"F-19" confirmed (cough cough) at Tonopah Test Range

a reply to: Jukiodone

i cant pull (cell phone)the sightings and new paper reports during gulf war 1, many people in and out of the armed services saw these aircraft.

and were basiclly all but admitted to in a few news articles

a reply to: penroc3

I read those reports and there's even a couple of people on here who were there who said they saw Black Triangles.

There are certainly SAP originating exotic aircraft flying around then and now but I cant find any evidence beyond hearsay of an actual F117 Companion/F19.

How many other formerly classified technologies and aircraft have had the light of day shone on them since the F117?

Unless the companion is a flying environmental disaster waiting to happen - I cant think of any reason for it to be secret for so long.

a reply to: Jukiodone

If the companion was the keystone to coordinating stealth bomber attacks i could see many reasons to keep its mission and potential us vulnerability a secret.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: Jukiodone

If the companion was the keystone to coordinating stealth bomber attacks i could see many reasons to keep its mission and potential us vulnerability a secret.

Stealth Fighter: A Year in the Life of an F-117 Pilot

I suggest those who believe this "companion" story get this book for starters. Not a lot of freedom being a F117 pilot. Targets are well known in advance. They plug in a computerized flight plan prior to the mission. And by plug in, I mean physically plug in a hard drive.

After the mission briefing, a detailed flight plan is entered onto a hard-drive back at base, which is then plugged directly into the avionics system of the plane. The jet takes off, flies a complicated, precise pattern to the objective that is designed to steer clear of anti-aircraft threats, then zeroes in on the selected targets with laser-guidance and/or Global Positioning System coordinates.

abcnews.go.com...


The "complicated" route includes notching. Flying in a straight line can get you shot.

Just been re-reading about Quartz/AARS and the alleged comment from one of the project engineers about it "being the cats pyjamas" and it being head and shoulders above its counterparts for stealth had me wondering.


Was all the testors F19/retractable canards just distractions for what could have been a predecessor operating in the required timeframe?

The specific AARS offshoot seems to be a low observable/ long loitering variant and there is that reference to it being part of a family of systems....

To reveal one might be to reveal the others which is a good reason to keep something covered up for so long.

Evidence still says probably not for a F117 companion - but if AARS did actually prove fruitful- you could argue for a potential crossover with a family member/predecessor in the publicised F117 operational timeframe.
If it was long loitering it maybe did link with up with the F117 but would be unlikely to take off or land with it?

a reply to: Jukiodone

I don't know about Panama, but everywhere the F-117 was used in action didn't exactly lend itself to a private take-off and landing. More like CNN footage.

Presuming you fight like you train, I doubt some experimental aircraft will be used in a bombing run. At least not USAF. JSOC, CIA, hey, why not.

a reply to: Jukiodone

From what I've gathered, the AARS was the strategic equivalent of the companion, using extreme loitering to become a "flying satellite" like the scaled Proteus was.

Only, this "flying satellite" carried an SAR system that would make an ONYX/LACROS jealous, which it used to track moving targets like the J-STARS did so that the B-2s could have updated targeting data for the Soviet ICBM TEL's that they were designed to kill.

That would essentially make it an evolved descendant of the F-117/Companion mission, which would the obviously be the tactical-oriented forebear.

My hunch though was that rather than being an exclusive targeting aircraft, the companion was more of an ECM/SEAD bird, and operated as a stealth jammer/wild weasel to soften enemy defenses and open up a path for the F-117. Target designation is probably a secondary capability for it, if that even exists at all.

I'd imagine that mission role made it much more useful for much longer than the one-trick-pony F-117 was, and I'm sure that it would also be involved in escorting OTHER stealth assets into hostile airspace *COUGH* NEPTUNE SPEAR *COUGH*, which again is why it is still classified, because of what it might have helped to do.

As to operational footprints, if they could keep the stealthhawks and the 2014 triangles under wraps, then what's to say they couldn't also hide a half dozen Wild Weasel versions of the Tacit Blue/ATA-B/Sneaky Pete/whatever early 80s stealth design it was actually based on in a couple hangars at TTR.

a reply to: Barnalby

Radar signals can be jammed from a distance. But if you are using stealth, why jam.

Thus far nothing said has made a bit of sense regarding a so-called companion. If there was ISR with loiter, that is simply a different and unrelated aircraft.

More breaking news from Fox news and footage for it than the real deal.

a reply to: Barnalby

Ever heard of the "Vindicator" project developed in the 80's?
There are a few posts about it on ATS.
Some time ago I got yelled at by someone on this forum for asking if it was connected to the F-117's Companion.
It could have been a troll. But after looking up the project after first seeing the patch (I have most of Trevor Paglen's books)
the program really makes sense for a bird that acquires targets for the Nighthawk.

a reply to: HomeyKXTA

In 1979, Spectron Development Laboratories demonstrated an Optical Air Data System (OADS) conceptual design for Lockheed. It was based on the laser sheet-pair transit-time approach. In 1984, for Project VINDICATOR, Lockheed Advanced Development Projects (“Skunk Works”) contracted Spectron to provide the electronic processing subsystem, vehicle interfacing software and test support for a series of flight tests of an OADS on the prototype L-1011 (civil registration no. N1011) wide body transport. These tests took place between 2 July and 17 October 1986. Additional testing of optical instrumentation, flow diagnostic instrumentation and a laser velocimeter continued until 1988.

I first saw the VINDICATOR patch in the early 1990s. In my brief glimpse, I recognized the Lockheed skunk mascot and noticed the flying helmet, scarf and lightning bolt, but somehow I missed the device the skunk was holding. Had I seen it, I would have immediately recognized it as a laser (having subscribed to the Edmund Scientific Company catalog in the 1970s). At that time, I hoped that VINDICATOR was some sort of exotic aircraft that had yet to be unveiled to the public but someone told me that VINDICATOR was “a system, not an airplane.”

I eventually obtained an original VINDICATOR patch from a scientist who developed the laser anemometer OADS that was tested on the L-1011. Testing of the system took place at Palmdale, California.

VINDICATOR was a laser velocimeter. It was a velocity indicator (or, in aviation parlance, a v-indicator). Ha, ha. Get it.

Such a device would be useful for stealthy aircraft (or a high-speed vehicle) that need to have as few extraneous protuberances as possible.

I don't think it has anything to do with an F-117A companion as there is no evidence, or reason to believe, that such a plane exists. The operational concept for the F-117A Nighthawk doesn't require a companion and there is, as yet, no convincing anecdotal, documentary, or physical evidence that such a plane was ever produced.

a reply to: Shadowhawk
So you think boomer is a fraud and made it all up?
Other than declassifcation I'm not sure what better anectdotal evidence we can expect.

As for there being no verifiable documentary evidence to support its existence - which SAP was ever blown this way?
They are quite good at keeping their secrets. Where was the credible evidence for Stealth Helicopters before one carshed Osamas backyard? What did we know about the RQ-170 before they got tired of secrecy and flew it straight out of Kandahar International? Did you hear a whisper about the triangles which flew over Amarillo and Wichita three years ago?
Save for some hints Zaphod dropped we still dont know anything about them.
Hell, we dont even have pictures of the LRSB demonstrators they have flying all over the place atm. Even better, the last Secretary of Defense flat out admitted to the existence of operational SAPs aimed against near peer adversaries. Barely anyone cared. Kinda sad if you think about it.

Take a look at the budgets if you like. In the latest R-1 document classified Air Force RDT&E came in at 17.5 billion US-$ for FY17. Thats 2.5 billlion more than for FY15.
We could look at this in Detail, especially before the reclassified all the PE Codes, but the mere fact that the US blows the entire defense budget of nations like Israel, Canada or Spain only for Air Force classified R&D effort is just beyond words.
I dont worry about the world not knowing specifics about at best a dozen odd looking companions gathering dust in some hangar and Groom or Tonopah. I have no problems believing they exist.
I worry about how the other 17.4 billion US-$ are being spend and what the decades of secrecy say about the state of US democracy these days.

Oh and sure, of course the entire target finding mission of the companion is bs. Its main task probably was guiding the F-117 around radar threats its not optimized for. I dont believe for a second they had Sparkvarks flying first hour cover missions for the Nighthawks back in 91. And they didnt go in with only Prowlers on the first night in 03 either.

originally posted by: mightmight
a reply to: Shadowhawk

So you think boomer is a fraud and made it all up?

You can make something up and not be a fraud.
S&F on ATS or Federal incarceration....errr lemme think.

a reply to: Jukiodone

The problem is Shadowhawk knows people associated with the F-117 program. (Playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon, we have a contact in common.) Really, there is no companion. The program didn't work that way. You plug in the hard drive, fly to the target, and then decide to bomb or not. The route was programmed to be stealthly (when possible, and I think you know what I mean.)

I think the pilots flying the F-117 at Tonopah have more fun than the pilots who used them in theater.

Given the age of the program, there are books from former F-117 drivers. I read one (title escapes me) and it didn't seem like fun. The plane is subsonic for one thing, and performance wasn't particularly good compared to planes flying at the same time. Oh and CNN providing live videos of launches took the element of surprise out of the picture. (But in real life, the enemy would have this knowledge anyway. )

The problem is you can't prove a negative. There is no way to prove the companion plane or Bigfoot don't exist. That is the nature of logic.

a reply to: Jukiodone
Oh please, the US hasnt tried incarcerating anyone for posting unspecifc stuff about grey government programs on the internet yet. Way too much exposure, at worst he got a call from DIA at some point.

Between his personal photos and the article Tyler Rogoway wrote on him a a while back there is no reason to doubt his identity. Whats his motive for making something like this up? He had many other interesting stories tell about his service, and talked about other secretive stuff besides the Companion. Completely unnecessary for him to come up with a fake story. And he isnt the only source either on this board, you think Zaphod etc. went along with it just because?

While its true you can't prove a negative, the argument 'x is an amazing author, he doesnt know about it so its fake' doesnt work either.
As said, i think you are too hang up on the supposed targeting mission. There are different possibilities why an unarmed, radarless bomb carrier would need an escort on some missions.
Thats probably why Shadowhawk never heard anything about the Companion. The F-117 can get the job done perfectly well in most circumstances, but for the most non permissive environments additional help is needed.
As for why it wasnt declassified - why would the Air Force admit to stealth aircraft needing additional support? And according to Boomer, it was active as of two or three years ago anyway.

originally posted by: mightmight
a reply to: Jukiodone
Oh please, the US hasnt tried incarcerating anyone for posting unspecifc stuff about grey government programs on the internet yet. Way too much exposure, at worst he got a call from DIA at some point.

You misunderstand.
I am saying someone with Boomers credentials would not even risk prison if NDA'd on a SAP/classified program due to the fact they are not anonymous.

a reply to: Jukiodone
Kinda irrelevant, he couldnt conceal his idenity from US intelligence agency if he tried.
But as said, thinhs are not as clear cut as you seem to think.
'They' are not it the habit of sending NDAd people to prison for some unspecific talk about grey programs on the internet. People who sell classified stuff to China get send to prison (as they should), but just talking about this or that without revealing any specifics gets you a phone call at worst. If you are a active service member you get called in and yelled at and your career will probably suffer. Anything more would just confirm the existence of the program, even if they try to trial you in secret.
Boomer and others talked about this a couple of times on this board. He got a call from DIA at least once, but as long as hes careful enough not the cross the line its fine apparently.

a reply to: mightmight

I think if you frame things in a fictional story or nod your head to people it's okay as long as they are not true black programs

Obviously pictures are a no no