Mystery UAV spotted near Mojave Airport

a reply to: penroc3

Only a UAV that is cleared for NAS operations will broadcast. Others have a chase plane that broadcasts, unless they're in an MOA. This was technically in an MOA. If it left the area and went somewhere else, or came from somewhere else to the area, it would have had to have a chase plane with it.

As for the others, they don't need to be in the US, or seen on satellite. The media coverage would get the point across.

a reply to: Zaphod58

so with all the advanced sensors on the ground, air and space I wonder if more friendly governments get a peak behind the curtain


I have always wondered if there was a type of open sky's program but fore advanced weapons/aircraft



as far as the media spreading the pics, what if no one took a picture of it ? keep flying it until someone does?

theaviationist.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: penroc3

It's the Polecat. Every single detail on the static bird that Lockheed showed off matches perfectly to the picture, down to the exhaust lining up with the contrail. The wingspan matches, the large center fuselage matches, and the engine exhaust lines up perfectly with the contrail.

www.secretprojects.co.uk...

Would like to see what you came up with but to me it looks like the wings are more narrow and the main body longer and larger.

Also,contrails should mean at leask 25k ft. The originial Polecat is a comparativley small vehicle, would have been one hell of a shot from the ground.

But an upscaled Polecat is entirely possible. As is a NG Sensor Craft descendant.

a reply to: mightmight

I can crop a picture of a C-17 at over 30,000 feet enough to just make out the tail flash. I've gotten shots of a Shorts Skyvan, which is a pretty small target, at 15 or 16,000 feet and can just make out the writing on the side where the skydiving company name is. With a good lens, and cropping, it wouldn't be hard to get an image that looks like that, even on a Polecat.

Using the static bird picture, and sizing it to the image taken, Sam came up with an identical wingspan, and was able to line up the engine exhaust absolutely perfectly with the contrail. You can also make out the fuselage hump that the Polecat has.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I'm not a photographer, can't speak to that.

Did you look at the secretproject comparison i linked above? IMO it's obviously not just another P175. The trailing edge angle is completely different, the wings are narrower and the main body is larger.

Quick and dirty based on the original comparison www.secretprojects.co.uk...


If this is a Polecat, it's the son not the twin.

Maybe call it an P175A till theres definite confirmation that shes an Rq180?
Has anyone looked at Sammishmans pics of the Beast of Edwards and looked at similarities?

a reply to: Blackfinger

The "Beast of Edwards" was a B-2. It looked like a B-2 when compared to known B-2 photos taken from a similar angle. It was parked on the spur where the B-2 usually parked. It was illuminated by bright sodium lamps, when the other platform was described as operating only under blackout conditions (similar to the F-117A in the early days). Most important, the so-called "Beast" remained in its parking spot all night and was still there after the sun rose in the morning, and was visible to anyone passing as a B-2.

a reply to: mightmight







I see it now. They're absolutely right! It's nothing like Polecat!

It's been great following the controversy across the internet on this.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: mightmight

I see it now. They're absolutely right! It's nothing like Polecat!

Nobody said it doesn't look similar. You are just not addressing the differences.

But moving on.
Please make the case for a P-175 twin. Why would Lockheed reactivate the program at this point? Why would they bother with a fifteen year old airframe sitting out in the open at Plant 42 for at least three years?
Don't tell me LM didn't build even one flying wing since the Polecat they could easily adapt to whatever they are supposedly testing now.

As said, i think it's possible that what we see here is a descendant of Polecat. Minor differences in the planform but substantially larger. IE a LM version of the 'RQ-180' that didn't go anywhere.

a reply to: mightmight

It doesn't just look similar, it looks identical. The "differences" are the angle the flying aircraft is at compared to the level static airframe. You don't build a bigger fuselage and leave the exhaust in the exact same place. It would affect things differently. The wings are going to look different because of the zoom and the bank angle. The wingspan is the same, the exhaust location is the same, the fuselage hump is the same....

Why not? There are plenty of things they may be doing that they don't want to spend the money to build and test a new airframe for, or try to declassify another airframe they built. It could be doing risk reduction for another platform, testing with an unrelated program, or just about anything. We already know the Polecat exists, so flying around and it being seen isn't a big deal. It wouldn't be the first time a company used something else to do work on a different program.

a reply to: Zaphod58



I adjusted the official RQ-170 rendering to match the perceived angle of the aircraft. Still narrower wings and larger aft section.
The fuselage has being extended aft would not change the exhaust location. The contrail also would look just the same if it had a somewhat different config than the Polecat.

As for why not - because they're sitting on a perfectly suited RQ-170 fleet with little operational demand they are already utilizing to test all kinds of stuff as seen with the Vandenberg bird.
Or pick literally anything else they have sitting on the shelf before rebuilding a fifteen year old fuselage they dumped in a construction zone for a couple of years. They haven't been twiddling their thumbs for the past decade and a half, there should be a number of suitable testbeds available.
Yes, some stuff may be classified but others are just unacknowledged. And getting the classification changed for use as a testbed shouldn't be impossible for LM either. Cheaper than rebuilding something from back when Bush was President in any case.

Could be testing a sensor suite, new flight control software, different engines or any number of things.

a reply to: mightmight

"They" don't have any RQ-170s, the Air Force does. And the Air Force isn't going to hand one back to Lockheed to test something new, such as software for an MQ-9 replacement, or something related to a laser system. The RQ-170s that are testing new systems are testing them for the Air Force, not for Lockheed to use on future programs. A Polecat that's been laying around belongs to Lockheed and can be used for anything they want. There's no building cost, beyond getting it up to flight status, where their other UAVs may not be available. They don't exactly just keep them sitting around most of the time. For whatever reason there WAS a Polecat available. Without knowing what they're testing there's no way to say why they decided that it was the best airframe.

But whatever, man. You decided it's not Polecat, we showed pretty well that it fits Polecat very well. There's no point in continuing to go around in circles.

a reply to: mightmight

a rendering is not the real thing

also you have to take in lens distortion, air distortion and the different angles of the aircraft and the camera so there will be a modest amount of distortion in the 'mystery' photo

at first glance it seems interesting but I think taking in to consideration what I said above it is more than likely a polecat or a modified one

One thing to remember is that the entire purpose of the Polecat's development was to prove that the Skunk Works could pull off a Scaled Composites and spit out a weird, ambitious new airframe as quickly and as cheaply as possible. That means that even if it has some tweaks relative to the Polecat it could still more or less be the same aircraft, the way an RB-57 and a WB-57 are both riffs on the same Canberra design, since the Polecat was so cheap and modular to begin with.

Also, remember that we're 15+ years after the Polecat and it's only gotten easier and easier to rapidly design and build a one-off experimental aircraft out of composites and some CAD files in the decade and change since. The Northrop/Scaled son of Ares twins prove that there's clearly a market for weird contractor-funded testbeds these days, and I'd be shocked if Lockheed wasn't working in similar directions, and if they were, the Polecat design would be a great place to start if you wanted something cheap, stealthy, and moderately sized.

It looks like the polecat with thinner wings to reduce signature, materials and more complicated modeling makes that possible.

I’ve seen stuff flying out in SoCal but I don’t take pictures, they know the area is being monitored and I don’t want to get caught up in any counter espionage crap for likes.

originally posted by: circuitsports
It looks like the polecat with thinner wings to reduce signature, materials and more complicated modeling makes that possible.

I’ve seen stuff flying out in SoCal but I don’t take pictures, they know the area is being monitored and I don’t want to get caught up in any counter espionage crap for likes.

From what I gather as long as you’re in a public area when taking photos nothing can be done. If they didn’t want anything being seen they wouldn’t fly it anywhere near where it could be spotted

a reply to: MAVERICKANDGOOSE

to bad there isnt more information or something for scale,

they wont be able to say it is a B2 this time.

the exhaust is interesting but hard to tell of it is 2 separate trails or lack of resolution on the camera.





I see two streams

i.imgur.com...

i.imgur.com...