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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."
Theyre just telling us its a secret new invisible jet because they dont want to tell us what theyre really working on
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beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his mind he dreams himself your master
Looks like U.S. military is already at least 1, if not 2 generations ahead of its allies. Besides, its enemies still have WWII-level technologies.
Does it really need to spend so much billions on finding -yet- more advanced stealth technology?
Are you volunteering to fly missions?
Yes, the military complex creates jobs, but there are jobs in OTHER SECTORS as well, which imho are more beneficial to the overall well being of human civilization.
There is nothing as beneficial to mankind as Pax Americana.
Advice: on VPS providers
I bet it swoops overhead and downloads child porn to the hard drives of terrorists.
They have no idea what they're in for.
This craft is also capable of bombing missions, according to the Military Channel's own documentaries on experimental craft. It DOES have a bomb bay and missile mounts.
The same documentary also said that this craft is capable of completely autonomous aircraft carrier landings, and can even do so in the dark. (a milestone feat in itself, due many factors)
It's also capable of 24+ hour flight, which is awesome for scouting missions waiting for a mobile target, and is capable of mid-air refueling. (this is a living pilot no-no, and potentially keeps the craft up as long as it needs to be).
Eventually, this will be flying more than our own pilots will be, due to the fact that pilots cannot be mass-produced. Eventually, we WILL be putting arms on them, even if only because there might not be a good enough alternative.
Also, rumors about similar tanks are in the works... that are so overengineered that they tried to break it and couldn't (experimental model).
There are no perfect answers, only the right questions. More questions at http://foresightandhindsight.blogspot.com/
"Also, rumors about similar tanks are in the works... that are so overengineered that they tried to break it and couldn't (experimental model)." I for one welcome the arrival of the Bolos.
American soldiers haven't had to fear death from the skies for 50 years because of America's complete superiority in the air. Similarly, America's ability to maintain that superiority into the future depends on continued funding and development of new technologies. It's foolish to stop development because we're good enough now. Halting the development of these technologies creates an environment in which no one has worked on advanced fighter aircraft for 30 years because "we were good enough back then" and we can't get back up to speed.
The other problem is deciding when the time is that we need to start development back up again? Is it when we think possible enemies catch up? Is it when we are devastated by previously unknown technology from somewhere?
I know we are fighting different kinds of wars now (counter-insurgency, gorilla warfare, etc), but I think it's unreasonable to pretend that we'll never need to worry about fighting large scale wars because we aren't fighting them now. The truth is, the threat of wars from foreign lands is not non-existent, and given that, the US military machine should work to be as prepared as possible for that eventuality.
No armor has ever saved as many lives as good, fresh, intel on enemy positions and movements.
Looking as cool as an SR-71.
I'd like to see some pictures of gorilla warfare. Are these mechanized or trained Gorillas?
From the crappy pic at AviationLeak, it looks like it may be an outgrowth of the X-45 development bird.
I follow defense technology closely, and while I'm a critic of many new defense programs... I think the F-35 is becoming an overpriced boondoggle, for instance... I'm a firm believer that the US has to maintain a level of technology superior to its adversaries. You never want to go into an even fight. You want to be better in every way to the guy opposing you on the battlefield. That requires constant research. If you sit still, others pass you up.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Makes sense. A stealthed recon aircraft should be small. Recon is mostly flying preprogrammed flight paths, so the pilot doesn't make many decisions. Hence a moderate-sized UAV.
The Air Force guys hate it, but UAVs are getting the job done. The Army is going for more automation; they use autoland on their Predators, and have far fewer crashes than the USAF stick jocks who land the things manually.
One comment on tfa raised an obvious question: Why deploy an advanced and experimental stealth aircraft in Kandahar against an enemy that doesn't have radar (nor any capability to threaten aircraft)? One clue may be that the closest international border to Kandahar is Pakistan's, and Pakistan certainly does have radar. The next question, about why this story was leaked complete with a picture, might have a related answer: The message is "Fuck you, Pakistan; we'll talk as though we're your friends, but we own your airspace and can see every hair on your bare asses, so don't try anything."
Here's a picture of five of them in action.
[Insert pithy quote here]
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.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Thank you. Guerilla. Although an army of trained silverbacks would be pretty sweet.
From the crappy pic at AviationLeak, it looks like it may be an outgrowth of the X-45 development bird.
It looks more like the Navy's X-47B, which is also a tailless flying wing. The Navy and NG have been very open about the program, so perhaps that's another reason why USAF felt they didn't have to hide the Sentinel anymore.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Who had an Air Force?
Korea=yes, for the duration
Viet Nam= yes, for the duration
Cold War = yes, the USSR and USA often flew matching flights.
Iraq I = yes (for about 20 minutes)
Al Qaeda = yes (4 planes for about 90 minutes)
Iraq II = yes (for about 3 minutes)
For the Future:
Iran=yes (F-14s, thank you Jimmy Carter), MiG 29
It's also worth pointing out that many of the medical advancements we would take for granted today came from military research/endeavours... :) Not all of the money being poured into the military is being spent on building bigger and better guns.
How many conflicts has the US fought in the last 50 years where the opposing military even had an air force?
Vietnam War, Libya (multiple 80's incidents), Iran (multiple 80's incidents), Iraq (gulf war, gulf war 2). Those are the ones I know of off the top of my head. Also, aircraft have multiple uses besides pure air superiority. Reconnaissance is the main use of UAVs right now (being able to see over the next hill can be useful in avoiding ambushes). Bombing is another use, especially when you need some extra support in a fire fight.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
>American soldiers haven't had to fear death from the skies for 50 years because of America's complete superiority in the air
Except from "blue on blue" aka "friendly fire".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_fire
Yes, especially considering how much cold hard cash the Taliban are throwing at advanced weapons research.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
Depends if you mean European Gorillas or the much larger African Gorillas. Of the course the African ones are non-migratory.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
But how does a Taliban guy look different than a regular Afghani?
Ok, so we have loads of experience with Blended wing bodies in the military. How about applying that tech back to the BWB and getting it built. It can be used for Tanker, Cargo, and even bombers for the military. Likewise, it can be used for freight airlines. Then over time, we will see the regular airlines pick this up, put cargo on the outer edges and avoid the issues with having a regular airline pick it up. Why? Because it will use 30-50% less fuel.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Some people serve their country, not their morality. They step up to service because their country needs their service, not because their morality agreed with the current course of action. It's a fairly simple statement of "I'm willing to set aside my beliefs to do what my country believes is the better course of action for it." These people form the basis of the career military service. They don't volunteer for a war. They volunteer for whatever their country requires of them. They'll be there before the war starts and they'll be there after it's done. Only fools volunteers for a war, but it is a patriot who signs up for service.
Morality is simply a justification for war. It allows those who believe in morality to support war without their conscience gnawing at them. It lets them ignore the wounded, the dead, and the human suffering that will follow. It does not avoid any of that.
He's carrying a gun, mortar, and/or RPG. And he's in a group of several other guys like him. And he's moving toward a military checkpoint or installation. And he keeps ducking behind cover, thinking it will hide him.
The current conflict is a lot more dangerous then a lot of people in the west presume. They see a couple of towelheads shooting an AK-47 in the air or guarding someone with an RPG (really, what are you going to do Einstein, shoot your prisoner with an explosive grenade from 2 meters away?) and think "what danger could they be". Not much. Except in very large numbers to a country where the ordinary soldier is not all that motivated in the first place. And that is what Pakistan faces and the price is a nuclear arsenal that very few people in the world would tolerate even the risk of the Taliban getting their hands on it.
This ain't a message against the goverment of Pakistan, it is preperation for what goverment there might be in control tomorrow.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Serbia - Yea for a couple of the nights, the MiG-29s they had did alright in light of the odds they faced.
Bosnia, we knocked down some of their planes while their SAMs took out one of our F-16s.
I'm pretty sure that the F-35 is overpriced, but it is not a boondoggle. Our next fight will at some point involve an adversary who has the ability to knock out our satellite links to UAVs. At that point, you need planes with a pilot inside - and that will have to be advanced fighters of the F-35/F-22 type. We don't want to have to develop a brand new fighter at the beginning of a classical war.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Most unlikey. The design with very long wings and an unremakable engine nozzle suggest that it's strictly subsonic. It seems to be designed for high altitude and to be ale to stay in the air for a long time, not high speed. A supersonic design would probably have a elongated fuselage, shorter, probably delta shaped wings and engine nozzle with variable shape (it could be embedded in the fuselage though).
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
Those weapons don't create anything. Building more of them diverts resources from productive projects inevitably having a significant long term negative impact on the economy as a whole. The broken window fallacy applies to much more than the hypothetical broken windows themselves and in fact describes the result of intentionally over-producing any economically worthless goods.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Russia seems to think Boeing 747s are military aircraft too.
A very good reason to fly Tupolev.
Whereas UAV pilots cower in bunkers on another continent - so very brave.
There is nothing as beneficial to mankind as Pax Americana
Do you really believe that or are you being um, ironic or sarcastic or something?
I need to know because I'll mark you friend or for accordingly.
Personally, I find the prospect of a world ruled from America horrifying.
I want to be able to see breasts on television sometimes.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I don't follow defense technology at all and I do question the value of a number of the programs. But from what I've seen so far, the RQ-170 makes a lot of sense.
The best battle is the one you never have to fight because your enemy realizes he cannot possibly win by any method of scoring. Systems like the RQ-170 are major components of this best practices strategy.
This also suggests the primary reason for beginning to publicize the RQ-170 at this time, and for its deployment in Afghanistan. The USA is saying to the Taliban and Al Qaida that for this and all kinds of other technical reasons, they should abandon their attempts to achieve a military success and try instead to bargain for some small piece of their vision. I can think of no other reason for the story of the RQ-170 to become public right now: it is abundantly clear that sending this message to the Afghan insurgents is well worth the cost of bringing this bird out of the closet.
And as others in this thread have suggested, it should cause potential adversaries to question whether the RQ-170 program has also served as a way of hiding the development and deployment of something even more capable...
Will
Simple rule for supersonic aircraft maximum speeds is to think of a right triangle, one point at the nose, one at the wingtip and the right angle on the center line near the back (in line with the nose and the wingtip).
The aircrafts maximum speed (in Mach) is the ratio of fuselage length to wing length (minus a little bit).
The wing tip has to be behind the shock wave generated by the nose.
This plane is not even fast subsonic by the looks of things.
This doesn't work for the space shuttle as it's very nose high when at maximum speed but holds for anything up to an X-15 or SR-71.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I've seen some advanced military simulations showing the effects of Godzilla warfare on Tokyo. Godzilla warfare is truly the greatest threat to western nations in the 21st century.
About Iran's birds :
F-14s take a ton of maintenance and spare parts to keep them flying. I think it's somewhere on the order of 50 man hours in maintenance for every hour in the air, and those 50 man hours are generally fixing or replacing hardware. Given that Iran hasn't got a constant feed of spare parts to keep the Tomcat's in the air, I am going to bet they scavenged some planes to keep others flying, recursively, until none were still air-worthy.
The MiG 29s? They can probably buy spare parts for those, no problems.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
If he runs, he's Taliban.
If he doesn't run, he's well disciplined Taliban.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
Spending 41.5% of the total world military budget is very, very close to outspending the rest of the world combined. We're only 8.5% away.
Reagan sold TOW and Hawk missiles to Ayatollah Khomeni. Nixon approved the sale of the F-14s to the CIA backed Shah.
If you want more information on that plane, you should read the book "Horten flies a Ho."
"Those weapons don't create anything."
Aside from well paying jobs. In the US.
"Building more of them diverts resources from productive projects inevitably having a significant long term negative impact on the economy as a whole."
I find it hard to believe that spending money on weapons is more wasteful than spending money on any other shiny new trinket. Which probably isn't made in the US.
I don't deny that the outcome of using the weapons is questionable at best. But don't assume that if we didn't spend the money on weapons we would spend it on something "useful" or "better". That would be a VERY dubious assumption based on our history.
"LOL at the useless cockpit bulge."
Probably houses sensors. Given the extreme importance of loiter time it would be absurd to have a fake cockpit and additional drag.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Whereas UAV pilots cower in bunkers on another continent - so very brave.
Thank you. Personally, I only go to battle wearing a bright red jacket and blue pants carrying a balloon above me for higher visibility. It's the only honorable thing to do.
Also remember that these days it takes about 20 years to go from idea to deployed combat ready aircraft. If we cancel the F-35 now we get to start over and hope our enemies don't surprise us in the next 20 years. Not a risk I want to take.
And what advanced aircraft program of the last 20 years *didn't* go over time and budget? Why wouldn't the next one become an overpriced boondoggle also? It seems to be the nature of the beast and if we canceled every program that became such we wouldn't have any aircraft at all.
In other words you do not look any different than anyone else
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Extracting sunbeams from
I won't disagree that it was a broad uprising. However, prior to it Carter pressured the Shah to allow Ayatollah Khomeni to be allowed back into the country and a larger number of other things that essentially unblocked the Ayatollahs path to causing the uprising and taking power in the first place. I won't argue Carter is solely responsible, but it appears he does a portion of the blame.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars