Secret Stealth VTOL Transport - "Senior Citizen"

Not much response to my query on the Libyan evacuation. One of the responders who was working in the Libyan desert in 2010 just before the balloon went up, made a very valid point. On reading the post, he pointed out that on the rigsite he was on in Libya there were probably less than 10 ex-pats (2 x drilling supervisors, 1 x mud man, 1 x geologist, possibly 2 x directional drillers on his site) mostly Dutch and British.

If you've never seen a CV-22 or MV-22 Osprey or even aware of their existence, they would be a strange air vehicle. Plenty of room for a squad and able to recover all the expats from two rigs.

Any Marine Corps assets in the area at the time? Probably yes.

Chris
 
CJGibson said:
If you've never seen a CV-22 or MV-22 Osprey or even aware of their existence, they would be a strange air vehicle. Plenty of room for a squad and able to recover all the expats from two rigs.
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Yep, V-22 was my thought for 'strange air vehicle' too. Easy to forget that the average person doesn't know much more about aircraft than the difference between an Airbus, a helicopter, and a fighter jet.
 
quellish said:
sublight said:
Regardless of how odd it looks, thousands of people saw the craft in that picture. It matches up rather nicely with what stargazer posted.
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Thousands of people have seen Elvis, that doesn't mean it was him.

And what would be the reasoning behind the bright lights on it? To blind anyone it might land on?
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Pardon the egregiously late response, I basically just joined, but Compass Ghost Yehudi lights counter-illumination at full power?

If I was messing around with a stealth VTOL transport I'd make sure I added counter illumination for secrecy from observers not cleared for it. Active use has been around forever, since WW2 in fact on ASW aircraft, and I'd automate it. Sensors on one side of the airframe controlling just how bright the lights on the opposite side would be.

(edited to fix camo name. Compass Ghost is a sprayed on RAM treatment, not optical lighting!)
 
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RetiredAFGuy said:
One thing I've learned since retiring from the USAF is that when old GI's get together, they talk about their time in service and a lot of interesting information can be heard. File these two anecdotes under GI War Stories, but what if they point to the existence of Senior Citizen?

1) A conversation with another retired GI who had been Special Forces and the subject came to "What do you miss the most about your service time?" Answer: "Jumping HALO, especially out of Black Betty." A response to a puzzled look was "Stealth planes don't just drop bombs, but I've said too much."

Either it was a reference to doing jumps from a B-2 bomb bay or a reference to a stealth transport.

2) A story from the collapse of Libya. The UK had an oil exploration crew operating a rig in southern Libya and wanted to evacuate them before rebel forces decided they could use hostage westerners or the spectacle of westerners being publicly executed.

The UK had the forces to do the job (SAS), but no effective way to get them to/from the oil rig. So a request was made to the US for assistance in transport.

The point of the story was the absolute shock by the drill crew when two unknown air vehicles landed next to the drilling complex and disgorged SAS troops that evacuated the 70+ drill crew team. Supposedly all the evacuated workers were briefed on and signed Official Secrets Act documents after landing at a safe air base well out of Libya.

Nothing concrete in either story, but very possibly some trails that could be explored by skilled researchers on the board.
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Hmmm interesting what your retired SF buddy says about 'Black Betty' , when was in the service?

laughingly anyone seen The Presidents Man with Chuck Norris , where he uses a F-117A as stealth transport by jumping out of the bomb bay

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJcJOJzRWSA


They probably took the idea from Executive Decision 'Ramora F-117A carrying cast - Steven Seagal, Kurt Russell, Joe Morton, BD Wong, Oliver Pratt, Whip Hubley et al

cheers
 
TomS said:
Half-models like this are pretty common for wind-tunnel testing. This approach lets your model be much closer to full-scale, which makes it more accurate.
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I guess, that also seen photos of similar "half-models". Although, now I'm trying to figure out - how the boundary layer (that has been formed on the floor) inflence on the overall aerodynamic characteristics calcualted?

There were a lot of large wind tunnels, that offering a very large scale models researches.

Perhaps, purpose of this "half-models" is not in the full repalcement of complete models tests, but in the measuring of specific changes of already tested models? Say, the changes in controls' size and angles, or various additions - like pods, fairings etc.?
 
Silencer1 said:
I guess, that also seen photos of similar "half-models". Although, now I'm trying to figure out - how the boundary layer (that has been formed on the floor) inflence on the overall aerodynamic characteristics calcualted?

There were a lot of large wind tunnels, that offering a very large scale models researches.

Perhaps, purpose of this "half-models" is not in the full repalcement of complete models tests, but in the measuring of specific changes of already tested models? Say, the changes in controls' size and angles, or various additions - like pods, fairings etc.?
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There's an entire body of literature out there about how to account for boundary layer effects, including the use of specialized mounting systems (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peniche_(fluid_dynamics).
 
Thank you to pointing me to this article!
Seems, that my previous suggestions were icorrect. At least, now I understand, that aerodynamists already solved how to take in account influence of wall for half-models.
 

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