Slashdot Mirror
Boeing Bird of Prey Stealth Fighter
An anonymous submitter writes: "Revealed: Boeings new secret stealth bat-plane! For years stealthchasers (those guys who sneak around secret USAF test bases in search of secret aircraft) knew the Bird Of Prey existed. They knew it was being tested over the secluded Nellis Air Force Base ranges in Nevada. They knew what hangar it was being secreted away in at Nellis (on the northeast corner) and they even managed to obtain a squadron patch depicting the aircraft itself!... but the government still denied its existance until today. At a ceremony at Boeing's St Louis plant their super-secret Bird Of Prey batplane was revealed today for the world to see and marvel at. You can view exclusive photos of it at popsci.com and projectblack.net."
... it's a plane, it's...
(bombs exploding everywhere)
[Tango 2 to Mother Hen, The egg is in the basket]
mechanicos ergo cogito
How many Pepsi points do I need for this bad boy?
:P
so... this gives new meaning to the words, "TO THE BAT PLANE".
These guys can find out about secret jets, get proof of there existance, all the while the government denies its existance.
Yet, I can't even find matching socks.
That's interesting. I wonder what other "denied" stuff is actually true.
Cool looking plane, but it does make one wonder if the fabled "Project Aurora" (spaceplane) also exists. Goodness knows the shape is similar to some of the stories that have been put out there about it (for example, here).
So is it Romulan or Klingon?
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
Two sites using the same exclusive pictures. Giving the word "exclusive" an entirely new meaning...
it's not exactly a tail-less aircraft as some have said
e le ase/q4/high_res/dvd-226-5.jpg
http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2002/photor
as you can clearly see in that picture (very high res, modem users beware!), the tail is beneath the plane, instead of the traditional spot, on top of the plane
it is pretty small, though
This thing is cool looking! I'm glad that when this military technology evolves into sentience, takes over the world and demands our obedience - at least our new robot masters will look cool - imagine if the French military tech involved into instead: We'd all be cow-towing to puce colored fag-robots.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
-- This Sig is currently under construction
Didn't the U.S. military did something similar in revealing officialy the F-117
shortly before attacking Irak the first time?
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
I can now proudly proclaim I am a Star Trek fan in public!
The bird of prey is so damned cool even the military tried to mimic it... all you star wars fans were crazy! Lasers in space... HA! Klingons RULE!
---
Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
to revinvent themselves. Notice the PopSci article makes more of statement about prototype development and not the physical aircraft itself which it built with speed and at reduced cost. The Phantom Works is Boeing's answer to Lockheed's Skunk Works which was made famous by the SR-71 which it produced went from drawing boarding to aircraft (and subsquently speed records) in 18 months.
With Boeing losing so much ground in the commerical markets to Airbus it really needs to prove to the USAF and the military at large that is a prime contender.
Quite frankly this is an expensive PR campaign whose prime audience is not the commerical markets, but the U.S. and NATO military.
I was always under the impression that the Bird of Prey was a Romulan design, as first revealed in the TOS episode "Balance of Terror". I don't recall the Klingon version appearing until "Star Trek III: The Search For Spock", and the canonical explanation was that the Romulans and Klingons had entered into a sort-of free-trade agreement for sharing technology....
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
In a multibillion dollar aircraft:
Nananananana BAT-PLANE... BAT-PLANE... BAT-PLANE!!!... OVER. *pssh*
I have to go out to Nellis for work occasionally. Last time I was there they had two B-2 Stealth Bombers parked near the runway. Seeing one of those things from the back, I am convinced they are the cause of 95% of saucer-shaped ufo sightings in the last 20 years.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Any chance this thing has been buzzing Manokotak?
Worst. Sig. Ever!
Boeing has a news release with other photos, details, and a movie. The movie is downloading real slow right now though. They've got an image of the plane on their home page, so it's being hyped up quite a bit.
It did look pretty cool, though.
The highlight of the ceremony however, was the free ice cream they gave us all.
This space for rent.
It's a good start, but until they can make a plane that care survive a slashdotting, then I'm not riding.
Insightful: 76, Off-Topic: 379, Flamebait: 24, Funny: 152, Interesting: 201, Underrated: 55, Troll: 9, Total: 896
In case you are unaware, when the first proposals were made by the engineer responsible for the B2 stealth bomber, everyone said "Theres no damn way that thing is leaving the ground. That thing can't fly." I have to say, the Bird of Prey looks even more so like this. I am curious as to how it generates the lift required with such small wings. Usually, if you look at any aircraft, the wings are atleast 1/3rd - 2/3rds of the entire size of the craft (size comparison wise). The wings are tiny, along with the fact that they are nothing like traditional wings with the sharp angle mid-wing. You could say its wide, which helps, but I do not think this is the case as the bottom of the fuselage, according to those pictures, does not seem to have any characteristics required to generate lift. I think I speak for us all when I say seeing a video of this thing in action would be pretty impressive, and no doubt interesting. Due to the more narrow design, it looks as if its manuevering capabilities are much greater than that of the B2, which made VERY wide turns. Anyone have links to further details?
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
Now we know what those people saw in Alaska! (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/ 17/1219240&mode=flat&tid=134)
-- Cheers!
stealthchasers (those guys who sneak around secret USAF test bases in search of secret aircraft)
During the cold war they would have been known as spies. However, in the present they are classified as terrorists.
Sneaking around secret USAF test bases in search of secret aircraft is a great way to have your citizenship status abruptly changed to "Enemy combatant", enjoying all of the privilleges that such a title brings.
Wow, what great timing, what with Bush about to wage war on Iraq. Now our pilots should be just a little bit safer from all those rogue nations out there with super-advanced, high-tech, long-range, radar-guided missiles that this jet can now avoid.
Oh, wait a sec, that's right ... the US is the only nation who can afford the kinds of missiles that this jet can avoid. So what was the point of this trillion-dollar boondoggle again?
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
god that thing is cool looking.
Automotive industry take note. If you want to sell shitloads of cars - make em look as cool as this thing.
Thats what i want my moller car to look like.
but is it the prototype model that can shoot while cloaked, and if so does that mean the pilot has to have an eye patch bolted to his face?
This is my sig. Its pathetic.
The F-117 was first used in combat in Panama in December of 1989. The Pentagon admited it existed in November of 1988.
But note the project timing, 1992-1997. This may have been a test vehicle for Boeing's bid for the Joint Strike Fighter program. (Boeing lost to Lockheed-Martin on that program.) Boeing built two announced test aircraft for that program, the X-32A and X-32B. Those were aimed at the carrier-landing and VTOL requirements. The Bird of Prey may have been a third test aircraft, to test stealth aspects.
For years now I've been hearing that stealth fighter technology is the "American Maginot Line"... all those billions of dollars have been invested in it, yet it was designed only to defeat the radars used by the former Soviet Union. I've heard that it can easily be made obsolete by using lower frequency radar, or heat-sensitive infrared radar systems. In any case, the enemy need only make a comparatively tiny investment in radar to render any form of stealth techology useless.
The Bird of Prey looks pretty, but I'm worried that it will turn out to be a costly debacle. Does anyone who knows more about this than I do than I care to comment?
Bird the Size of a Plane Spotted in Alaska
Boeing recently lost the bid for the Joint Strike Fighter. The JSF is also stealthy multi-purpouse fighter, which after extensive testing and evaluation is now being ordered in large quantities from Lockheed Martin.
I seriously doubt that this thing will produced in any significant quantities - the decision for fighter spending has already been made. It might, however, be important from a development point of view - testing new technologies and so on.
Tor
No "Beowolf cluster" jokes about these?
./ing them?
How about something about Boeing running their webserver off of a Bird of Prey and the fact that we are
A South Park Underpants Gnome list?
Geesh - I know its Friday, but I have high expectations of you all!
Bush was pres during the Panama invasion, not Reagan.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
That's kind of disappointing... it's sort of like driving a new car around the block a couple times a year for 6 years and never really showng it off. At least you'd think they'd use them in one of those upcoming battles on terrorism... or perhaps they are and aren't telling us (as they hid the mere existance of the plane for over ten years).
Makes you wonder (in a good and bad way) what else the US government has up its sleeve.
F-bacher
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Try the Huntress.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
since you obviously don't know what you are talking about I will geek out on you.
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, Klingon's and Romulan's both had a bird of prey model.
The Romulan model was first seen in Balance of Terror (TOS)
The Klingon version showed up in STIII
The Klingon BOP came about because Kruge was originally supposed to steal one from the Romulans in the movie but that was dropped in later drafts. The name stuck though giving rise to all kinds of fanfic.
I'm sure there will be at least one person telling me i'm wrong.
Who run Barter Town?
There is an article here from Popular Science (Nov. 2000) which is about the 'Bird of Prey' aircraft. They article says that the aircraft has a 'switch blade' wing design. Of course, this is all from the hear say and rumors of the time ;-) Still a fun read.
;-)
Here is another 'version' of the article with more diagrams and speculation
It may be more intended as a spy-plane than as a fighter. A better guess might be a bomber. With today's weaponry, it doesn't take a bomb of huge size to make a large crater.
The name "bird of prey" indicates it to be a hunt-and-destroy type aircraft as well.
A last thought is, of course, that perhaps it has something really cool like a "frickin laser beam", or perhaps some photon torpedos?
Side note: How many people who make these things grew up having a lower sense of limits because of star-trek etc. If one day we have an actual cloaking device and warp drive, it will probably be made by trekkies or ex-trekkies.
America's most powerful weapon.
You are, of course, referring to the DaisyCutter?
No, it's the K10 b*tchslapper - killfrog.com
I've set up a mirror of both the projectblack story and the quicktime movie of the plane in flight. http://www.msu.edu/~brownd41/mirror/batplane/index .html
The question people should be asking here is simply... do we need yet another hideously expensive combat aircraft?
As long as those are the only types of militaries we have to fight, no not really.
If we have to defend: Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, or Israel (ok, they would probably be defending us) then, yes we do need the ultimate fighter for swift air superiority.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
The F-22 keeps its missiles in internal bays until they're ready to fire, IIRC. I would guess this thing does the same.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Article was a bit light on facts but carbon fiber composites, and only one engine would give very low weight
There does not seem to be much room in it for fuel..
The law is a weapon of the government, not a protection for the likes of you. Surely you understand that.
John Ashcroft told me they were going to outfit it with a couple purple-headed yogurt slingers.
No. We can't. That was proven a long time ago. Humanity is and will always be in conflict with itself.
The only way to bring peace to the world is to crush out every last spark of individuality and source of friction, and to do that you would have to use force, thus defeating your own goals.
Not saying war is a good thing, but conflict is inevitable. And there will always be those who are hyper enough to use force first.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Looks a lot like Boeing's unmanned fighter prototype, the X-45 which is going to have missiles in an internal bay, I think (pop it open briefly to fire).
Remember, this plane is a prototype and to some extent a proof-of-concept plane. Now that the concept has been proved and Boeing has assured its backers that the damn thing can fly at all, they can start building a version with munitions bays (you're right, there's no way they are going to carry missiles on the outside, and the F-117 carries stuff internally). I expect the same principles used to hide the landing gear doors would work on missile bay doors too.
Also remember, as others have pointed out, the fact that we even know about this plane proves that it's quite out-of-date. God only knows what's in that hangar in Area 51 today.
Or they do what they are doing on the F-22, take all missiles internally or mounted externally in pods with similar radar dissolving charateristics.
With the F-22, and the JSF as well, the plan is to make it stealthy by hiding the missiles in payload bays (the F-22 has a belly bay and a bay on the side of each air intake), and once air dominence has been acheived, then the aircraft can mount external ordinance.
This plane was never intended to go into production. I imagine if a combat model is built along the same lines, it will house the bombs and/or missiles in the fuselage or somesuch.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
You mean the U2... in the 60s... which wasn't necessarily stealth, but simply because it could fly higher than any missile at that time (or at least they thought... until Russia shot one down!)
Also, regarding your post in general, it's kind of an ignorant statement. Your opinion is a popular one. Why do we need to continue spending? Why waste the money? There is no war out there to fight anymore!
WRONG, there is always a war to fight. Spending money on technology NOW prevents wars in the future. Spending money is what caused the USSR to fall (they ran out of money quicker than we did). Smart weapons must be delivered somehow. You can not launch a "smart weapon" from the U.S. and expect it to hit Baghdad. You need to have a platform to launch it from.
In the specific case of the "Bird of Prey", it is a concept only... says so in the Popular Science article. Concepts are used all the time from our friends in Detroit (ever been to a big auto show) to CPU manufacturers. Concepts are to prove something can be done... which then lead into more useful items later on.
As with much military technology, lessons learned from this concept vehicle could possibly make it into everyday life.
I think you're talking about the tailless sonic cruiser (you can find it on Boeing's site too but it seems to be slashdotted right now).
Come on, trekkies. You know you can't resists the pedantic urge to correct the parent post. I dare you to prove me wrong.
- An ex-trekkie (B5 forever!)
Lift is a function of speed, at high speeds you don't need such a large lifting area.
Look at a gliders weight to wing area, compare it to a high speed aircraft.
Use the wings for stability and direction control.
Secondly fighter type aircraft have really big engines, they can keep you up, and you don't get the areodynamic drag from the lifting surfaces. It isn't efficient, but it will perform better.
I'm not so sure this was a good idea to reveal the existence of this thing. Other then whatever fear we can place in the hearts of our enemies that we will not relinquish the lead on key warfighting tech, I wonder if this just gets other countries fired up to do research on how to cheaply produce similar airframes.
And unlike us they are far more likely to deploy something like this as a cruise missile, thus rendering Arrow/NBMD obsolete.
Let's not encourage or give America's enemies any more ideas.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
http://xaxxon.slackworks.com/lb03235.mov
mirror of the movie on the boeing site..
Hmmmm, WB has a new show called "Birds of Prey." Boeing acknowledges existance of their new fighter "bird of prey." WB.com says hope comes in the unlikely form of a trio of beautiful and relentless heroines, so I guess these Dawson's Creek kiddies are going to fly around in these badass jets stopping evil-doers, (just like our military, I'm starting to get the idea)
:)
Who says WB shows are lame!
Satanists get good grades too...suspiciously good grades
They would be "puce colored fag-robots", but they could only do two things: surrender, or run away. :)
It's not done downloading yet.. it's at 49%.. but eventually it'll be done :) And this is more than most people are going to get from the boeing site in the next few hours.. ooh! 50% :)
<jedi>This is not the classified aircraft you are looking for.</jedi>
Damn, I was hoping this was about the über-large, super-low-speed, really gigantic, maybe-helium-inflated, possibly-heavy-duty-troop-transport aircraft previoulsy reported (several times) on Slashdot.
Now, that would be killer. I'm really very disapointed here.
I choose to remain celibate, like my father and his father before him.
A few things dont make sense to me though, I thought it was flying low because it *looked* to be quite large, but I hardly heard any sound (meaning it could have been far away), but from my perspective it was traveling very slow meaning it would have to have been far away to keep a minimum airspeed [paralax motion]... so I dont know :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Angry Security Officer: "WTF? God? Who the hell cleared Him for that?"
This might helpwith your question.
Always value the individual over the system. --Bruce Lee "I don't need a Sig - I have a custom 191" - me
It's anti-slashdot-effect. Obsessive-compulsive clickers have to copy/paste/edit in order to see it. Since you posted it, it has now been slashdotted.. Thanks
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
I've heard more stories about strippers playing with his "lobes" than I care to.
And you call yourself a NERD! No self-respecting geek could get enough Star Trek related erotic stories! Sheesh...
GMD
watch this
The B-52 has been in service for almost 50 years and anticipated to remain in service for another 30+ years from now. (Yes, there'll be B-52s flying with airframes older than your grandparents!) The F-4 was recently taken out of service, but there are still some A-6s in service. Those planes were in service during Vietnam.
So on what facts do you base your statement about US stealth aircraft will still be true 40 years from now?
And, umm, could you talk to LockMart, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop-Grumman, and the US Air Force, because they'd all really like to know what they'll be up against in 2042.
Oh.. wait.. never mind, the page loaded.
Last time I was there they had two B-2 Stealth Bombers parked near the runway. Seeing one of those things from the back, I am convinced they are the cause of 95% of saucer-shaped ufo sightings in the last 20 years.
Actually the cause of 95% of UFO sighthings is that people are fucking idiots.
GMD
watch this
What's really going to bake your noddle later on is, did I just expose my ignorance of Star Trek, or, did I intentionally make the error to bring trekkies out of the woodwork?
"Never attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by stupidity."
--Hanlon's Razor
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
No, the original poster does NOT mean the U2.
An F117 was shot down by the Serbs in March 1999.
It was picked up by a Czech built radar system and shot down by anti-aircraft fire.
(The pilot was rescued by US Special Forces)
Google on F117 shot down to see what I mean.
"Information wants to be paid"
I'd like to point out that this is a lifting body design... just like the bazillion other posters who didn't read the other replies first.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
It looks like just about the damn sweetest flying thing I've ever seen,
:-b
I think it's ugly as all hell.
the F-22 is what we can deploy and have deployed right now.
Not quite. There are only 6(?) airframes so far. No operational squadron. The initial base has been decided, but they're not there just yet.
The stealth fighter was revealed to the general public before the gulf war, they even had a really good game that was released during or before the war.
"Flying turd"? Let's see you do better with a slide rule, jackass. That plane is a MIRACLE. It totally revolutionized the force calculus of air power, and it's a master of ragged-edge-of-the-envelope engineering.
Show some respect. The Skunk Works turned in a revolutionary, extraordinarily capable, STUPENDOUSLY RISKY airplane on a shoestring budget. We need more engineers like that.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
There are actually several points that dispute the official version of Gary Powers U2 shooting down. The official version goes that he was hit by a Surface to Air missile, and thus bailed out etc etc. This version tells a different version of events, and quite rightly states that there was no Missile or Bullet damage on the wreckage that the Soviets displayed. Another version of events (a source escapes me atm) is that the U2 wasnt at all shot down by a SAM, as this was next to impossible for the technology of those days, but he was infact shot down by a modified or experimental MiG-25, which has since been proven to be able to fly at those altitudes.
The F-117's hit-to-loss ratio is unprecedented. There are zero other aircraft in service today (with the exception of the B-2, which is not typically used in tactical air operations) that can survive in modern air defense environments. The fact that ONE has been shot down, considering the number of sorties the 117 has accomplished with zero losses, is a testament to how effective the system has been.
Yes. They got lucky, and bagged a Nighthawk. Odds are, it would happen someday. Nobody (with the exception of media idiots and anti-military types) thought that the aircraft needed to be invulnerable in order to be useful.
Get some perspective.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
OK, the dagger in the patch appears to be Klingon. The plane's design appears to be TOS Klingon / Romulan.
What would really impress me is something that looks like the D'Deridex Warbirds. Of course, something that large, and you'd need a cloaking device.
Lowmag.net
A: Photos? All I see are empty hangars and plain blue skylines.
B: Well now is THAT not a hell of a stealth fighter?
--
Karma 50, and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt.
One of the original proposals for Concorde had bat wings. Take a look at the ARMSTRONG-WHITWORTH M-WING proposal.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
It IS a development model for testing.
It's easy to look at the matte grey and assume it's a fighter, but a trip to Boeing's press release tells a different story.
The aircraft has an operational ceiling of 20,000 feet, and a cruising speed of 260 knots (mach 0.4). It's weight is 7,400 lbs. that's less than half the weight of an empty F-16 and a sixth that of an F-14. The weight alone doesn't mean it can't be a fighter, but it's no good for any sort of mixed-use, because of its minimal load capacity.
It's also an unlikely choice for surveillance because of its low ceiling. the U-2 was good because anti-aircraft munitions couldn't reach it. The SR-71 was good because they could outrun missiles. This thing, as stealthy as it may be, is a sitting duck as it patrols below its 20,000 foot ceiling, putting along at 280 knots.
No, the point of this aircraft is that it proves new design and fabrication techniques. the prototype was built for $64 million, soup to nuts, and that's a huge deal. Boeing financed the design and production out-of-pocket, and my best guess is that they did it to rpove to the DoD that they could come up with innovative designs, fabricate and test them cheaply and quickly, and maintain a veil of secrecy while they do it.
After losing the F-22/23 battle to Lockheed Martin, Boeing has to rebuild cred with the DoD as more than a missile and satellite maker. My guess is that this is their 'see what we can do' project for the military, since the Skunkworks facilities were't working on much else nowadays.
Kevin Fox
This is just a radar/areodynamic test prototype and is quite a few years from production. And as the "skip a generation" approach the current administration has the UAV version is probably the future.
The location of the air intake also implies that this is going to be a subsonic aircraft design. Perhaps the future replacement for the F117A rather than a fighter.
Even the Boeing PR points this out:
So it seems unlikley we'll see a manned version of one of these in the future. They may have been thinking that way in the early 1990s when they started to build it but not today.
The video is interesting -- the plane looks so different from different angles and there is one angle where the wings look more like a flying squirrel rather than a bird of prey(tm).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't forget the KH-11 satellite... It had at least a 6" resolution that we know of. Now this was a satellite that was from the mid-80's. Imagine what they have now, 20 years later!
Now that we got the governament to admit that there is indeed a secret stealth fighter called "bird of pray", something we knew all along, I would like to be the first to start the rumour that there is in fact no such thing as a "bird of pray" stealth fighter.
Look at those pictures will ya, I could have done a better job using Photoshop. Sheesh, the thing doesn't even have a laser cannon. And everyone knows that secret fighterjets are black, not regular-fighterjet gray.
Very bad for the porn industry.
But seriously, pretend I said something relevant about the article here so my witty banter doesnt get modded down.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
I'm assuming you're having trouble differentiating between seeing a an object in the air you can't describe, and some redneck that says aliens implanted a mind control device in his dog.
Well, okay, if you want to get really picky about symantics then I'll point to your post and state that everyone can differentiate between an object in the sky and an uneducated human being. But what you meant to say is that I'm confusing a Unidentified Flying Object and an alien spacecraft.
What I am really guilty of is using "UFO sighting" and "UFO reporting" interchangably (well, that and misspelling sighting in my original post). My comment about people being idiots is reserved for those who, upon seeing something unusual in the sky, immediately run off and notify the authorities. They are really the ones who confuse a UFO with alien spacecraft -- not me. The only reason these people are reporting something unusual is because they think it is important. People are lazy. They aren't going to go to the trouble of telling the police "Hey, I saw this thing and I don't know if it's important or not." Those that take the time/effort of reporting lights or saucer shaped objects in the sky have already largely convinced themselves that it's alien in origin in spite of no evidence whatsoever.
GMD
watch this
What impressed the hell out of me was this bit from the popsci article:
I work in a air force research facility, and this still dropped my jaw. All the fancy stuff, plus the simple little things like, "oh, and we painted it white where the shadows are."
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
The -117 got shot down because the planning staff was asleep at the switch. The same route was used several days in a row. The shooters got a lucky shot in, but they had anticipated where the jet was going to be.
Random routes to the same spot might have precluded the shootdown.
What's really going to bake your noddle later on is, did I just expose my ignorance of Star Trek, or, did I intentionally make the error to bring trekkies out of the woodwork?
:-)
I suppose spelling noodle wrong was also intentional?
Weren't the first stealth aircraft announced just before Gulf War I? There was speculation at the time that we just needed an excuse to test new weapons in real combat.
I don't the US is too worried about us though, particularly as Lockheed Martin is a joint venture partner in the project...
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
It was 5:30am and it was still dark out. Me and a friend of mine were looking out over Blackwater Sound when I noticed three slightly illuminated rectangles moving just above the cloud deck (about 3000 feet I guess), heading NNW from the Atlantic. At first I assumed it was lights shining on the bottom of a jet, as it was moving a little faster than a prop plane would. But I couldn't hear anything, nor could I see the shape of the plane (it was just starting to get twilight). Me and my friend were stumped as to what it was.
I wanted to entertain the fact that I had just saw a UFO, but all my instincts told me it was a secret gov plane. The flight path made me think it might be a spy/recon plane that had just returned from checking out Cuba.
Now that I've seen a bottom profile of the Bird of Prey, I'm almost certain the strange tri-rectangle shape I saw was the bottom of one of these things with its landing lights on. It was probably on final approach for Homestead AFB.
Okay, for those that haven't paid enough attention (i.e. didn't actually go and read the article,) here is the short of it:
Now, what this means:
This aircraft was made by Boeing so they could make sure that developmental technologies would work. They did this because they had other contracts with the DoD that would benefit from this technology. As the press release says, technology from this aircraft was used in development of the X-45A.
This is very common for defense companies. They know that they need to work on some piece of technology to get their DoD project working right, but they already told the DoD that they had said technology. So what do they do? They develop the technology in secret (seperately from the DoD project,) do it cheaply, and do it with in-house money. This way, the DoD project gets its technology, and they don't have egg on their face from the fact that they didn't actually have this technology developed in the first place.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I think Valenti would say:
;)
America is to English what "embrace and extend" is to software.
"Old man yells at systemd"
There was also a spy on the planning staff who passed the flight route to either the Russians or the Serbs.
It was caught in a "SAM trap" that was just waiting for it.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Wow, skippy, you're right. The state of the art has progressed in the 20 years between the 117's design and the 22's. Who'd a thunk it? As far as "rushed" design, the design followed from one and only one imperative: Stealth. The computers available were not sufficiently powerful to assist the designers in generating compound curved shapes, like you see on the -22 and the B-2 Spirit.
Repeat after me. The F-117 is not an air superiority fighter. It carries two precision-guided 2000lb bombs. No missiles. No guns. Bombs.
Don't know why they gave it an F- designation, but it's no more a fighter than the A-6 Intruder.
You're either trolling, or ignorant, or both.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It wouldn't be the bird of prey -- #1 it has a business jet engine, #2 it has no real instruments, hell, it doesn't even have real computers! It was flown manually (not fly-by-wire). I doubt this plane was used for anything else than just testing designs...
Dunno. Why are the F-105 Thunderchief and F-111 Aardvark designated as fighters? I believe the Thud carried a gun and provisions for AA weaponry, but I'm pretty sure the 'Vark was a straight low-level bomber.
Don't worry...the Air Force is pretty clever. They know not to use the airplanes as fighters, even though they're named so confusing-ly.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'll defend that if you defend the change from "neighbour" to "neighbor".
"The other night as I was driving home... I had a couple miles to go, when all of a sudden, I saw a great orange light - to the east! When I came to, I was home. What do you think happened to me?" -Colonol Cambell, MGS2
Yup...
The Romulan and Klingon empires filed suit against Boeing today, responding to the trademark and copyright infringing title of the new aircraft, stating "We'll have justice, or we'll wedge a photon torpedo so far up your (expletive deleted) that your (expletive deleted) will glow for weeks, after which, your (expletive deleted) will explode, taking your (expletive deleted), your (expletive deleted), and your (expletive deleted) with it!"
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Show some respect. The Skunk Works turned in a revolutionary, extraordinarily capable, STUPENDOUSLY RISKY airplane on a shoestring budget. We need more engineers like that.
I second that motion. For anyone who is interested, I recommend "Skunk Works: A personal memoir of my years at Lockheed" by Ben Rich. The SR-71 and F-117 were both created at the Skunk Works, and this book tells the tale from the inside. It contains some pretty fascinating tidbits - for example, during selection trials the F-117 prototype showed an alarmingly large radar signature on the test range. The fix? They had to design a stealth pylon to put it on because the F-117 proto was the first plane so stealthy that its signature was less than the pylon!
Its been around since the late 60s, test driven by Sally Fields if I'm not mistaken...prototype?
To me, a more interesting question than the ultimate resolution of these babies is the *number* and scope of cameras on them. Can they watch a car drive along a Cairo backstreet? Can they do this to 20 (or 200 or 2000) cars simultaneously?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Jeff Foxworthy: "If the UFO Hotline limits you to one call per day, you might be a redneck."
Ah yes, ignorance must be bliss....
The United States is the strongest economic, political, and military power in the world. The fact is, the U.S. is not bound to run out of money anytime soon. The economic resources of the country allow us to keep spending the money on such things.
Why do you think the U.S. pushing global trade? How can you live without a country that provides important resources for other countries? If all countries had one or two strategic resources, then international trade would pretty much guarentee the success of that nation. In the case of the U.S., we are the #1 exporter of food products throughout the world, #1 exporter of military technology, and probably the #1 exporter of civilian technology (although, Japan or Germany may be better, I don't know off hand... the U.S. is still up there).
The U.S. is also home to something like 7 of the world's top 10 largest companies. AND, the U.S. is home to something like 70% of the world's banks. This is a pretty significant thing!
This whole discussion lends credence to my theory that 90% of the reason we have wars is because we (primarily the males of the species) like making cool stuff to blow things up with.
:)
(I say this not at as any kind criticism, merely an observation, since my reaction to this plane is pretty much "COOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!"...)
You gotta wonder if the first time some guy stabbed a Mastodon with a pointed stick a bunch of other guys like us crowded around him saying "Ohh! Look at the sharpened point! Hey, I bet he could hit something with one of those at twenty, thirty feet!"
Like it's namesake, the Bird Of Prey doesn't have bathrooms.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
The entire project cost $67M. The B2 project probably spent that much on jet fuel.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Certainly the whole swing wing thing is a costly tech to maintain and I'm sure they have aged.
My objection is not necesarily taking out the Electric Foxes, but that there isn't an equivalent replacement in the pipeline.
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