Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel UAV

[avatar]

yup and move over to the north a bit as well.

[flateric]

Mystery UAV appears in Afghanistan

Robert Hewson Jane's Air-Launched Weapons Editor - London
Martin Streetly Jane's Electronic Mission Aircraft Editor - London

Jane's sources have confirmed the existence of a previously unknown US stealthy unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that has been deployed on clandestine operational missions in Southwest Asia.

Experienced military personnel observed the air vehicle arriving at Kandahar Air Base, Afghanistan, in early 2009. US personnel immediately moved the vehicle inside the hangars used for MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper operations on the south side of the base.

According to one source, the air vehicle was photographed by NATO personnel who realised its significance. Those personnel were reportedly detained by a security detail and their photographs deleted. Jane's understands other photographs of the UAV at Kandahar exist, however.

An experienced military observer at Kandahar described the mystery UAV as resembling a classic 'flying wing' low-observable design. It is a jet-powered, tailless design that appears to have twin engine intakes and a single exhaust. It has a swept high-aspect wing, while ventral bay doors indicate an internal payload capability. One source described the craft as fitted with a "ventral pod", but other reports disagree.

One Jane's source believes that the air vehicle may have operated from Kandahar over a period of days or weeks. However, Kandahar is does not meet the traditional description of a secure location that would facilitate clandestine flight operations by a classified programme.

Another explanation for its appearance might be a mechanical problem that forced an unplanned emergency diversion. An external store, such as a targeting pod, would not be a standard feature for a stealthy UAV. It is possible, therefore, that the store was a retractable item that had malfunctioned, becoming stuck outside the internal bay.

Within the US, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman all have the capability to develop and deliver a stealthy air vehicle of this kind. It is also possible that this craft is the General Atomics Predator C.

Whatever the source of the Kandahar mystery ship, it is clear that the vehicle must have used the base's Predator/Reaper recovery and landing system, which is a proprietary General Atomics product.

There are many questions posed by the emergence of this new UAV: who is operating it, what is its mission and where is it flying from? The operator is likely to be either the US Air Force (perhaps under the aegis of the 'Big Safari' programme office) or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Kandahar is already home to a sizeable number of completely unmarked MQ-1 Predator UAVs, believed to be operated by CIA crews.

The air vehicle's area of operations is likely to be over Pakistan, where it could provide longer range and endurance than the MQ-9 Reaper. If the vehicle is a fully stealthy design then the potential for operations over Iran cannot be excluded. It is not known whether the vehicle has only an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capability or if it is also armed. Its configuration certainly points to it being a weapons-capable aircraft. There is a possibility that the 'store' observed under the vehicle could have been a hung-up weapon that failed to release properly.

If the vehicle is not based at Kandahar then it could be flying from outside Afghanistan, perhaps Iraq or a neighbouring nation like Kyrgyzstan (where the air base at Manas is soon to be closed). The US Air Force has other regional deployments in Kuwait (Ali Al Salem), Qatar (Al Udeid) and the UAE (Al Dhafra). There is also Seeb air base in Oman, which has become an established ISR hub for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. An outside possibility is that the US has developed a UCAV with global reach through air-to-air refuelling.

IHS (Global) Limited, 2009

[LowObservable]

"And in short, Minister, weighing one thing against another and taking all possible contingencies into account, it might be somewhat premature to speculate, at this moment in time, on the possibility of leaping to any early conclusions."

/Sir Humphrey Applebly mode OFF

[quellish]

"And in short, Minister, weighing one thing against another and taking all possible contingencies into account, it might be somewhat premature to speculate, at this moment in time, on the possibility of leaping to any early conclusions."

/Sir Humphrey Applebly mode OFF

At the end of the day, these articles are thin and mostly (incestuous!) speculation. They're repeating other articles.
The image we've all seen is an artists concept based on 1 or 2 photos, which are not public as far as I know.

[flateric]

"And in short, Minister, weighing one thing against another and taking all possible contingencies into account, it might be somewhat premature to speculate, at this moment in time, on the possibility of leaping to any early conclusions."

/Sir Humphrey Applebly mode OFF

Oh, an episode I was re-watching yesterday))))

[quellish]

Looks damn like W570

Photo is now out there:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a027cbe23-0c42-4674-aad2-d0ee1ff6bb69

[AeroFranz]

I read the blog post. I don't understand why everybody's fixated on the large size of the landing gear, and coming up with unprepared field requirements. By the way, using "stealth" and "unprepared field" one next to the other raises eyebrows, at least judging on how the airforce has been operating it's stealth aircraft.
IMHO this is not a large vehicle, not in the Global hawk size or W570, more like Polecat. 
The landing gear looks inordinately large because it does not scale the same way the rest of the airframe does. Same thing for the satcom radome. For a given bandwidth requirement, it has to be a certain minimum size. If you have to stick it in a small airframe, it ends up looking really big.
I have no way of checking this hypothesis, of course, but it is the first thing that came to mind looking at the photo.

[Trident]

Also, flying wing configurations are typically quite short for their weight, which might make the landing gear look out of scale from certain angles. IIRC the B-2 for example uses gear components from the Boeing 767, an aircraft that is more than twice as long as the Spirit.

[quellish]

I read the blog post. I don't understand why everybody's fixated on the large size of the landing gear, and coming up with unprepared field requirements. By the way, using "stealth" and "unprepared field" one next to the other raises eyebrows, at least judging on how the airforce has been operating it's stealth aircraft.
IMHO this is not a large vehicle, not in the Global hawk size or W570, more like Polecat. 
The landing gear looks inordinately large because it does not scale the same way the rest of the airframe does. Same thing for the satcom radome. For a given bandwidth requirement, it has to be a certain minimum size. If you have to stick it in a small airframe, it ends up looking really big.
I have no way of checking this hypothesis, of course, but it is the first thing that came to mind looking at the photo.

From the photo, my impression is that the shape is similar to the X-45C or even Northrop "NGB" patent, though I know this is almost certainly incorrect. I could see this being a BAe Corax easily though.

The devil's hands have been busy

[quellish]

Another photo.

[quellish]

Another photo.

It is LIKELY that this is Lockheed's DESERT PROWLER, which first flew in 2005 (hat's off to Peter M, who first made the connection).
You can see two of DESERT PROWLER's patches here:
http://www.paglen.com/tellyou/new_patches.html
In 2005 the 30th Reconnaissance Squadron was stood up and moved into the TTR. At the time it was thought they were working with Predators but none were seen on the TTR ranges, and it is not clear if any were actually assigned there.
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2006/Mar-04-Sat-2006/news/6183518.html
From 2006-2008 they were working with some new, classified UAV program.

USAF had a set of emerging requirements during the same time frame for both persistent ISR and persistent strike. DESERT PROWLER is a long loiter, highly autonomous aircraft with "large" payload. Large here probably meaning in the class of a lightweight fighter like the F-16.
Assuming the aircraft photographed is related to DESERT PROWLER, it would have an interesting history. POLECAT was a company funded project with a very similar configuration. Publically Lockheed management has stated that the primary objective for POLECAT was to demonstrate a low aspect ratio flying wing at (very) high altitude:
"A new "twisting strut" inside the Polecat's wings is designed to flex in air and improve the laminar flow over its swept wings, propelling the UAV to high altitudes. Aircraft such as the straight-winged U-2 have traditionally behaved like gliders but lack a survivable design. "No one has ever developed in this configuration a high lift-to-drag ratio, and we are going to do it higher than anyone has done it," says Skunk Works Executive Vice President Frank Cappuccio."
from http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_channel.jsp?channel=defense&id=news/aw072406p1.xml
POLECAT also demonstrated new manufacturing and prototyping techniques , which were highlighted by the press but not so much by Lockheed. Lockheed did go out of their way to point out that POLECAT would demonstrate technologies for the Long Range Strike program. Design work on POLECAT started in 2003, with the vehicle ready for flight tests in 2004 - though it did not fly until much later for other reasons.

The aircraft in the photo resembles both POLECAT and the Frontier Systems/Loral W570. Or both POLECAT and DESERT PROWLER both resemble W570, take your pick. The CAD drawing of W570 that Matej has posted here greatly resembles what we can see of this aircraft, though the mystery plane does look quite a bit smaller. Maybe there is a connection there, I am still wondering if Lockheed ended up with the rights to the W570 design and ran with it.


Of course, the above is entirely hypothetical, and the plane in the photo is probably a Corax.
This would mean POLECAT and DESERT PROWLER developed in parallel, with very similar configurations. That is very interesting.

[cadi0103]

USA wants UK Zephyr in Afghanistan and Iraq
By Rob Coppinger

The UK-designed solar-powered, high-altitude, long-endurance Zephyr unmanned air vehicle is to fly in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Developed by UK technology company Qinetiq, the latest versions have an 18.2m (59.6ft) wingspan, 30kg (66lb) mass with a 45kt (83km/h) cruise speed. Zephyr is designed for surveillance or communications missions and has achieved flight endurances of 54h and 82.3h.

"We are in the final throes of an agreement of how to move forward to operationally test [Zephyr] outside the USA. We are very close to getting an operational solar-powered system," says Cdr Eliot Gunn of the office of the secretary of defence, advanced systems and concepts, unmanned systems joint capability technology demonstrations programme, oversight executive.

Long-range signals intelligence is the US Department of Defense's primary interest in Zephyr, Gunn told the A&D Forum's Unmanned Air Systems 09 conference in London on 19 May. The DoD may also want to provide Zephyr to other "combatant commanders" beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, he adds.

A Zephyr prototype is being flown at the US Army's Yuma proving grounds in Arizona for additional testing. Zephyr 5 prototypes have been flown at the White Sands missile range in New Mexico.

Gunn says the endurance record setting prototype was called Zephyr 6, but that a contract has now been awarded for Zephyr 7.

[sublight]

I think somebody in RI may have taped one of these and thought it was a UFO, take a look:
http://www.mufoncms.com/files/17379_submitter_file1__UFO.MOV

Whatever it is, it looks like its deliberately using the clouds for cover, and it has a very low stall speed.

[Machdiamond]

That is powered hang glider pilot just playing with the clouds.

[sublight]

That is powered hang glider pilot just playing with the clouds.

Watch the vid full screen. It doesn't look like one. That thing looks WAY too big to be an ultralite, those clouds have to be at least 1000 ft up and the "wing" does not look tiny against them.