It kind of does . . .
Posted on 04/02/2014 6:00:03 AM PDT by C19fan
A retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience has stepped forward with a compelling theory about a mysterious plane that was spotted flying over Texas last month. On March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard has submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believes they are SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Looks like the Boeing “Phantom Ray”
Hard to tell the size since there is no other aircraft in the images I’ve seen, but the shape seems correct.
Here it is compared to a 747:
http://www.boeing.com/Features/2010/12/bds_phantom_ray_12_10_10.html
In the mid-1990’s, a soldier in my M1A1 tank unit had a colorful past. He had actually been in an Army intelligence MOS...but he ended up a tanker. His story had something to do with Stop Loss during the ramp up to the first Gulf War...and his attempts to circumvent it failed, keeping him in the army. And, as a punishment, he was forced to change MOS to 19K (Tank Crewman).
Anyway, somehow we had this very smart ex intelligence soldier driving a tank. One day in casual conversation, he mentioned to me that he had once been tasked with measuring and photographing the camera mounts in the SR71, before it went out of service. The implication was that there was another plane in the works, to replace the SR71, that would still use the same camera.
Who knows what secrets are flying around up there.
LJB?
It kind of does . . .
Also odd how much that model ended up looking like the space shuttle. Considering 2001 came out in 1968, and the space shuttle funding wasn’t authorized until 1972 that’s a damn good guess.
CC
Hang glider.
That's a very good question, let alone why it has a subsonic profile and being hyped as something else...this is all very amusing.
It’s the drone dedicated to spying on Glenn Beck.
There’s a reason why the buran looks like it does. it was reverse engineered from our plans. the soviets were famous for it. Look up the Tupolev TU-4
, aka the B-29ski. Reverse engineered from superfortresseses that emergency landed in the USSR during 1945.
CC
Another somewhat close copy: Ilyushin Il-38 for our P3 Orion
Strange. I always thought “SR” stood for “strategic reconnaissance.”
No, it could not.
The reason it could not is that there is no such thing as a SR-72.
Looks a lot like an F-117 to me. Service ceiling of 40k plus. Top speed of just over 600 mph. They’re not all in the boneyard.
Nope, it didn't stand for anything. The only reason we have the "SR" designation is because LBJ transposed the correct designation of RS, but rather than embarrassing the President over his mistake Lockheed quickly changed it on the logo and signage on the aircraft to match what he said.
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