Pictures requested by popular demand of planes in Groom and the NTS

Originally posted by GroomLakePolishFAN
Stealth ??? boomer, what can you tell about this reports? Can you compare it with all these aircraft you saw? In the text is write that the aircraft was report by reliable sources so maybe it wasn't optical illusion?

of course i dont believe in supersized f-117 , i talked about it with gariac some time ago. but maybe other aircraft looks similar to f-117

edit on 2-8-2013 by GroomLakePolishFAN because: (no reason given)

Im pretty sure they didnt build a bigger f-117. Just doesnt make any sense to do. With the computer power we have now, there isnt a need for faceted panels to get stealth.

Gariac snapped a photo of a regular f-117 taking off at groom years ago. Its on his website.

I saw his photo first in 2011. It's good evidence that Groom have or had F-117 after retirement in the base. I don't claim that bigger F-117 was but maybe similar craft to it. You wrote in Aurora thread something about plane which is not as diamondy and it's longer that F-117 but wing span is close to it. So maybe these sightings were to aircraft you described.

reply to post by GroomLakePolishFAN


Perhaps...

Boomer, what about Penetrator aircraft? Sr-75? In the early 2000s there were meny sightings, from many people.
Maybe you know something about this aircraft? From many sources I know that designation "SR-75" or "Penetrator" or "Mothership" is a fail. But maybe you remember similar craft which based at Groom?

reply to post by GroomLakePolishFAN


There have been rumors for years of an SR-71 replacement, but beyond a few "donuts on a rope" sightings, which led people to the wrong conclusion that a pulse detonation engine was in use (which is a horrible choice for an engine for speed), there's no actual proof that it's flying.

Officially.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Do you know if it's supposed to be a SSTO? Or just a high flying, high speed aircraft?

reply to post by Stealthbomber


I've actually not heard of both.

Originally posted by GroomLakePolishFAN
I saw his photo first in 2011. It's good evidence that Groom have or had F-117 after retirement in the base. I don't claim that bigger F-117 was but maybe similar craft to it. You wrote in Aurora thread something about plane which is not as diamondy and it's longer that F-117 but wing span is close to it. So maybe these sightings were to aircraft you described.

Just to be clear here, I photographed the F-117 at Groom when it was still active. However later it was videotaped by two different people after it was retired.

This isn't to say Groom Lake still doesn't have a F-117 or two on hand. There is no public inventory list of F-117s. If it wasn't for the leaked photos out of the TTR showing some F117s with the wings removed, there would be no evidence at all that the planes are no longer in the active inventory.

When I watched them fly the F-117 at Groom, it was for proficiency training, specifically SFO due to the high key and low key being spoken over the radio.

Generally what happens at Groom, at least when viewed from TIkaboo, is the Janets are all finished around 8:30AM. [Most panoramas are shot between 7:30AM to 8:30AM. That is when there is the least air turbulence.] Sometime after 9AM, they will fly whatever they don't mind the public seeing. Usually F-16s doing proficiency training. Other times they fly known foreign acquisitions like the Migs or Sukoi. I've been told they have a Backfire as well, but nobody ever provided photographic evidence.

If you look at the history of Groom Lake photography, nobody has photographed any aircraft that can't be identified. Oh sure, there are plenty of lights in the sky photographs. But when you get a decent photograph, there is no mystery.

I was digging through some old X-33 documents and it jogged my memory that the only type of stealth not discussed in this thread is plasma. Now spacecraft (hence the X-33) lose communications upon reentry due to plasma around the aircraft. But the plasma also stops reflections. The Russians have claimed to master plasma stealth, but they make a lot of claims. ;-)

reply to post by gariac


The US was working on it for years as well. And have made some advances rumor has it.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
reply to post by gariac

 

The US was working on it for years as well. And have made some advances rumor has it.

And the ABL started with Jimmy Carter, but we quit working on it..finally. That was a tough project to kill, and you never really know if it any of these projects are truly dead. [There are still arguments that the X-33 was nearly working. The problem was it was a California project and some guy from Texas was selected as POTUS. The X-33 was killed with a vengeance, going as far as to put the land for the project on the block.]

The only way I have seen plasma produced is in plasma etchers used in wafer fabrication. The plasma is made with gases excited by radio waves, which to me seems like that energy would be easy to detect.

I've found papers on plasma stealth going back to the 1960s. It may not have been known that plasma masked radio waves prior to space flight. Or it was known by university physics researchers and profs, but not known in the aircraft business, much like the Russians (actually Soviets if you want to be technical) did the original research on stealth to reduce RCS. I believe the Russian document was found the group of the CIA that translates technical open source publications.

The CIA had a group called the Foreign Broadcast Information Service that specialize in translations. It is still around but is currently called the Open Source Center since much of what they do is related to internet material. I've caught them surfing my website once. They don't hide behind any proxy.

reply to post by gariac


I've heard rumors (from credible sources) that they've worked around the problems, and things have moved into some interesting areas. I don't want to say too much in a thread, but what I've heard has been really really interesting.

reply to post by Zaphod58


And apparently the B2 uses a form of plasma stealth.

Gariac, there's a thread in the aircraft section on plasma stealth, there's a lot of things that are sort of hinted at

reply to post by Stealthbomber


The truth is a lot more than in that thread, and a lot more interesting. Some of the things that they're proposing are very very interesting, and a little surprising to say the least.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Like plasma in turbine engines and helicopter rotors?

reply to post by Stealthbomber


A number of things that shall not be mentioned.

Originally posted by Stealthbomber
reply to post by Zaphod58

 

And apparently the B2 uses a form of plasma stealth.

Gariac, there's a thread in the aircraft section on plasma stealth, there's a lot of things that are sort of hinted at

But if you have RAM and a carefully crafted body for a small RCS, why bother with plasma. Plus you need to leave holes in the plasma if you want to use a radio. Networked warfare is the name of the game today.

I'll try to find the thread and digest it tomorrow. I just hope there isn't too much pseudo science in it.

Most plasma RF sources are in an ISM band:
plasma generator
I won't play 20 questions. They put them in the ISM band because they radiate RF. [ISM devices do not need a license if under a certain radiate power limit.] This one is at 13.56MHz, just like the NFC if you have one on your phone. So you stop the radar return, but create a RF beacon.

If at all possible, engineers try to create simple solutions. RF absorbing paint and a low RCS is simple. Creating a plasma around an aircraft is difficult.

reply to post by gariac


Because of the secondary effects of it, besides the stealth improvements you get. Not only do you get a stealth improvement (by improvement I mean that you have a much smaller than usual RCS), you get improvements to aerodynamics, fuel consumption, drag reductions that you can't get with normal adaptations.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Like plasma on the KC-135 to help in fuel efficiency.

reply to post by boomer135


Do you know of any other current aircraft that use plasma? I would think that the F-22 would use it.