US Air Force Confirms New Stealth Aircraft 287
DesScorp writes "Aviation Week reports that the USAF has confirmed the existence of a new, formerly secret stealth aircraft, designated RQ-170 Sentinel, developed at Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works. Rumors of a secret new jet have been flying since 2007, with longtime aviation journalist Bill Sweetman dubbing the possible aircraft 'The Beast of Kandahar' because of the urban legend-like reports from Afghanistan. The aircraft is a UAV, a pilot-less drone that appears to have some kind of reconnaissance-only mission for the time being. It's a tailless flying wing that resembles a fighter-sized B-2 bomber."
One thing it can never achieve. (Score:3, Informative)
Looking as cool as an SR-71.
Re:top secret (Score:4, Informative)
Any ideas on why they need such a secret and stealthy UAV in Afghanistan for? Obviously they weren't too worried about it if this Bill Sweetman guy was able to see it at the Kandahar International Airport.
Makes sense. (Score:4, Informative)
Makes sense. A stealthed recon aircraft should be small. Recon is mostly flying preprogrammed flight paths, so the pilot doesn't make many decisions. Hence a moderate-sized UAV.
The Air Force guys hate it, but UAVs are getting the job done. The Army is going for more automation; they use autoland on their Predators, and have far fewer crashes than the USAF stick jocks who land the things manually.
Re:top secret (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:5, Informative)
Who had an Air Force?
Korea=yes, for the duration
Viet Nam= yes, for the duration
Cold War = yes, the USSR and USA often flew matching flights.
Iraq I = yes (for about 20 minutes)
Al Qaeda = yes (4 planes for about 90 minutes)
Iraq II = yes (for about 3 minutes)
For the Future:
Iran=yes (F-14s, thank you Jimmy Carter), MiG 29
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:1, Informative)
"Breaking windows to give the glass maker work to do doesn't create anything."
That's not really what the military-industrial complex does. The jobs that are created are jobs developing, manufacturing, maintaining, and operating high-technology weapons and other equipment, not jobs repairing the stuff we blow up.
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:4, Informative)
He's carrying a gun, mortar, and/or RPG. And he's in a group of several other guys like him. And he's moving toward a military checkpoint or installation. And he keeps ducking behind cover, thinking it will hide him.
Re:Possible Reasons Why (Score:5, Informative)
There are better pictures out there, including one of it on the ground.
At least people think its the RQ-170, if its not, there are two strange planes out there.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/12/kandahars-loch-ness-mystery-pl.html [flightglobal.com]
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:2, Informative)
Serbia - Yea for a couple of the nights, the MiG-29s they had did alright in light of the odds they faced.
Bosnia, we knocked down some of their planes while their SAMs took out one of our F-16s.
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:1, Informative)
He's carrying a gun, mortar, and/or RPG. And he's in a group of several other guys like him. And he's moving toward a military checkpoint or installation. And he keeps ducking behind cover, thinking it will hide him.
Or he's hiding in a mosque or behind a bunch of women and children.
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:1, Informative)
Iran=yes (F-14s, thank you Jimmy Carter), MiG 29
Nice try. [att.net]
The F-14 was developed in 1970 and was approved to be sold the CIA backed [wikipedia.org] Shah of Iran in November of 1973. That would be on Richard Nixon's watch, as Carter wouldn't take office for another three years.
For the record, Iran bought 80, but only 79 were delivered. Of these only about 50 still exist, and 30 of these are active.
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:2, Informative)
Reagan sold TOW and Hawk missiles to Ayatollah Khomeni. Nixon approved the sale of the F-14s to the CIA backed Shah.
Re:top secret (Score:5, Informative)
Disclosure: I am formerly an F-117 avionics technician, of what used to be the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing at Tonopah Test Range, NV (the original home of the F-117 Nighthawk). That said, I've been a civilian for nearly 20 years, but...
The USAF 'fessed up to the existence of the F-117 in 1988 (and included a fuzzy-at-best photograph). That was what they were "really" working on at the time. Better stuff (cf. the B-2) came out later, and from other projects. Before 1988, we were considered to be working on an A-7 avionics upgrade program - my old orders still reflect that (while my old training records had a ton of phrases reading "see classified master"). After 1988, the A-7s were quietly sent back to the Arizona boneyard they came out of, and we were officially working on the Stealth Fighter from that point on. There was no "really working on" bit to it - that's what we were doing.
Now it may or may not be true that they are/were/will-be working on something else. Those may come out in due time, or they may be quietly buried or shelved if they don't work out. Fact is, there may well be more than one project in motion, but the confirmation or denial of those projects simply will not happen unless/until the USAF says something about 'em individually and in particular. Even during my 'tenure', we only knew about our baby - we didn't talk to others about our doings, and they didn't talk to us about theirs.
Sorry, but that's just the way it is *shrug*. It's weird, it's secretive, and you just got along in spite of it. If I were a betting man, I'd say that the odds were excellent of other projects going on... but you and I won't know about them until the gov't is good and ready to say something about 'em.
Re:Is it really that necessary? (Score:3, Informative)
Also remember that these days it takes about 20 years to go from idea to deployed combat ready aircraft. If we cancel the F-35 now we get to start over and hope our enemies don't surprise us in the next 20 years. Not a risk I want to take.
And what advanced aircraft program of the last 20 years *didn't* go over time and budget? Why wouldn't the next one become an overpriced boondoggle also? It seems to be the nature of the beast and if we canceled every program that became such we wouldn't have any aircraft at all.
Re:top secret (Score:3, Informative)
I believe the RQ-170--especially if it uses the same Rolls-Royce Allison AE3007H engine as the RQ-4 Global Hawk--is capable of cruising at 65,000 feet, with a radar cross section far smaller than even the B-2 Spirit bomber, since the RQ-170 is probably almost the same size as the Global Hawk. From bases in Afghanistan, the RQ-170 could easily fly into Chinese and Iranian airspace with essentially zero chance of being shot down cruising at 60,000 feet, since the plane would be undetectable from radar at its cruising altitude.