotate?

If your mass and inertia were reduced, it would be like turning you from a rock to a feather. If you're light, the air coming in was still just as massive as before and relatively to you, it would be harder to go against the airflow.

Now if you had a magic beam to reduce the mass/inertia of the air in front of you (but turned it back when it went over your wings so you still get lift) then that would be spectacular. It would be like turning the air in front into hydrogen (not chemically) and wow you'd get a buoyancy force forward, because the air behind you still has full pressure and the air in front has lowered pressure.

And no sonic boom because you aren't making a shockwave by pushing through the air faster than its speed of sound.

Yeah, that little conservation of momentum problem, unless somehow in this process the temporarily enlightened air was also accelerated in reverse.

This sounds like A***0's atmospheric craft description. And though it does use exotic physics [meaning fictional as far as we know], it wouldn't work in space, because it's basically a balloon where you can point a virtual lighter than air pod wherever you want.

Hmm, physics problem. Presumably if you suddenly 'enlightened' the air in front of you to have a lower mass then it's velocity would go up to conserve energy. So it's lighter but hotter, would the pressure stay the same? You need lower pressure. Let's say the typical mass of air molecule before is m1 with velocity v1 and in the magic beam, it's m2 < m1

equating energy 1/2 m1 v1^2 = 1/2 m2 v2^2, so v2/v1 = sqrt(m1/m2).

Now the pressure comes from momentum (impact as it hits you) so that's proportional to m2 v2. So if m2 is 1/4th m1, v2 is only twice v1. So yay, it works, the pressure in from of you is lowered, with sqrt() scaling in the mass ratio.

If you choose to keep energy conservation and ignore momentum conservation [which is why regular physics doesn't allow you to magically change mass] .

Presumably as the atmosphere got thinner and thinner the effectiveness goes down. Of course at higher atmospheric pressure it would work but the air resistance (still there) would be so much higher and it wouldn't go as fast. So there's got to be some sweet spot for go-fast. And if it doesn't need to burn oxygen to combust...maybe it's higher than normal jetliner altitude?

a reply to: 1947boomer

1947boomer. Excellent post. I re-read it a few times it was that interesting. Keep posts like that coming!

I have a question for you and for MbKennel.

I've been wondering a lot lately about possible ways to deploy substantial payloads into orbit clandestinely without using attention grabbing things like rockets. Either for the purpose of launching satellites or for launching construction material to build whatever in space.

Here's an idea I want to bounce off either of you guys and get your feedback on.

Back in the day I remember there were experiments going on with beaming lasers or microwaves at meta material like discs which would then derive lift and lift off. I believe the idea was to make a ground to orbit payload launch system.

Would it be possible to, in your opinion, be able to make almost like a reusable cone like sled or lifter that could hold a payload inside. The lifter would have a metamaterial bottom that could be blasted with a microwave beam. Using some sort of phased conjugation they could dump more and more power into the beam as it's lifting the object into space. The cone could release it's payload and either be expended, or have some sort of reentry capability. It would be quiet, and might be a way to secretly launch payloads into space from off the beaten path locations where it's not likely anyone will notice.

Do you guys think there could be a way to do something like this, maybe using different concepts or physics applications. Basically any ways to launch stuff into orbit clandestinely.

Any ideas or thoughts?

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Astr0 actually referenced that several times when he was making references to "ablative graphite."
link.springer.com...-1
en.wikipedia.org...

a reply to: BASSPLYR

What is the motive force on the lifter? Radiation pressure? That's really quite feeble compared to normal mechanical forces. Alternately you could try to heat it up and ablate away something, but look at the energy you need---see how much hot gas in a rocket you need to get something into orbit. A crap load.

I don't see how it would work.

Astr0 was talking about project Orion, which was a hypothetical design that blew up H-bombs behind a spacecraft.

Basically any ways to launch stuff into orbit clandestinely.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Yeah. Launch a rocket from the middle of nowhere. Not entirely 100% 'clandestine', but there just happen to be these boats which travel in the oceans, and even have long tubes for rockets designed right in.

It all depends on how big the thing in orbit you need. If it's big enough, I don't see any alternative to the usual big rockets. It actually makes more sense to add a small clandestine payload to the overt one and launch them both at once in plain sight. Once up there, separate, this isn't the droid you're looking for, go about your business.

Even launching from a balloon only helps a little bit. To get orbit you need to go very fast sideways.

what-if.xkcd.com...

a reply to: mbkennel
Im sorry but your using standard psychics to describe how a aircraft that does not use that works. There is now a engine that NASA has verfied that breaks the law of energy right? SO how many other parts of that law are flawed? The RK,s craft apparently break the standard model. It woudnt surprise me to see that the RK,s have created a version of that but way advanced.

Ok so reducing your mass artifically to zero(within a field insulated from gravity) turns you into a proton? how? there is no change in the objects actual mass outside field.

Ok black triangles(and some aircraft) use plasma to reduce air resistence. The RK,s ships/tris use plasma to create tunnels of no wind resistence. creates a vacuum pulling it foward while in atmosphere if i understand it correctly. In space im sure they use something else. prolly gravimetric propulsion i guess.

cmdrkeenkid pointed out that my physics went a bit wonky when I described the deposition of energy associated with negative pion decay. He’s right—I mistakenly assumed that there was Gamma radiation associated directly with the decay. What actually happens, of course, is that all the excess rest energy goes into the production of a negative muon and a muon neutrino. The negative muon can be captured into the electron orbital of any atom making up the constituents of the atmosphere (Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen, etc.) temporarily forming a muonic atom. When the negative muon decays about 2 microseconds, later, the charged part of it turns into an electron. This results in the muonic atom transitioning back into a normal atom. All the electron orbitals rearrange themselves back to normal, with the emission of gammas and x-rays, from the inner shell electron transitions. The effect of this is that the deposition of energy into the target does not occur immediately upon decay of the pion, but 2 microsends later, and via a complex chain of events.

That’s if the primary particle beam is a negative pion beam. It’s possible that the device could be using some other particle, as framedragged suggests. However, the production of high current pion beams is a project that Los Alamos has been working on since the 1960s, at least. Strictly from a technology readiness standpoint, it seems to be the one most easily weaponizeable.

Also, I am very confident this is a particle beam, not a laser beam. When a purely electromagnetic beam (laser, flashlight, maser, etc.) is propagated from point A to point B, there are at least two characteristics that are certain. First, the beam is continuous from A to B, simply from Maxwell’s laws of propagation. Second, the beam has the highest intensity right at the source; it continuously loses intensity as you move from A to B. The Dugway beam clearly does not do either of those things.

originally posted by: yuppa
a reply to: mbkennel
Im sorry but your using standard psychics to describe how a aircraft that does not use that works.

Physics isn't a think that if you 'turn something off' like a Star Trek Q then everything else can be arbitrarily different.

Even if something is not as we know we don't turn off everything else we know. That's how you distinguish something real and advanced technology from something fake. For instance, if you took a 19th century scientist to a nuclear reactor, they would't understand how the uranium core produces power, but they would certainly understand how all the rest of the laws of thermodynamics and electromagnetism as he knows them are still completely valid. To them the new physics would be that elements can be transmuted exothermically, but not by chemical ways which had been disproven by the 19th century, and in particular ways and not arbitrarily, and with an added twist (mass energy equivalence), the usual laws of physics applied even to this magic new technology. That's how actual "Star Trek" technology would work---it wouldn't be a whole slew of mumbo-jumbo, just a few extra insights or materials and so far hidden experimental results plus the rest of known physics.

There is now a engine that NASA has verfied that breaks the law of energy right? SO how many other parts of that law are flawed?

No. An experiment at NASA which is pretty controversial (and quite possibly mistaken) may have shown some Casimir forces which are in standard model, and would be

The RK,s craft apparently break the standard model. It woudnt surprise me to see that the RK,s have created a version of that but way advanced.

Ok so reducing your mass artifically to zero(within a field insulated from gravity) turns you into a proton? how? there is no change in the objects actual mass outside field.

I was presupposing that the craft could make a beam/region of inertia/mass reducer in front of them, and reduce the mass of air there.

Ok black triangles(and some aircraft) use plasma to reduce air resistence. The RK,s ships/tris use plasma to create tunnels of no wind resistence. creates a vacuum pulling it foward while in atmosphere if i understand it correctly. In space im sure they use something else. prolly gravimetric propulsion i guess.

Ok, how does that plasma work to do what you say? How would it work at 1000 km/hr?

"gravimetric propulsion" is another nonsense.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Somebody here a few years ago pointed out interest in Kirtland AFB in mid 2000's about positrons, and then it went black. I'd bet on positrons or positronium if it's actually magic technology.

What's so great about pions that a proton wouldn't do? If you want to deposit energy by charged brehmstrahlung then isn't a proton just as good? And if you have to accelerate protons in order to make (many fewer) pions, why bother with pions?

Yeah, LAMPF was at Los Alamos but I don't see applications other than basic physics research. Now the accelerator has been revamped, and primarily makes neutrons for materials research purposes, obviously important to DOE.

a reply to: mbkennel

Two seperat elabs came to the same result with the impossible engine. Just because a theory has been established does not make it a absolute truth. Hence its a THEORY right? And normally NASA will not make a statement verifying anything unless its pretty well solid.

a reply to: mbkennel

My only hiccup with positronium comes from what Bedlam mentioned about targeting. If it's following a field line then
a) shouldn't positrons and electrons move in opposite directions as they spiral along?
b) assuming some strange dynamic field that somehow gets around the opposite charges and motions of the particles, how does one prevent them from spiraling into each other as the rotate about the field line?

If it comes out as positronium then it would seem to be a bit of a challenge to target anything seeing as how that's a neutral 'atom', since I don't think it's meant to aim straight up and down.

Perhaps electrons and positrons aren't as equal and opposite as we think:
physicsworld.com...

originally posted by: boomer135

originally posted by: kingofyo1
a reply to: boomer135

Since its unclassed, you mind posting link?

Well I may be mistaken on if it was actually built or not...but here's the one I was talking about...en.m.wikipedia.org...

I came across the same design in a Lockheed patent for a plasma jet..
www.google.com...

a reply to: clay2 baraka

Very interesting. Looks like plasma actuators do a lot more then steer aircraft without ailerons or create a boundry layer to reduce the aircrafts friction with the atmosphere.

Some patents related to the above link that drew my attention:

EP1928216A1 * Nov 27, 2007 Jun 4, 2008 Lockheed Martin Corporation Inlet electromagnetic flow control

US7870720 Nov 29, 2006 Jan 18, 2011 Lockheed Martin Corporation Inlet electromagnetic flow control

www.google.com... (Boeing - Inlet distortion and recovery system)

Above describes ways to use plasma actuators to augment and to smooth out the airflow going into a engines air intake inlet. Seems like it will allow for more O2 to get into the intake then would normally be possible, kinda acting like a supercharger. (not literally but same effect) This means they can supercharge engines using plasma actuators in a way to give them a little more O2. This could allow aircraft to get increased mileage and engine efficiency. It can also help facilitate a plane flying at very high altitudes since it can deliver more O2 to the engine then would normally be possible in thin atmosphere.

it also describes how it can create a even pressure gradient for air intakes that have many curves (for engines hidden deep inside the plane to reduce RCS) so that there is no air pressure loss or inconsistancies as the air makes it's way to the actual engine. Seems to work when the plasma actuators are used on the exhaust too. It means you can bury engines deep inside the aircraft and know that there will be no problem with or reduction of airflow. No engine parts reflecting radar. Gives more ideas and options for exhaust heat mitigation or direction.

US8282336 Dec 28, 2007 Oct 9, 2012 General Electric Company Instability mitigation system

US8282337 Dec 28, 2007 Oct 9, 2012 General Electric Company Instability mitigation system using stator plasma actuators

US8317457 Dec 28, 2007 Nov 27, 2012 General Electric Company Method of operating a compressor

US8348592 Dec 28, 2007 Jan 8, 2013 General Electric Company Instability mitigation system using rotor plasma actuators

These are interesting because these patents (also found in the link Baraka posted above) are basically an extension of the previous mentioned patents and concepts. Why not use plasma actuators to control air flow INSIDE the engine it's self. The patents discuss ways to use plasma actuators to augment the compressors by smoothing airflow by reducing turbulances created at the end of each compressor turbine blade tip. More compression or a ability to stabilize and give better control over the compression in engines. More efficiency, probably more power output.

Good link there Baraka. Helps show all the other uses some of us may not be considering when it comes to plasma actuators and their future in aviation. And into many other sciences.

originally posted by: mbkennel

"gravimetric propulsion" is another nonsense.

Yes! It certainly is!

I mean the whole ides of using Gravity as a means of propulsion is ridiculous isn't it?

One would have to be able to create artificial gravity in order to do that...and of course that simply not possible...

or is it?

Y'all would be much better off not looking for some "magic technology" and thinking about what actually does exist...just sayin'

a reply to: BASSPLYR

I think that's the engine advance that still uses oil which zaph has mentioned a couple times here and there. Seems like a very natural extension of the concept.

originally posted by: framedragged
a reply to: mbkennel

My only hiccup with positronium comes from what Bedlam mentioned about targeting. If it's following a field line then
a) shouldn't positrons and electrons move in opposite directions as they spiral along?

In free space, certainly.

b) assuming some strange dynamic field that somehow gets around the opposite charges and motions of the particles, how does one prevent them from spiraling into each other as the rotate about the field line?

yes, it's called positronium decay and is is computed with with QM and is pretty well known. I think there was some work on microwaves to induce higher-quantum number states which slow down the decay.

If it comes out as positronium then it would seem to be a bit of a challenge to target anything seeing as how that's a neutral 'atom', since I don't think it's meant to aim straight up and down.

I guess I presume you make positrons, give them a velocity, and then they end up attracting electrons on their own (as if you can hardly help it).

Perhaps electrons and positrons aren't as equal and opposite as we think:
physicsworld.com...

Yeah, that's strange, but the asymmetry is more likely to be in the targets----atoms have negative outsides and positive insides.

a reply to: tanka418

A more critical discussion of Heim Theory.

nextbigfuture.com...

a reply to: framedragged

Nope. It can play a minor role, and was the subject of an interesting RFP a couple years ago, but nope.

a reply to: Domo1

I saw an image very similar to this one that was taken back in the 60's. It was the conical shock wave of a supersonic aircraft flowing back from the nose as viewed from this perspective that looks like a wedge shaped craft. The faster the craft is going the sharper the shock wave is. This is the reason the delta wing configuration is desirable for mach speed. Straight wings extend into the shock wave and get shaken to pieces. The faster the plane goes the narrower the wings need to be, and/or the longer the nose needs to be. However you push the leading edge of the shockwave farther ahead of the wings doesn't matter, as long as the wave is always wider than the wingspan.

By the look of the shock wave I would guess that craft isn't going at any incredible speed. Its fairly wide. If I recall the shape of the 60's picture correctly, I would guess this craft is probably right around mach 1. Certainly nothing of any extreme. If that is not a shock wave, I have no idea what it is.