US Air Force Confirms New Stealth Aircraft

DesScorp writes "Aviation Week reports that the USAF has confirmed the existence of a new, formerly secret stealth aircraft, designated RQ-170 Sentinel, developed at Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works. Rumors of a secret new jet have been flying since 2007, with longtime aviation journalist Bill Sweetman dubbing the possible aircraft 'The Beast of Kandahar' because of the urban legend-like reports from Afghanistan. The aircraft is a UAV, a pilot-less drone that appears to have some kind of reconnaissance-only mission for the time being. It's a tailless flying wing that resembles a fighter-sized B-2 bomber."

Comments

Re:top secret

[mrsquid0]

Afghanistan is a testing ground for the UAV. It is a fairly safe testing ground because the Afghanis do not have anything that has a realistic chance at shooting it down. The fact that it was at an international aeroport suggests that the US does not consider it to be one of their secret planes anymore. It will be interesting to see (five or ten years from now) what the real cutting edge of military aviation is in 2009.

Possible Reasons Why

[DesScorp]

Any ideas on why they need such a secret and stealthy UAV in Afghanistan for? Obviously they weren't too worried about it if this Bill Sweetman guy was able to see it at the Kandahar International Airport.

One, Sweetman didn't discover it in the field. He was likely first alerted to it when someone sent him the grainy photos of the bird in flight. He's probably the most prominent miltary aviation journalist in the world, so people come to him when they think they've found something secret.

As to why it's in Afghanistan, that was a puzzle to me to at first, but some very good (and intriguing) theories have come up about it. For one, some note that not everyone in the Pakistani military is reliable in the Afghan war; there's a good chance some members are feeding intel to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It's been suggested that since we've become very dependent on sending Predators and Reapers to hunt the Taliban in the desert, perhaps we don't completely trust Pakistani radar operators anymore. Perhaps we think they're sending what they know to the very people we're hunting.

Another, even more intriguing possibility, is that China is right next door. And considering the luck we've had with conventional intel aircraft monitoring China, perhaps this is our way of keeping an eye on the growing Dragon. However, if we're actually penetrating Chinese airspace, then we're playing a very dangerous, Gary Powers-like game.