When was your first sighting of a (then) Top Secret Military Aircraft (not space ships)?

I about wet myself. First, there's this space ship looking flat black airplane FROM HELL sitting on the flight line. And Dad's buddies got me in the tower to watch (this was in Florida, the exact spot shall go unmentioned). And then they lit it off.

This was late late in the evening. There was a blue flame with #ing DIAMONDS in it that came out the back, and this thing just leaped down the runway and away it went, nearly straight up (it looked) and BOOM gone.

I remember everyone laughing at me standing there with my jaw dangling then dancing around DID YOU SEE THAT GOOOONE! WOO HOO!

That, among a few other experiences, screwed my entire life up.

a reply to: Bedlam

We had one heading back from Mildenhal lose navigation and have to be guided in by one of our tankers. My brother and I got to walk around it in the hanger.

Sorry ahead of time for the non-specific and somewhat cryptic response but I try and refrain from giving any real specifics when dealing with some topics...

A couple decades ago I was stationed in NAS Norfolk VA. My specific rate allowed for a good deal of free time to 'join' other military duties such as armed guard duties. Mostly (and initially) it would be air shows, closed hangers and such but as time went on and ones training and rank grew, the places, people, and things you were tasked with 'guarding' would become considerable.

As mentioned above, I am unwilling to give specifics, but I (along with several other armed guards) had the over night shift guarding a closed hanger that was designated for a specific helicopter squadron. Inside this hangar was something that I had never seen or heard of before or after, even up to today. It was the kind of thing that as soon as you realize what you have seen, you almost start to panic.

Oddly enough, I/we had only basic security clearances and low level 'top secret' clearances due to some of the places we had to be and people we were to be around, and what was being housed (I assume temporarily) in this hangar was surely above my/our clearance.

Of all the places to see something, of all the places I had been, and of all the things I had seen, it was something just nonchalantly placed in a relatively insignificant naval base hangar that gave me the most insight.

a reply to: aliensporebomb


ASB,

You have no idea how gobsmacked I was to read your description. It fits exactly the DOD equivalent version of a prototype proof of concept craft my buddy and I hypothetically designed in Skype one day when discussing the resonant cavity microwave thruster. My jaw hit the floor 3 separate times while reading your post!

1. "Truck like in appearance"
Our hypothetical proof of concept used a jeep or small truck frame with axles and tires still installed for ease of trailering and etc. Other than this and the floor pan for the front seats we were planning on leaving the frame exposed. (So basically you'd have a firewall, the fold down windshield the floor pan and a reinforced roll cage with some extra boxing down the centerline for experimenting with tail configurations etc. And bare frame jutting forward of the firewall and rear of the floor pan.)

2. The downward drooping tail fins that were cone shaped more than airfoils
In ours we had a set of these each housing a resonant cavity thruster pair also drooping downward to essentially give us more roll stability both in the "tail" and at first also hanging off some salvaged big rig mirror posts grafted on in place of thesstandard rear view mirrors on a jeep. (Big rig mirrors are both sturdier AND stick out much further!!). We designed the main thrust arrays to be clamped down to the outside edge of the frame members in symmetrical left right patterns but easily moved for determining ideal numbers and placement of thruster arrays.

3. The way you described the sound....
Your description of a turbine sound and the specific way you described it.... all I'll say is yeah that fits exactly the way we were gonna do it.

a reply to: HomeBrew

originally posted by: AwakeinNM

I used to live outside of Washington DC, and hit the town many a weekend with a good friend who lived in Crystal City. He was a civilian engineering manager for the US Navy. Part of is job involved flying out to carriers and retrofitting/upgrading certain systems on them. He also traveled all over the country to various naval air stations (He worked on the navair side) and participated in many meetings with other departments around the country working on related projects, including meetings at the Pentagon.

He told me about one such meeting he attended that was an all-day affair. It was broken into 4 segments - a break mid-morning, lunch break, another break mid-afternoon. Well, he came back from lunch and the meeting resumed. He had noticed that after the morning break that there were fewer people in the meeting, and again at lunch, fewer people yet. He later learned that the meeting segments progressed to higher and higher clearance levels, so people with lesser clearances were excluded at each segment. As the presenter began his spiel, my buddy was rather confused. They were discussing things he had never heard about, and knew immediately he did not have clearance to be privy to. He did the smart thing and raised his hand (after about 10 minutes) and informed the speaker that he did not believe that he was supposed to be there. He was asked what his clearance level was, and when he told them, he was asked to leave. He was debriefed on the spot and then chewed out by his boss when he got back to Crystal City.

Of course I asked him what he heard. Unfortunately, he being of upright character, maintained his vow of silence, but he did say this... "I can't tell you what I heard, but I can tell you this: Even if I did tell you, you would not believe me. The Navy is working on some sh!t that would blow your mind."

Why is it that the Navy gets all the cool sh*t?

a reply to: Tajlakz

Because no one looks for them on naval air stations.

a reply to: Zaphod58

And on a related note... Ever hear of a blown naval intelligence op?

......EXACTLY!!!

Hell there's much more info out there about AF and contractor red teams that protect our launch assets, satellites, and ground based space infrastructure by finding new and different ways to kill space workers and break that ****!

But Naval Intel... *shudders* I can personally say they scare me!

a reply to: HomeBrew

Yup, Navy hanger. Not Air Force

originally posted by: roguetechie

But Naval Intel... *shudders* I can personally say they scare me!

As a contractor, I can say the level of paperwork and PITA they provide scares me.

And Navy pays net 180 no matter what you contract for.

There's only one reason to do ANY Navy contract.