RQ-170 in Sat. Photo at Creech

I was tooling around TerraServer and noticed they caught a snap of an RQ-170 parked just in front of a shelter at Creech AFB. I know the 170 being at Creech is old news, but I don't recall ever reading about the sat photo of it anywhere on the web and thought it was interesting. TerraServer has it dated as 2/12/12.

Link to TerraServer Image:
www.terraserver.com...

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

Some of these guys catch some pretty wild stuff. Many years ago one of them, I think it was the one Microsoft did, caught an SSBN in Drydock with the screw uncovered. I thought the Navy was going to freak, but if they did it was kept quiet.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: DesertWatchdog

Some of these guys catch some pretty wild stuff. Many years ago one of them, I think it was the one Microsoft did, caught an SSBN in Drydock with the screw uncovered. I thought the Navy was going to freak, but if they did it was kept quiet.

Hah, yeah I bet. I remember when myself and a few photographers took a Navy tour through San Diego bay, we passed a sub in dry dock, we were asked to not take photos, as they hadn't put up the screen over the end. Was pretty serious.

a reply to: DesertWatchdog

Fascinating. Truly. Please tell what we are looking at and what it does to us. Thanks!

a reply to: Zaphod58

As usual zaph is correct with that sub. It was an Ohio class boomer in drydock in virginia. Beautiful shot of some 7 bladed screw. See picture and article below.

ogleearth.com...

Now to avoid people going to google maps and seeing what the screws look like they remove the screw all together on old subs waiting to be scrapped. You'll see half a dozen los angeles class subs moored all missing their screws.

Hey zaph, I imagine the air force has some heavy duty procedures to prevent aircraft from being seen by Sat sitting on a taxi way or apron. I remember reading about "scoot and hides" which were giant pop tent like open sided hangers they would build along the taxiways so if a satellite was coming overhead sooner than they could get the bird out of site inside a hanger they would just roll them under the scoot n hides and wait for the satellite to pass over.

Too bad those boneyard shots of the "f-19" were fakes it would have been so cool if those actually were real and existed.

Now if we could only get a sat shot of an rq-180 sitting on the ground out in the open on accident. wonder if we'd even know that's what we were looking at.

a reply to: Ultralight

The rq-170 is an unmanned drone that performs ISR tactical survailance for the air force and and probably some light strategic survailance too. Depending what they put in its payload bay. She carries no weapons. Was used a lot in afganistan to hunt for the taluban and i belueve in the bin laden raid to probsbly keep an eye on the ground befire and during the commando insertion. You know keep tabs of the vehicles rolling around the neighborhood, monitor communications, maybe jam same communications too. Probably also doing its best to kep tabs of the location of tangos in the bin laden house right before the raid.

Nifty little bird. just recently acquired an much, much more capable and stealthy big brother called the rq-180. Not much is known about her in the public arena.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

The AF has times for every satellite that goes overhead of their testing areas. They block off times before and after that they don't fly or move on the ramp. They used to have a chalk board that had every satellite pass written down and the times they had to be on the ground so they could get into the shelters.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Thanks for the Intel. Appreciate it.

I'll run this up flagpole and see what comes back.