TACIT RAINBOW

here is a little video that gives the general idea about this unmanned wild weasel



so what happened to these missiles? HARM's were already around and this missile could loiter and even lase targets


so did this go into service and was it used in GW 1?

I know this isn't the 117's companion but it could be.

i would love to know what happened to it.

a reply to: noscopebacon

I'm curious, never seen these.

S&F 👈hope those take🤗


Edit: thanks new guy welcome to ATS.

Its still around, but Tacit Rainbow offended the LGTBQ+- peeps. No idea what they renamed it.

a reply to: noscopebacon

HARM doesn't have the ability to loiter over the area and wait for radars to come back up. A HARM has to have a target to hit. It can home on the last known location of the radar, but if it's a mobile system, it can shut down and move and the HARM doesn't have the ability to wait for it to come back up. Tacit Rainbow would have. Tacit Rainbow was the first program since Vietnam to complete testing, but not go into production. Range was supposed to be up to 280 miles, but testing found they weren't able to reach that range, and an audit found multiple issues with the management of the program. The total program cost was $4B at the time it was cancelled.

The Brits use Alarm which is quite sneaky..one of its mode is to zoom climb up once released …# off the engine and deploy a parachute…it will then float down scanning the area below for any radars…once it detects a radar it will lock release the shoot and the engine will restart and the middle will destroy the target…so any enemy radar operator who thought he was being clever by turning off his radar for a while will be in for a shock when he turns it on again!! a reply to: Zaphod58

a reply to: Zaphod58

right that loiter ability and apparently it had jamming abilities of its own

I'm sure its the granddad of some of the 'decoys' out right now.


its just wild that this program is almost double my age and they didn't take it, yeah it had a range of 200ish miles but that is alot especially if it just keeps the radars down.

if it stayed in the air for 20 mins and you staggered the launches you could get an hour of really safe fly time for your jets.

even if it didn't take out any targets and just self destructed it would have done ALOT to keep aircraft safe or even hidden...

we know the companion can refuel and is most likely manned but i think that might be misdirection or even a drone that can refuel guided in by LIDAR and a remote pilot somewhere o0r even on another aircraft right there in line for gas.


its hard for me to swallow that they would use a super secret MANNED aircraft to lase and do BDA over highly contested airspace. People forget in DS 1 Iraq had one of the most advanced IAD systems in the world, and you going to send something ultra black ahead of the bombers to just get shot down? i don't think so.

i think the platform the nighthawk used was unmanned and maybe even carried in it's own bomb bay to be launched at the edges of IAD umbrellas

and if it got shot down it would self destruct or just explode when it hit the ground.

an off shoot of this program would fit every role of the 117's little friend

a reply to: noscopebacon
Well, they did just that my friend. The f117 had a pavtac laser designator. It could laz its own and others target. Why is that so hard to believe?

a reply to: Zaphod58

They really canceled it for 2 reasons and rave wasn't one as they have NEVER declassified its true range.
Reason 1: conflict of interest with gov officials. Payoffs

Reason 2. It had a kill ratio of less than 10%.
The problem was that tech hadn't caught up with it. Alot like the nuclear cruise stealth cruise missile
The
AGM-129A advanced cruise missile. Too far ahead of its time

a reply to: Shadower360

because the targets were already lased before they got there and i know for a fact most forward SF's could only lase so much

if you watch the footage of the first night of DS1 they are firing wildly into the air and and the nighthawks would have not lased the target as it would give its position away.

and if you watch some of the old videos they are clearly orbiting at a very high altitude not dropping their pickles and getting out asap.

what aircraft/drone was left behind for BDA ?


and i KNOW the 117 had a shadow.

a reply to: noscopebacon

Back in the mid 90’s I worked with a guy who was Marine Recon in GW1. He claimed they were in country for weeks getting ready for the opening strikes and targets were lased from guys on the ground.

a reply to: PhantomTwo

of course but you have to keep the laser on the target the whole way down, especially back than



there aren't enough SF to lase all the targets that got hit at once.

remember it has to be line of sight.

in GF2 they were going after leadership as well as marking gps locations for targets and that was AFTER we decimated their IAD


somewhere in my stuff i have a video of 3 tomahawks flying rooftop height to their targets.


there is video from GF1 that was clearly taken by some sort of aircraft other than the 117 unless they rigged up an EF-117

a reply to: noscopebacon

interesting we are going back to missiles to defend aircraft against other airborne missiles


that the XB-70 used lenticular high Mach self defense weapons

not anymore thanks to Raytheon

a reply to: noscopebacon

The F-117 could design it's own target with it's FLIR/DLIR, it didn't really need something else to buddy lase. It was really designed to operate alone, to find and destroy it's target by itself. And when you know how they mission planned their route to always expose the best angle to radars ect, it would really surprise me to rely on another aircraft for that, it would add complexity and risks for something the F-117 could do alone.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, you don't need to lase the target all the way from the release to the impact, if your target is pre planned (which was the case), you can use a CCRP type of bombing and lase only for the final part instead of all the way down. But I don't know if the laser was such a problem when it comes to being spotted or detected.

there is video from GF1 that was clearly taken by some sort of aircraft other than the 117 unless they rigged up an EF-117

What video are you referring to ? Do you have any link ?
Thank you !

a reply to: Ghoul

they are just FLIR videos taken from way way way above the targets

i have no idea how to find it.


i was only speculating on the creation of an EF117.

id DS1 the bombs had to ride the beam so to speak all the way down and kept illuminated i don't dispute that there were SF guys on the ground marking targets


but in DS1 there was no JDAMS that's why they had to wait for good weather to drop the big bombs, i lived close to the place they took the cannon barrels from to make the first bunker busters and know some of the people who were involved.

there are always ISR assets ahead of bombing raids or flying with them, imagine your an Iraqi SAM commander and you have some NOG's on and all of a sudden you see beam upon beam glinting in the sandy air coming from the sky, it would 1. tell you something was up and if you were smart where to shoot. and 2 an attack was in coming.


now if you could loiter over Baghdad and wait until the 117's were in range to drop their 2 bombs and scoot it would in my mind make sense to have your ISR asset have a laser as well.

there is just to many stories of the 117A having a shadow, I'm not trying to dimmish the 117A but if they can stay hidden(not laseing targets and using ;passive radar flip downs that seems like a good idea to me).

what would you as a commander rather have shot down you new bombers or some highflying unmanned or maybe even manned aircraft that was super stealthy who's only lob was to hang over the sites and at the very last second lase the targets.

for all we know it could have been a modified 117 itself or something as exotic as the sensor craft(doubtful)


there were even sightings of the craft that for the life of me i cant find the video of anymore i mean it was on freakin CNN and a documentary that also vanished

there is something else out there in the shadows

a reply to: noscopebacon

as we al know the TACIT BLUE was being built and flown at the same time of the 117

it was even called the F-17D showing the connection to the nighthawk


it was designated to fly over eastern block at 2-400 knots at high levels and laser tanks and other targets.

the aircraft had amazing radio and visual and IR signatures that was only picked up once by an F-18 but was well within the strike range of the whale.

so they were clearly willing to throw untold money , time, people and science at getting a stealthy low observable craft up and in the air.

the original frame had a few hundred hours on it and was put into storage in the mid 90s and than put in a museum after being declassified.

even on pole tests they had a hard time finding this aircraft when they knew where it was.

i don't think its crazy to say this saw some form of action and that there were follow on programs that were manned, its also interesting that it had side by side seats that at the time the AF was all about in new aircraft.

i would be honestly shocked if some of the 2-300 hours of flight time this had wasn't over Iraq in the 90's, it was made for the resistance we were expecting in Germany, lots of tanks and a good IADS. Or some off shoot of it.

if was super odd looking but super good at what it waws made to do and parts are still classified.

if the whale wasn't there on the opening nights than a drone or something from that program was.

fun video for those unfamiliar

a reply to: noscopebacon

It was the YF-117D, but that doesn't meant that it was connected to the F-117 in any way, shape, or form. There was also a YF-117E that had nothing to do with the F-117. There were multiple unrelated aircraft that had similar designations in the classified designation system. The YF-113A is a big one. The YF-113A was a MiG-17, the B was a MiG-23BN, the C was a J-5 and an unknown type, the E was a MiG-23MS, the G was apparently a classified US prototype, and the H was an unknown type. You can find multiple examples of this in the known classified designations.

a reply to: Zaphod58

right, but it is an odd coincidence that they were being developed at the same time but i get what your saying with designations being used and reused over and over.

the thing i find interesting is that over 300 hours of fly time is ALOT of time in the air that seems WAY over the top for alot of tests they could do on a pole or runway or chamber.

here is Rumsfeld saying that they sometimes reach into development programs and use them in real world situations.



this aircraft seems like it would be a HUGE waste to not use at the time they had it, and i understand that it was also for developing curved stealth opposed to faceted stealth like the 117.

and if they didn't use it, why not? that would be a better question. the B2 was still a high altitude bomber at that point and a glimmer in some ones eyes.

we both know there was something providing support to the stealth fighters in DS1. I'm not saying this is it but rather that they would be crazy not to use it in some form during the first weeks of the war.

a reply to: noscopebacon

They were developing a number of stealth programs at the same time. Nothing odd about it. The F-117 proved to be more successful than they expected, so they were looking at a number of different ideas.

Poles and chambers only give you so much information. You get far more from flight testing than you do from having it sit on a pole or in a chamber.

a reply to: Zaphod58

but on topic.

do you disavow the fact that the 117 had a shadow ?

i know its opining pandoras box but i know we both know there was something in the air with them that night.