...you missed a couple... '-)
Posted on 12/20/2015 6:00:45 PM PST by American Dream 246
This clip mentions Harrisburg as a drop off point. Here is the follow-up on that video.Hard To Believe - But It's True
...you missed a couple... '-)
awhile back some were convertibles, don’t know about now
from wiki
As the jet fleet flies primarily on weekdays, UPS was eager to find ways for its aircraft to produce income other ways. In the 1990s, eight 727s were converted (at a cost of $2.5 million each) into 727-100QC (QC=Quick Change) freighters that were able to be converted into passenger aircraft for the purpose of charters.
Supposedly, the contract was canceled before any Navy A-12 triangular planform a/c or prototypes were built. But, reportedly, it was shortly after the cancellation lawsuit was settled that these triangular a/c began appearing over Texas, etc.
Now, the latest two Google Earth published overflights over Fort Worth (7/14/2015 & 10/2/2014) show what appears to be an A-12 (with its foldable wingtips removed and stowed nearby)! The Google Earth coordinates are:
Latitude: 32.806589º
Longitude: -97.355732º
(That is the north end of the Fort Worth Air Museum site...)
1) Copied the image and pasted it into Canvas Draw2 (for Mac)~~~~~~~~~~2) On a separate layer, created (by hand) a crude vector replica (only 20 points) of the "a/c" silhouette -- and slightly blurred it.
3) On another layer, made 3 scaled-down copies of the replica, and "ghosted" them into the clouds -- using various transparency transfer modes.
4) Rendered the whole thing (with the original replica switched off) out as a 72 dpi raster image & posted it as a .PNG graphic.
Below, I have put my original vector silhouette replica in, "trailing" the original -- to show how easy it was to credibly replicate it. (For high-fidelity, I would have created the vector object by auto-tracing the silhouette from the original -- resulting in a higher point-count and better outline replication...)
Faking the original -- starting with only a shot of the sky -- would have taken less than ten (10) minutes...
~~~~~~~~~
I'm not saying the original is a fake; just demonstrating that making a fake indistinguishable from it would have been drop-dead easy...
“I’m not saying the original is a fake...”
It probably is. They restricted the F-117 to night flying at Tonopah Test Range (TTR) for years before revealing it to the public in the late 1980s, and that was because it was a combat aircraft.
A reconnaissance plane could spend its entire service life in the black world. You’d have to live next door to Tonopah, Area 51, S4, or whatever to even have a chance of ever seeing one.
I have one of the Italeri F-19 kits. Never built it, but it’s still up on the shelf in the basement.
Didn’t know that Canvas was still around. Used it back in the 90s occasionally. $US100 sounds reasonable. Is it any better that other apps like Gimp, Illustrator, P’shop etc?
~~~~~~~~
ACD are apparently porting Canvas 16 to the Mac incrementally -- as iterations of "Canvas Draw". The current version lacks many niceties, but, most importantly to me, lacks the "Presentation" format/mode.
As indicated in my "aircraft" exercise, Canvas still excels at seamlessly combining CAD-level vector graphics capability with moderately good image-processing capability. (And, as I demonstrated, you can do image-processing operations on vector objects!)
Haven't tried it yet, but CD2 supposedly has added the capability to create your own post-processing "Convolution matrix filters" -- which, as a cartographer, I would use a lot. (I have designed "grad" filters that "flatten" the background and shadow-enhance linear features on OHI, allowing me to detect and map pioneer trails, roads & traces) -- which is one of my "things". '-)
Also, ACD have not yet publicly committed to porting over the GIS module -- which I, as a cartographer / archaeologist need desperately on my new systems.
~~~~~~~~~~
Canvas Draw 2 is probably worth $99, even if only used to recover and edit your old Canvas X files...
Your best bet is to do one of their 30-day free trials. During that time, they usually offer special deals to testers. I got my CD2 for $79 -- and it is well worth that...
Not likely. My pilot contact says they even stripped out the insulation to make the carry more freight. The cargo areas are pressurized but freezing cold. My contact also says 99.99% of current pilots are super patriotic, hate Obama, etc, and if it was happening, they would blow the whistle.
Why convert cargo planes, when 100s of charter aircraft are just waiting around for business?
No. Have other things to do - thanks anyway
White buses are usually prison buses.
That looks like an A-12 because it’s actually the incomplete A-12 mockup.
And to add, if you go to Google Images and search on A-12 Mockup you’ll find all sorts of pictures of it. Including the move from Plant 4 to the Museum in 2013.
The pictures also show that it’s really deteriorated in the last 10 years or so. Real shame, the mockup was mostly complete when the program was terminated and was turned over in good shape.
If you want a real investigation vote Trump!
The last Squadron Shop hobby/model store was in Glenmont MD, outside of DC.
The owner (Roy) used to like to talk about how, when the “F-19” kit was released some Soviet diplomats came in and bought every one he had.
Funny thing tho - after the wild success of the “F-19” Testors/Italeri decided to produce the hypothetical Soviet counterpart. Called it the “MiG-37 Ferret”. The plane used what was called a “more primative” form of stealth: faceting. Which is exactly what the F-117 used. The MiG-37 also had a trapezoidal wing and combined vertical/horizontal tailplanes, just like the YF-23 would have ... making it a LOT closer to where the US was with Stealth tech than the F-19.
The most important detail is that we actually *built* ours, used it in combat more than once against Soviet air defense systems, and it worked. And it was based on research published by the Soviets.
I don’t doubt that bit about the Soviets buying up the models. They knew that we leaked sensitive information like a sieve. They also had multiple subscriptions to Aviation Week and many other technical journals. Heck, I had a subscription to Aviation Week to keep up with our stuff and theirs.
I never had a subscription to Aviation Leak. Even in the late 1980s it was well out of my price range. Much cheaper to just stop off once a week at the local library to read through it and photocopy anything I was really interested in ;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.