Top Secret Aircraft

[Tommycat]

They found that their prototypes were failing. Why? They didn't know either.

 

They ended up finding out that at those speeds, the plane actually stretches a few inches. The strain on a normal plane body would rip it apart, so they streamlined the design in order to give the plane the ability to grow in the air as it reached high speeds.

Spoken like someone that doesn't know what they did to fix it. The craft did not grow at high speeds. The fitment was adjusted such that when the craft heated it sealed together. Until it was heated, the thing would drip like crazy. Left a lot of JP10 on the tarmac.

 

And a bomb/missile payload would be just as much of a problem on the Aurora as it would on the SR-71.

YF-12A(SR-71) payload area

The fact is, the SR-71 was not given weapons for a reason, and it was retired because it was outdated. It wouldn't be logical or cost effective to retire working SR-71's in order to make an even more expensive, experimental craft to fill the same outdated role.

 

Logical? Cost Effective? You sure you're talking about the same military that spends $45 on a hammer that you can get from Sears for $15?

[Darth_Yuthura]

 

 

Logical? Cost Effective? You sure you're talking about the same military that spends $45 on a hammer that you can get from Sears for $15?

 

This is way out of proportion. The US had equipped four Iowa-class battleships with modern-day weapons and equipment for a huge sum of treasury. Why, after spending so much on their refitting, were they decommissioned?

 

Answer: They were expensive to operate and really had little practical use, even as symbols of the US military. There is a significant difference between capital and operational costs. The RS-71 is a perfect example of this. None are flying today. The U2, which is older and less capable, still have a place because of how much cheaper they are to fly, although not part of the military anymore.

 

The whole purpose of the F-35 development was to provide a cheaper alternative to the painfully expensive F-22 Raptor. In addition, they are still upgrading F-15's and F-16's, despite being no match for a generation five fighter like the F-22.

 

The US military may spend lavishly, but they don't just squander money with no concern for where it goes. Even they have a budget that must be managed.

[vanir]

Many erroneous assumptions are funded by commerical publications. Physics and engineering sources are always best when examining "secret projects, Black Ops and X-planes." Often they have more accurate appraisals of even current front line models than the manufacturer and officially released data, which can be confirmed easily by pilots.

 

First point of the day, there was never any such thing as stealth technology. Ever. It's a complete misnomer, part misunderstanding and part disinformation.

 

Kelly Johnson wanted to add a high survivability feature to his titanium A-12 back in the 60's because it was flying over Soviet airspace and common air defence technologies were improving. With the so-called "radar-absorptive paint" the illusion of Stealth and the name Blackbird was born. Later it was Kelly Johnson who was one of the first invited to place proposals before DARPA for what became the Have Blue project, given unsolicited in 1975 whilst Northrop was later invited to compete for a bid (tendered 1976). This evolved into the F-117 and the B-2 Spirit aside (which has other design emphasis than the "Stealth Fighter"), was the foundation of modern "Stealth features" common to all current US fighter development.

 

Okay so first thing. Stealth isn't stealth. It's what dumb politicians call something they never even slightly understood or tried to.

High survivability has nothing to do with stealth. Considering any modern battlefield is likely to be in an urban environment with common technological parity and digital telecommunications, it is completely ridiculous to assume any large object with big loud engines is going to fly around the place and nobody is going to notice it.

During the Gulf War it was a civilian technician who happened to notice he could track the F-117 by following gaps in mobile phone coverage for the areas in which it was operating. So long as one assumed these gaps were the F-117 it was perfectly easy to track them, so naturally he informed the present authorities. It wasn't however a concern, and here's why.

Stealth isn't stealth. Has nothing to do with it, etc. (am I repeating myself?).

 

High survivability technologies such as (falsely named) stealth features, are not designed in the slightest to make an aircraft invisible. They're designed to stop relatively small and simple devices, like missile seeker heads and mobile defence platforms, from locking onto the aircraft.

 

The F-117 is actually very, very easy to pick up by other aircraft. The thing it does is bounces active signals all over the place around itself (everywhere but back to the missile seeker/receiver), so it interferes with radios, television sets, mobile phone towers, these things associated with the rather unmistakable sound of low flying jet engines in the night, and remote datalink technologies like those used by Russian fighters (in CIS service), work like a bunch of mobile phone towers spread across the squadron.

 

Detecting the F-117 is easy. Targeting it with a dedicated air superiority platform like the Flanker is easy. Whilst the aircraft firing missiles at it might not see its radar image (confused with ground clutter and birds by the electronics translation), the thing is all his squadron mates to which he is datalinked, who are spread over the surrounding forty kilometres, do and quite clearly. He can use their avionics information to fire his weapons (a common feature of top line Russian fighters like the Flanker and Foxhound).

 

What it is really, really hard to do with an F-117 is fire a typical SAM, commonly available AAM's or use mobile air defences and think for a second their seeker heads or ground antenna are even going to know it's there. In fact the first thing a poorly coordinated target area is going to know about the approach of an F-117 is when the GBU explodes.

 

So stealth technology is more correctly referred to as high survivability features, and this doctrine encompass an entire breadth of technologies currently used in modern warplane design. The high transonic performance doctrine of US warplanes for example is also part of the high survivability feature first incorporated in the F-15 (X-Fighter project of 1965), even though this is often at the cost of high supersonic performance (though at a lot of expense retains a high supersonic dash performance flying clean).

 

You might even say, US aerial combat doctrine is high survivability, where Soviet was (during the Cold War) high performance, and now Russian designs incorporate some high survivability features. This is an entirely different impression from actual aerospace development projects, which were very high performance in the US and somewhat rather conservative by comparison in the USSR (the Ye-155 record breakers were in no way as complex or expensive as a Blackbird or X-15, but on the other hand neither of these US vehicles could ever seriously be considered for mass production and widespread service).

 

 

Another major consideration. Black Ops, Skunkworks and similar terms are largely a bit of industry tongue in cheek that have more connotations in fiction and commercial media than reality. The last time there were any truly Black Ops and genuinely secretive projects in the United States was back in 1963 with secret funding for CIA projects and this was legislated against due to domestic political concerns (eg. a government within the government). Any so called "Black projects" from the SR-71 to the B-2 or the defunct Aurora project (X-30 in point of fact, cancelled in 1993) have been openly tendered among domestic industry, with technological components provided by domestic industry and whilst performance specifications and operating procedures remain strictly classified, construction details are widely available under public acccess of information and any Aeronautical Engineer can easily speculate within an extreme voracity those details not officially published. You can't defy physics, that's the simple rule.

 

The F-35 for example, cannot breach 1.8 Mach due to engine inlet design and supersonic shock. The DOD doesn't need to publish its maximum performance figures, they're obvious anyway. It mostly works upon those lines, therefore physics and engineering sources are the best locations to research realistic data for any models in service. Manufacturer released data is...let's just say liberal considering contracts are won by competition.

 

 

So. Stealth is a bit of fiction. And Black Ops is also modern fiction.

 

 

...which brings us to the B-2. Bombers use a different doctrine (including the F-22 used in the proposed penetration strike role). High survivability remains a primary feature but the centre of design revolves around deep penetration. Whilst high survivability concentrates on foiling active and passive signal reception for a concentrated weapons targeting system, Deep Penetration concentrates on ECM and interfering with wide band defence interception networks, like the Russian GCI and common microwave aerial defence networks. Once again it is difficult to target by many weapons systems, though certainly not impossible and it is most definitely not altogether too difficult to detect...that being said it is also extremely good at making a satellite think it is actually about two hundred metres off its own starboard wing...it's especially good at defeating remote strategic defence networks.

You might know they're coming, you might even know where they are, but it's real hard to know precisely where they are unless you've got modern interceptors in the air and it's also real good at interfering with most of their avionics and weapon guidence systems.

Of course modern Russian warplanes like the Flanker and Foxhound again, have a tremendous breadth of very powerful avionics and weapons guidence systems, in some cases not the most advanced in existence but extremely powerful and extremely comprehensive nonetheless. The Foxhound radar is so powerful it can target the rear hemisphere on sheer signal strength. All Flankers and Fulcrums have tremendously powerful IRST sensors with helmet links, whilst the Flankers have the remote datalink facility for all avionics and so on.

 

 

The truth is high survivability features are most effective against the current Middle Eastern stockpile of 70's and 80's Soviet export equipment, which is downgraded to begin with.

 

So called stealth features, the F-22 and F-35 were really designed for international policing operations in coordination with UN concerns, rather than one-on-one global scale warfare. In this environment, such as dealing with Iraq and Iran in the Middle East, Afghanistan, rogue Soviet states and to some extent North Korea and the potential for Chinese destabilisation, they are every bit as effective as what you see in the movies.

 

But it only goes that far. Let's say Russia went psycho. Do not believe for one second the US is not in immediate, genuinely serious circumstances, with extreme concerns towards defensive doctrine effectiveness. Many knowledgable individuals like Kelly Johnson believe incontrovertible, immense mistakes have already been made and are still being presented as a success by greedy beancounters and ignorant baby-kissers.

[True_Avery]

Spoken like someone that doesn't know what they did to fix it. The craft did not grow at high speeds. The fitment was adjusted such that when the craft heated it sealed together. Until it was heated, the thing would drip like crazy. Left a lot of JP10 on the tarmac.

To allow for thermal expansion at the high operational temperatures the fuselage panels were manufactured to fit only loosely on the ground. Proper alignment was only achieved when the airframe warmed up due to air resistance at high speeds, causing the airframe to expand several inches. Because of this, and the lack of a fuel sealing system that could handle the extreme temperatures, the aircraft would leak JP-7 jet fuel onto the runway before it took off. The aircraft would quickly make a short sprint, meant to warm up the airframe, and was then refueled in the air before departing on its mission. Cooling was carried out by cycling fuel behind the titanium surfaces at the front of the wings (chines). On landing after a mission the canopy temperature was over 300 °C (572 °F), too hot to approach. Non-fibrous asbestos with high heat tolerance was used in high-temperature areas.

 

I think we were saying the same thing in different words. Sorry if I spoke too generally.

 

YF-12A(SR-71) payload area

The YF and SR are two different planes. One was the prototype, and the other was the actual plane.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/aircraft/recon/sr71/

 

The SR-71 held no missiles, and had no guns. It was not equipped with bays for either. It was a "stealth" reconnaissance plane. It used its speed and ability to stay hidden to avoid danger, not weapons.

 

If the Aurora was trying to fill its place, it would also have no weapons equipped I imagine. Although, I don't know, because the plane does not exist.

 

Logical? Cost Effective? You sure you're talking about the same military that spends $45 on a hammer that you can get from Sears for $15?

The military still has a budget, and there has to be a payback for that spending. They may spend lavishly, but they don't often spend wastefully.

[vanir]

Some more corrections for prosperity.

The craft did not grow at high speeds.

Yes it did, quite literally. At high Mach the airframe length actually increased quite dramatically, several inches and up to a foot iirc. This is in addition to the panelling gaps closing up, which was a necessary feature due to the difficulties of working with titanium alloys.

 

The YF and SR are two different planes. One was the prototype, and the other was the actual plane.

The YF-12 and SR-71 are both derivatives of the A-12 Blackbird, which is a single seater (a piggyback two seat pilot trainer was also built).

The A-12 was in service in 1963 (possibly sooner) independently of the DOD, with the CIA. The Air Force wanted an interceptor derivative and were toying with the idea of a reconnaissance-bomber too. Kelly Johnson went ahead with both projects. One developed into the single seater YF-12 (basically an A-12 with a Tomcat weapon system fitted). The other developed into the two-seat SR-71 (new airframe cockpit area) for which the bombing facility was never finally incorporated, though Kelly wanted to the DOD decided the Mach 3 projects were never going to be used as armed warplanes due to improving Soviet defence networks. He did however design the SR-71 so that a bombing facility could be added at any time, this has just never been utilised.

 

The YF-12 is not a prototype for the SR-71, but was a preproduction prototype series (3 built iirc) for the F-12A Mach 3 interceptor project (cancelled 1965). The SR-71 was going to be a precision bomber with a reconnaissance feature (most bombers at the time were also used as reconnaissance aircraft). The original A-12 was a reconnaissance plane.

[Tommycat]

Originally the SR-71(actually A-12) was being built under the designation B-71. However the bomber capabilities never materialized past the mockup stage. There were several derivatives of the Blackbird. B-71(none built) A-12, M-21(2 built), YF-12(3 built), SR(strategic reconnaissance)-71(more than 1 less than 100 built ). The provision for the bomb bays was available on the SR-71, however that area was filled with recording equipment. LOTS and LOTS of recording equipment.

 

The SR-71 became more expensive than it was worth when the US and Soviet Union signed an agreement prohibiting manned flyovers of the USSR. Incedentally, that is what caused the development of the M-21 and D-21(recon drone).

[Darth_Yuthura]

I must say I'm surprised that there are still many classified features about this retired aircraft. It makes sense for one in service to be unknown, but once it's retired, it really doesn't matter.

 

What is so significant about people knowing how fast or high the blackbird has reached? It's not like another one will be on the drawing boards in the future, so why keep everything shrouded in secrecy?

[Rev7]

I must say I'm surprised that there are still many classified features about this retired aircraft. It makes sense for one in service to be unknown, but once it's retired, it really doesn't matter.

 

What is so significant about people knowing how fast or high the blackbird has reached? It's not like another one will be on the drawing boards in the future, so why keep everything shrouded in secrecy?

That is the military for ya.

 

Probably because they don't want their enemies to get their hands on stealth technology, and somehow implement it into other fighters, or create their own stealth aircraft. That is what I am thinking...

[Yar-El]

Some of the craft could also be in use. Maybe the engine elements are used in other machines.

[vanir]

The J-79 high bleed, low bypass turbojets aren't used in anything else, but were indeed an interesting engine development platform. It was never capitalised on however with the limited nature of the Blackbird projects and the new Air Force doctrine of high transonic performance. Probably the most exciting engine development since the J-79 has been the supercruise of the F-119. Meanwhile the 80's Aviadvigatel D30 from Russia is rated for a 2.83 Mach cruise at 36,000 feet and 1.25 Mach at sea level (20,000-41,000lbs st rated thrust on the bench). The Saturn-Lyulka and Soyuz-Kobchyenko (a very old vectoring turbofan from the '60s, revamped to power the new Berkut) engines just get better, and have been in production since the '90s with vectoring thrust, Mach 3 ratings and average 35,000lbs st and up in a fighter sized package (underestimating Russian technology is just about the dumbest thing in the world to do, they got a bad rep from detuned and downgraded export versions sold to Asia and the Middle East which fought the latest US front line warplanes like the F-4 and F-15 since the '70s, add about ten years development, weapons and avionics technology for any warplane in actual Russian service, wrt any given model).

 

I can't say it enough, this is one point so very irresponsibly handled by media and terribly dealt with by commercial publication (as opposed to industry papers and strict academic sources). Russian military technology is every bit as tough as US gear on any day of the week, in any era. Given the right circumstances, Russian equipment will dominate US stuff just as easily as US stuff will dominate Russian in another set of circumstances. Even today. In Australia we deal with the fact Indonesia is a Muslim government, we've been stealing their oil, calling it ours and selling it back to them, and they've been arming up with Flankers and Fulcrums whilst we've been stuck with that pile of dog poo F-35 for a Hornet replacement...every day. We're buggered sometime real soon and we know it (looking forward to a US flag over Parliament house cashing in on new defence treaties).

 

 

 

Probably the major reason for the classified nature of the Blackbird projects is legal ramifications. You can't even admit today that you broke the law yesterday, or else you are then liable for having broken the law. SR-71 pilots were recruited from the Air Force but officially discharged upon entering the program, technically they worked for the CIA even though the infrastructure used at this time for reconnaissance flights was DoD and NASA. This was for plausible deniability should they be captured for any reason (technical difficulties causing a forced landing for example). To this day it cannot be strictly published precisely the flight plans of SR-71 missions flown through the late-70's and 80's...but the high resolution images of Blackjack and Flanker development prototypes on the runway make the message clear, obviously they flew not only into Soviet airspace but right over Russian military development centres. This is strictly illegal under international law for countries not in an open state of hostilities. The US government, that is, taxpayers today could be liable...for billions in damages. Certainly nobody would pay, and there you have an international incident in every sense of the word. Some might consider it a declaration of war.

 

US career military pilots flying "Black Ops" missions through this harsh period of the Cold War received no recourse from their government, and were tried as spies if captured like the U2 pilot downed around 1958. They were subject to summary execution if caught, which also meant any means of torture for intelligence purposes with total deniability.

 

As for maximum performance figures, for the most part these are unecessary in military warplanes. Great for breaking records under controlled conditions and rattling sabres if that's what you want to do, or for aerospace technology development.

The envelope in which the SR-71 flew was a high mach cruising condition. Far more important than dash speed and maximum altitude was sustainable altitude and absolute speed over distance. In most circumstances these were the only ways of even knowing how fast you were going, pilots didn't sit there watching a Mach meter, they watched temperature meters and engine guages, watched for flameouts and worried about inlet geometry. 3.2 Mach and 3.4 Mach essentially means the same thing to the crew over a mission, the point was it covered 2,000km averaging 3.3 Mach, which they know because it took precisely ~min and ~seconds to cover the distance at ~altitude. Of somewhat more interest was sustained altitude, which as mentioned some pilots declared was in excess of 100,000 feet, which NASA considered space travel at the time. But again I'd say averaged over a given period, say 30 minutes of a shallow dive and climb to bounce the upper atmosphere and conserve fuel.

 

So in one sense the maximum performance capabilities of aircraft like the Blackbird and Foxbat aren't so much classified as slightly irrelevent. I do know the DoD didn't want the maximum altitude of the Blackbird published, however with the record held by a MiG at over 118,000 feet this could be for as much reason as it couldn't fly that high, as that it could. But again, it doesn't matter. Different mission capabilities and deployment use, entirely different performance envelopes (and thus neither better nor worse).

 

All these types of aircraft were just plain amazing, and still are today.

[Q]

Did you mean the Pratt & Whitney J58? The General Electric J79 is the engine that powered the F-4 Phantom II, F-104 Starfighter, B-58 Hustler and the A-5 Vigilante.

 

Sorry if I'm being picky.

[Tommycat]

Actually it could be classified so that someone else doesn't get the technology to build on themselves. Capabilities could be classified for a number of reasons. One reason might be that they find a new use for it. What new use that is, we have no idea... if we knew that, it would be in use for that reason haha. It might be brought out of retirement again.

 

Max speed and altitude on an aircraft that the only evasive maneuver was "Throttle to full and change altitude" would be classified until the plane had a full replacement that outperformed it.

[Jae Onasi]

Not to mention that if the enemy has the exact specifications on max speed, the calculations to take it out are painfully easy to figure. If you know the limits of your enemies' equipment, you can plan around that strategically as well.

[vanir]

Did you mean the Pratt & Whitney J58? The General Electric J79 is the engine that powered the F-4 Phantom II, F-104 Starfighter, B-58 Hustler and the A-5 Vigilante.

 

Sorry if I'm being picky.

 

Oh not at all, thankyou for the correction, it is always welcome

 

Yes quite right, I was on a memory roll and mixed up my engines

 

(edit)

Agree with Jae and Tommycat to an extent, although as alluded the doctrine of military intelligence is far different in every sense to the popularised impression gained from media and entertainment. Generally speaking any Russian aircraft engineer can look at the basic Blackbird design and come up with a workable series of performance figures to a very high degree of voracity depending upon what structure and component details are available. These are largely the product of what information is floating around the domestic sector in a given country. Hence Soviet spies during the Cold War might work for the equivalent of IBM, only in extreme cases would they be involved directly in classified programs (like the Manhattan Project for example), only at the early stages before counter-espionage became a well developed industry and typically only where they were in fact double agents recruited to fool Soviet intelligence networks, but were in fact fooling the fools to boot.

 

Performance capabilities of combat equipment is virtually impossible to truly restrict, if only because they are mechanical objects driven by simple and commonly available knowledge of physics. Sometimes you can restrict access to specific avionics and componentry, even structure but it is a situation which cannot last, for example the defection of Belyenko with the Foxbat and notice of the Foxhound in development. During the era where industry information was heavily classified political problems ensued with organisations like the CIA and KGB in their respective countries. In the modern age it is next to impossible to severely restrict knowledge of anything at all, remotely technological in nature.

 

Chances are, if there really is an X-plane in service, some university website will have photos of it and some engineering site has given a detailed appraisal of its performance capabilities. The internet is here: it's a new anti-Cold War world. A Brave New World.

[Tommycat]

(edit)

Agree with Jae and Tommycat to an extent, although as alluded the doctrine of military intelligence is far different in every sense to the popularised impression gained from media and entertainment. Generally speaking any Russian aircraft engineer can look at the basic Blackbird design and come up with a workable series of performance figures to a very high degree of voracity depending upon what structure and component details are available. These are largely the product of what information is floating around the domestic sector in a given country. Hence Soviet spies during the Cold War might work for the equivalent of IBM, only in extreme cases would they be involved directly in classified programs (like the Manhattan Project for example), only at the early stages before counter-espionage became a well developed industry and typically only where they were in fact double agents recruited to fool Soviet intelligence networks, but were in fact fooling the fools to boot.

 

Performance capabilities of combat equipment is virtually impossible to truly restrict, if only because they are mechanical objects driven by simple and commonly available knowledge of physics. Sometimes you can restrict access to specific avionics and componentry, even structure but it is a situation which cannot last, for example the defection of Belyenko with the Foxbat and notice of the Foxhound in development. During the era where industry information was heavily classified political problems ensued with organisations like the CIA and KGB in their respective countries. In the modern age it is next to impossible to severely restrict knowledge of anything at all, remotely technological in nature.

Well not necessarily. A painted surface doesn't tell you what the surface is made of. nor does it tell what the internal structure is made of nor it's layout. So you could guess by physics, but you do not end at a true limit. A VW bug powered car can be placed under a Lamborghini shaped body.

 

Still getting a rough idea of the capabilities does not equal the same thing as knowing the exact maximum.

 

 

Chances are, if there really is an X-plane in service, some university website will have photos of it and some engineering site has given a detailed appraisal of its performance capabilities. The internet is here: it's a new anti-Cold War world. A Brave New World.

Or they release data in such a way as to confuse the public into assuming it's just a tinfoil hat wearers theory. There are several ways to hide something secret. Keep yer mouth shut. Bury it in useless data. Tell it to a known conspiracy theorist. Leave fake signs up for some one to see so they look for something completely different. They can't look for it if they are looking for something else.

[True_Avery]

Or they release data in such a way as to confuse the public into assuming it's just a tinfoil hat wearers theory. There are several ways to hide something secret. Keep yer mouth shut. Bury it in useless data. Tell it to a known conspiracy theorist. Leave fake signs up for some one to see so they look for something completely different. They can't look for it if they are looking for something else.

Either way, its tin-foil hat theory until its proven. Hell, Area 51 could be hiding an alien and hid it very well! But until we find out for sure, its a fantasy theory kept alive by the devout.

 

The Aurora may have in fact have been built, if even just once. If it was, then it is nothing to get worked up about as its probably rusting in a hanger somewhere. If it was mass produced, then we'll never find out because its very existence goes against international law, especially if we actually using it to spy in rival airspace. The Aurora might also be a scapegoat, a public image, for something else that we've been working on that is different from the Aurora entirely.

 

So, all in all, it probably doesn't exist and if it does then you don't want to know. There is good reason for keeping a lot of this classified.

[Tommycat]

It is also entirely possible that Aurora was a complete fabrication in order to get people thinking we were far more advanced than we were. Keep in mind the whispers of it happened before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It may have been a way to get the USSR to overspend to compete with science fiction.

[Darth_Yuthura]

I think that would make sense, but I still don't know how the sketches, reports of strange jet stream patterns, and other such 'evidence' remain fairly consistent. If it were just a fictional craft, then I would have imagined a very large number of different designs would be out there, or that the lack of real evidence would have killed the belief long ago.

 

I guess that I would assume it was always just figment of science fiction. Such a radical aircraft design could not easily be covered up without leaving a paper trail behind. Even the F-117 wasn't that radical a design compared to a transonic spy plane.

[vanir]

In a nation which thought the radio show War of the Worlds was a live broadcast of a Mars invasion I'm not really certain the possibility of being manipulated and lied to by the government is as serious a concern as the fact a university group a few years ago found only 50% of people approached on the main streets of New York City could find the USA on a world atlas (or was it Michael Moore and Washington DC).

 

Propaganda takes less effort and conspiracy than one might assume. More of it is urban myth than otherwise. As for military intelligence, it works with known factors and fills in the gaps as more is known. It's a jigsaw puzzle, but does have known values in terms of physics. Never as much a mystery as a constant work in progress, like any science.

 

Easiest way to find out about US development projects is to follow the paper trail. Everything has to be funded by Congress. Everything Congress does is subject to public access, or something like that. Isn't that how the Constitution works?

 

Sure...you might start noticing black cars parked near your house...

 

[Q]

I seriously doubt that any aircraft could have remained secret for this long (~20 years).

[CommanderQ]

Sure...you might start noticing black cars parked near your house...

 

 

 

*looks out window*

 

Oy, that can't be a good sign:D

 

Well, I'd think even if you did follow the paper trail, you may not be able to discover these secrets. There are some things that congress may fund that Congress doesn't know about due to a different label placed on it.

 

You could have "Funding supply progam for this area" and in fact, it is actually, 'Commando Raid in Southern Asia fund." There are somethings that Congress doesn't know due to its high security rating. As Qliveur said, something like that couldn't remain secret for 20 years. It'd be discovered eventually, yes, and maybe no through paper trails...and erm....black cars:D

[Darth Avlectus]

I'm not sure how relevant to the current discussion this is, but, if we have such advanced aircraft, and we also have un-manned aircraft, is that not a wiser choice for wars?

I mean what are we doing still sending troops to fight a ground war. We're spending money on all this amazing technology. I think we ought to use it...at least until we here on earth learn how to use the force.

 

POP-SCI had an article awhile back that we now have stealth/invisibility cloak technology for our vehicles in broad daylight.

[Rev7]

I'm not sure how relevant to the current discussion this is, but, if we have such advanced aircraft, and we also have un-manned aircraft, is that not a wiser choice for wars?

We are using UAVs. More or less for recon, although I think that they can be armed with precision bombs now.

 

I don't think that we should ever stop using manned aircraft for warfare. The people that fly these aircraft have dedicated their lives to understanding and using their aircraft, and there just has to be that human factor. You have to actually be there to fully grasp what the situation is. Yes, it is dangerous, and I am sorry if I sound cold while saying this, but these brave men and women willingly signed up for what they do and I am sure that they are aware of the dangers involves. There should always be that human factor, not just program a UAV into doing something specific. Their programming will get more and more advanced as time goes on until they will not need some, if any, human support. Yes, I think that UAVs are great, but mainly for recon.

[Q]

The advantage of reconnaissance aircraft over satellites is tactical flexiblility. Satellites can be tracked and their orbits make their approach predictable, whereas an aircraft can overfly an area at any time, which is why there will always be a need for such aircraft, manned or not. While I'm sure that stealth satellites are within the realm of possibility, they would have to be well camoflauged because they could still be tracked visually.

[Darth_Yuthura]

UAV's are likely to replace manned fighters not because they become tactically superior or expendable, but because they could potentially perform anything that would kill a pilot. The F-16's pilot seat was angled back 30 degrees in order for a pilot to handle 9 G's, but even then, only the most seasoned pilots can perform such maneuvers. It's not the ability of the pilot, but the limitations of the human body that restrict a fighter's potential performance.

 

The F-22 and F-35 are potentially the last manned fighters we will ever see. The next generation would likely be unmanned and can perform in ways that would otherwise kill a pilot.