V-22s With Forward Firing Weapons

a reply to: boomer135

They tried a pole cap once upon a time. Good times in the wind tunnel that day. Hah!

a reply to: BASSPLYR

RCS poll cap shape be the best for stealth in the early days of stealth before all the fancy skins and other gizomos got really effective? Granted you can get a poll cap shaped object to fly.

Anything can fly as long as you put a big enough engine in it

If one were to make a companion that could go ahead of the f117 to knock out radar or jam things or whatever it was doing I would guess that you would need to be even more stealthy than the f117's. Quieter, less heat signature, much more stealthy. RCS Poll Capped shaped?

IMHO the polecap shape screams speed, and lots of it, so i wouldn't see it flying hand in hand with the F-117 very well. On the contrary, something like Testor's model aircraft, maybe...

a reply to: CiTrus90


The original vid. I was watching mentioned the "F19" and included this sketch generated by an eye witness



Testors always gets a mention for their F19 (which shares some features minus the tail fin).



Or this aspect which is cool:



This one looks interesting (another version) :



And this one always peeks my interest ( nothing more than it looks like "Firefox" but looks like a speedy iteration)





Of course Testors also do their Roswell UFO model as well ( which looks like it took similar inspirations) so not a lot to be taken away.

a reply to: boomer135

I'll do a hail marry and guess high altitude, long loiter, target designation, battle damage assessments, eyes on and tactical recon. Fly in ahead of time. Fly very high. Keep a low profile. Recon the area, designate the targets. Let the f117's fly in drop ordinance when commanded. Companion takes care of the rest by guiding ordinance. F117s already egressing. Ordinance obliterates target. Companion does some BDA. Gets all the ducks lines up in a row for the next sortie of f117's or whatever else they got doing the tactical strikes for the day, or just heads home with f117's. first in last out.


More of bassplyr thinking out loud and spinning his tires in regards to this puzzle:
I would say they just modified a f117 to fly higher and loiter. Put in a different payload in it's bays. but I suspect the two aircraft aren't directly connected in that kind of way. The military would probably give the companion to lockheeds competitor to keep them viable in the meantime. Maybe Northrop's THAP wasn't triangular shaped in the end? Maybe it was more than just the f117's companion? Maybe it's a hybrid type of aircraft?

Faceted or smooth? Low flying keeping right up with the f117's, or high flying low observable? Loiters, doesn't loiter? lockheed or someone else? manned or unmanned? Probably manned i'm thinking, it was way back then when it first started operating. Hybrid or purely conventional? If hybrid, in what way and did other programs and craft spawn as offshoots or entirely new mission niches from the technology?

What a labyrinth

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: boomer135

I'll do a hail marry and guess high altitude, long loiter, target designation, battle damage assessments, eyes on and tactical recon. Fly in ahead of time. Fly very high. Keep a low profile. Recon the area, designate the targets. Let the f117's fly in drop ordinance when commanded. Companion takes care of the rest by guiding ordinance. F117s already egressing. Ordinance obliterates target. Companion does some BDA. Gets all the ducks lines up in a row for the next sortie of f117's or whatever else they got doing the tactical strikes for the day, or just heads home with f117's. first in last out.


More of bassplyr thinking out loud and spinning his tires in regards to this puzzle:
I would say they just modified a f117 to fly higher and loiter. Put in a different payload in it's bays. but I suspect the two aircraft aren't directly connected in that kind of way. The military would probably give the companion to lockheeds competitor to keep them viable in the meantime. Maybe Northrop's THAP wasn't triangular shaped in the end? Maybe it was more than just the f117's companion? Maybe it's a hybrid type of aircraft?

Faceted or smooth? Low flying keeping right up with the f117's, or high flying low observable? Loiters, doesn't loiter? lockheed or someone else? manned or unmanned? Probably manned i'm thinking, it was way back then when it first started operating. Hybrid or purely conventional? If hybrid, in what way and did other programs and craft spawn as offshoots or entirely new mission niches from the technology?

What a labyrinth

um, yes! B is correct answer

i have one...

a reply to: boomer135

Sweet the old die cast version! My dad got one of those for me as a kid and I cherished it. So much so that when they were cleaning out the storage a year ago they said "hey we have this funky old metal plane in a box from when you were a kid. Do you want this cause we are going to throw it out." I was like "NOOOOOOOO DON'T THROW THAT OUT!" Mine has a bunch of scratches on the paint too. (a good sign) I think every one who had the little die cast version loved that toy so much that they all have scratches on the paint.

It would be awesome if that ended up being a real aircraft they had built.

originally posted by: BASSPLYR
a reply to: boomer135

Sweet the old die cast version! My dad got one of those for me as a kid and I cherished it. So much so that when they were cleaning out the storage a year ago they said "hey we have this funky old metal plane in a box from when you were a kid. Do you want this cause we are going to throw it out." I was like "NOOOOOOOO DON'T THROW THAT OUT!" Mine has a bunch of scratches on the paint too. (a good sign) I think every one who had the little die cast version loved that toy so much that they all have scratches on the paint.

It would be awesome if that ended up being a real aircraft they had built.

I got the F-117 and B-2 versions too

originally posted by: boomer135

More stealthy? idk about that. i would think it could have the same RCS as the f117. But me thinkies your still not right in guessing its purpose

It's a wild weasel..

a reply to: Jukiodone

I saw a silent platform it was very hard to make sure but it looked like a triangle with clipped wings. It travelled overhead at a guess ...500 ft,into Iraq,the thermals showed 3 heat sources but my crew was sleeping and weren't interested in looking.

a reply to: Jukiodone

wish we had real picks