Up until a few days ago I'm not sure they were allowed to (not sure how the UK ban on using their bases applies here)
Barring that the internet has provided incorrect information... Greece would be a good start point. Fly over the Black Sea, turn north and take a look. Fly over the Black Sea turn south and take a look. So it is possible that Greece was/is allowing the platform to operate from it's territory quietly. When someone finally noticed "Oh! We had to land there for a technical issue."
May be a new generation is soon to enter in service , and they don't care about the sighting of RQ-180 now. This is not the more aesthetic stealth plane is flat shape and elongated wings much more than the B-21 seem to match to a low speed cruising in the range of RQ-4, in my opinion I don't see it having a strike capacity.
Very well possible, but even so a base like Incirlik or Akrotiri would make much more sense. Depending on it’s airspeed that would shorten the roundtrip by around 4 hours which is quite a lot, even if it can refuel in flight. I could understand if Larissa is a remote base, but instead it’s the opposite: it’s located in a very populated urban area. The only reason I can think of is that Iran has spies in and around those bases, and less likely around Larissa.
Could one of those images be the RQ-73?
What is RQ-73 ?
Aviation reporter Bill Sweetman claimed in 2013 that the classified, stealthy, unmanned intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platform being produced by Northrop Grumman was designated RQ-180. I asked him about this because it didn't make any sense to me (there was a logic to the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 designation that didn't apply to the NGC platform). Bill insisted that a source had specifically referred to the new plane as the RQ-180. I still remain skeptical.
Thank you .
Wasn't it shown to have clipped corners on the trailing edge wing tips?
I agree that it’s unlikely. First of all, it’s build to operate above contested area; it would expose itself the moment it opens it’s bomb bay, putting it at tremendous risk of it getting shot down. If it’s area of operation is not contested there would be no need for a RQ-180; other platforms will suffice, so there’s no real logic for it to carry weapons.
If you look closely it looks to me like flexible material there, hence, it might be one of those moveable/morphable wingtip designs Boeing has patented.
Can you explain logic behind this suggestion?
Employing something like a GBU-39, dropped from high altitude, would allow for an impressive standoff distance that would reduce risk to the delivery platform. If the RQ-180 has such a capability, it would serve as a useful "silver bullet" for covert missions where you wouldn't necessarily need or want a B-21.
Do you know that the F22's main and side weapons bay patents or that the airflow purge design inside the intake patent are Boeings?
Since they all have pretty much the same planeform as well as having a belly bulge and we can't tell the size there's a possibility of them being mistaken for one another. The crucial difference would be in the contrail as the RQ-73 shouldn't have because that's the point of its a hybrid design. This woulld rule out the white airframe but not the black ones.
Or they just licensed the patents.
There are at least two laws that overule regular access to patents in the states and by extension the rest of the world either directly through licensing or indirectly through competition.
They actually have quite different planforms (with -73 having tapered, clipped wings) - even if we imagine that operational RQ-73 exists when its scaled prototype even wasn't flown yet.
The contractors building the hangars would have no need to be read in on what would go in the hangars.
But they would know, pulling examples out of my ass, that the big hangar needs to hold 70degF+-2 regardless of external temperatures and needs to flow at least 1000cubic feet of air per minute.
Possibly relevant
I’m not entirely convinced.
