Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar

[flateric]

Tight Fit
Two of the three Lockheed Martin RQ-3A DarkStar unmanned aerial vehicles built are shown packed in a C-5B Galaxy on their final flight from Palmdale, California, to the US Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, in December 1999. DarkStar first flew on 29 March 1996, but it crashed during its second flight a month later. The second DarkStar (shown at left) was modified to increase its stability and first flew on 29 June 1998. It is now on display at the museum at Wright-Patterson. Two additional DarkStar vehicles (including the one on the right) were completed, but they never flew. One of those aircraft is on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and the other is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington. In January 1999, the Department of Defense terminated the DarkStar UAV program because of budget cuts. The C-5 that carried the DarkStars was based at Travis AFB, California.

Photo Posted: 9 September 2010

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/gallery_slideshow.html?item_id=822

 

[flateric]

Bill Sweetman with his sharp eye noticed THIRD one here...

 

[LowObservable]

Three DarkStars ah ha ha ha!

 

[John21]

Does this mean they built more than three? Its says in the text that out of the three built one crashed. But since this photos was taken in 1999 AFTER the crash of one of the DarkStars what is the third one doing there? ;D

 

[flateric]

They built four. Two were never flown.

 

[aero-engineer]

Zap from my collection.

aero-engineer

 

[flateric]

http://youtu.be/B8tErBR4YrE

 

[flateric]

heh-heh...

 

[Steve Pace]

The RQ-3A on display at the NMUSAF has the number 696 on its fuselage. Does anyone know if this number is a Lockheed factory production number, P-number or what? -SP