Weird California sighting

a reply to: Zaphod58

All the talk of music on this thread reminded me I wish I had seen Modest Mouse when they performed in Austin on 11/08/14 at the Fun Fun Fun Fest...

Based on some of the videos I've seen fans put online of their show that night, this post may be related to the OP of this thread

a reply to: SonOfThor

She's a little high for that. And oh my god do they get views.

a reply to: snoopyuk

if you have one of these. you might get some good pics.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I bet. With her cruising alt and state of the art optical suite she must have unprecedented views.

Thanks for the replies, esp the one from Zaphod.

i will try to get some cameras set up on my balcony, but unfortunately we are now getting lots of storms so therefore clouds :-(

a reply to: grey580

During daylight you wouldn't see anything. If a craft is high enough, then virtually all the atmosphere is below it and you just see blue sky. Even U-2 is close to invisible to naked eye.

At night, the green streak, but nothing else.

Either in daytime or nighttime you would need a very good telescope & tracker and technology to catch it, and that stuff isn't standard.

And that's why you can guess at the typical cruising altitude of a ISR craft by looking at its paint: darker == higher altitude, as that matches the background better. U-2 and SR-71, and surely the Green Lady are dark grey/black. Fighters and tankers are grey (intermediate altitude).

So the RQ-170 which was captured by Iran, which was a remarkably light cream color, must have been designed for riskier low-altitude missions, perhaps scooping up radioisotopes from suspected enrichment plants or neutron flux?

a reply to: Zaphod58

OK Zaphod, given the southeastern trajectory from Coimbra, Portugal and your suggestion that she was on her way to a temporary home away from home, I think I know where she was going. If I publish the location, are you going to get in trouble?

Am I?

a reply to: 1947boomer

So I wasn't the only one looking at Google Earth satellite a d drawing imaginary lines with my cursor on screen

a reply to: 1947boomer

No, you shouldn't, and I shouldn't. My rule of thumb is to stay away from operational details, but feel free to.

a reply to: 1947boomer

I wouldn't publically speculate on that one. And thats coming from bassplyr the oft jack ass of ats aviation forum.

See a post even zaphod woyld enjoy staring for more than one reason.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: snoopyuk

She passes over your location heading to her temporary home before a mission. She doesn't usually go over on the way home.

===

You mean one of Aviano, Somiso or Gioia Del Dolla
in Italy is the Green Lady's temporary home?

Or is it one of the CIA operated bases in Uzbekistan?

or one of the following other Central CIA bases in:
Khost, Kandahar, Herat, Parwan, Helmand and Nimroz!

---

I mean I could also take a dig at the ones in Dubai,
Quatar, Diego Garcia, and parts of EITHER the
Czech or Slovakian republics (can't remember
where in those two countries though!) and in
Akrotiri in Cyrprus or in such way off places as
Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Van, Erzerum and Kars in Turkey
and FINALLY Torrejon in Spain, Preveza in Greece,
Irakilon in Crete or some refueling unknown stop
in the Azores!

I CAN TELL YA, the USA has refueling stops
and small bases EVERYWHERE in the world!

---

Soooooo Pffft !!!!!

Is that enough hints at a possible home base for the Green Lady?!

a reply to: StargateSG7

Djbouti? Oman?

originally posted by: mbkennel
a reply to: StargateSG7

Djbouti? Oman?

Oman MAYBE !!!! I forgot about that one!

BUT NOT Djibouti on any RECENT mission
due to that county's recent pivot towards CHINA!
They probably pulled out sometime last year!

One crazy idea I've been hearing about on the grapevine
for craft NOT of the Green Lady variant but OTHER even
more secretive but smaller recons..... ;-) is to do what
Cirrus Aircraft do on their small aircraft:

Airframe Parachute:
cirrusaircraft.com...

A night time or dusk/dawn mission swoops low and slow
(150 knots or even less!) near an aircraft carrier and deploys
a full airframe parachute and inflatable pontoons dropping the
whole aircraft into the ocean for pickup back onto a carrier and
then a refuel and relaunch from the deck the next night!

The aircraft would have to be MUCH SMALLER than the
Green Lady BUT it would work for a small piloted plane
less than the size of ... say .... an A10 Warthog!

And the REASON they wouldn't do a direct LANDING
on the carrier is to reduce or eliminate damage to the
craft from any cable arrest system. It would ALSO allow
teh craft to be REALLY SLEEK (looks like X-15) in nature
which means it would be TOO UNSTEADY for a direct
carrier landing BUT it WOULD be able to slow down
enough for a chute-and-inflatable-pontoon-based
water drop and pickup system.

The launch itself could be done via it's onboard
wheels or via a disposable sled-based system
since you can launch a plane at up to 150 knots
on a carrier's steam catapult system.

For landing, the small high-speed very pointy-looking
recon craft could deploy chutes as low as 500 metres (1500 feet!)
and NOT kill the crew from all those drop and stop forces!

Who knows.....????

Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?!

a reply to: Zaphod58

OK, I nominate the Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport, Saudi Arabia.

Readers may recall an incident a couple of months ago when Donald Trump, on the campaign trail made a speech in Colorado Springs in which he complained about our allies not paying their fair share of military costs. He referred to "a military base in Saudi Arabia" that we're paying for. Since the US doesn't have any admitted bases in Saudi Arabia, his critics assumed that he was either mistaken or referring to a classified base. I have reason to think this is the base that was being referred to.

10,000 ft runway in the middle of the Rub' al Khali with sanitized Google Maps satellite images.

a reply to: 1947boomer

Bing maps has a couple of places in that area that seem poorly blurred out. Hummmm

originally posted by: 1947boomer
a reply to: Zaphod58

OK, I nominate the Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport, Saudi Arabia.

Readers may recall an incident a couple of months ago when Donald Trump, on the campaign trail made a speech in Colorado Springs in which he complained about our allies not paying their fair share of military costs. He referred to "a military base in Saudi Arabia" that we're paying for. Since the US doesn't have any admitted bases in Saudi Arabia, his critics assumed that he was either mistaken or referring to a classified base. I have reason to think this is the base that was being referred to.

10,000 ft runway in the middle of the Rub' al Khali with sanitized Google Maps satellite images.

====


That would be this one:

Google Maps:
19.1097137, 50.1114369

Cut and paste the above Decimal Degrees GPS coordinates into google maps!


More info on US Secret Drone Base:
www.gizmodo.com.au...

a reply to: 1947boomer

I was thinking Diego Garcia - out of the way, nice long runway, and seems to have more infrastructure capable of support. Simply relying on google maps or bing, Umm Al Melh Border Guards Airport seems to be a little too bare bones perhaps?

originally posted by: mbkennel
Djbouti?

Gesundheit.

a reply to: Bedlam

I don't know why but that's one of my favorite words. (Djibouti, not gesundheit)

a reply to: Virgil Cain

I'm not simply relying on Google Maps. My friends and colleagues inside the TLAs are giving me hints.