Airplane Enthusiasts Spot Secret U.S. Army Plane

[Purveyor]

A series of events suggest the U.S. wanted the public to discover its secret stealth plane. Perhaps it was an attempt by the Obama administration to warn its Rivals - like Russia and Iran.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Apr. 1, 2014 | 9:27 PM

Aviation enthusiasts in the United States have discovered a military aircraft that was hidden from the public. The purpose of the aircraft is not yet clear, but photographs taken of the Texas sky show that it is a relatively large stealth plane.

The discovery was made three weeks ago by two veteran aircraft "spotters," Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett, who were at Amarillo Airport in the Texas Panhandle doing what they like best: spotting planes. They had just finished photographing two U.S. Air Force T-38 jet trainers when an unnamed friend of Douglass, a government employee, called his mobile phone and suggested he look toward the south-east.

Despite the good visibility, it was hard to see the three planes flying in formation about 30 kilometers away and at a height of around 36 thousand feet, but their white vapor contrails could be clearly seen. Douglass and Muskett set up their cameras and began snapping away when one of the planes broke position for a few seconds and its outlines could be seen a bit better.

The plane had a "flying wing" design, similar to some of the manned and unmanned radar-evading stealth aircraft in operational use by the U.S. Air Force or under development for the Pentagon. At first they thought it was probably a B-2 stealth bomber, the most expensive aircraft in history, 20 of which are operated by the USAF. But once he returned home, uploaded the photos to his computer and enlarged the images, Douglass noticed that the wings' trailing edges were slightly curved, unlike the B-2's straight edges. It looked like no aircraft that had ever been seen in public or photographed before, one of the "black projects," spy-planes and secret bombers that the U.S. has been developing since the early days of the Cold War.

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[LongTomH]

1. Possibly an new X-plane?

Apparently this was first reported by Aviation Week (Still sometimes called 'Aviation Leak!'). Sorry, I can't get the link to the article to display properly; but, it's one of the first entries on the blog page.

As far as I know, this sort of thing has happened only once since 1956.

That was when British magazines started getting eyewitness accounts and grainy photos of the Lockheed U-2, then operating out of RAF Lakenheath on its first spy flights over the Soviet Union. Classified programs have been exposed in all sorts of ways since then - for example, the A-12 Blackbird was disclosed under a degree of pressure - but until the RQ-170 Sentinel was seen at Kandahar in 2007-09 there has been no such aircraft photographed before it was declassified. (And in the case of the RQ-170, the operational security people were not trying too hard.)

That was when British magazines started getting eyewitness accounts and grainy photos of the Lockheed U-2, then operating out of RAF Lakenheath on its first spy flights over the Soviet Union. Classified programs have been exposed in all sorts of ways since then - for example, the A-12 Blackbird was disclosed under a degree of pressure - but until the RQ-170 Sentinel was seen at Kandahar in 2007-09 there has been no such aircraft photographed before it was declassified. (And in the case of the RQ-170, the operational security people were not trying too hard.)

The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what it is. The size is very hard to determine, for example, although the image size at contrailing height suggests that it is bigger than an X-47B. However, the basic shape - while it resembles Boeing's Blended Wing Body studies or the Swift Killer Bee/Northrop Grumman Bat unmanned air system - is different from anything known to have flown at full size, lacking the notched trailing edge of Northrop Grumman's full-size designs.

So what is the new plane's purpose?

One avenue of speculation is to look at gaps in the USAF's line-up. One obvious example is high-precision stealth attack: The B-2 and F-22 have the ability to drop GPS-inertial weapons on coordinates generated or updated by radar, but that's not the same as electro-optical targeting and laser guidance, which seemingly went away with the retirement of the F-117 six years ago: that technology gives you strike damage assessment as well as greater accuracy. The USAF has also talked about "penetrating, stand-in electronic attack" as an enabler for other strike systems - and talked in the same way about penetrating intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, even when the Northrop Grumman RQ-180 was under development to perform that mission.

[PoliticAverse]

2. I'm not saying it's aliens, but... n/t

[neverforget]

6. It was Aliens

I love seeing advanced, state-of-the-art aircraft even if this one is from 36,000 feet.

[Anansi1171]

3. US sabre-ratling in response to provocations in Russia and NK

Is my guess. The Russian Topol M ICBM launch a few weeks ago when tensions were high and just before MH370 was lost.

[CFLDem]

4. K&R for awesomeness.

Who says we don't make cool shit anymore?

[GeorgeGist]

5. Your eyes are better than mine.