Free Republic

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.

first time. Aviation Week & Space Technology journalist Bill Sweetman has posted photos taken March 10 by two veteran sky watchers, Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett. In his blog post of March 28, Sweetman writes that he and two Aviation Week editors agree that the photos depict "something real." In other words, these pictures aren't easily explained away by reports of known military flights or the work of someone who got carried away with Photoshop. So what can aviation experts say about the object in the photos? "The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what...

Aviation Week suspends Bill Sweetman from F-35 story [Update: Bill Sweetman's Facebook post, which I quoted below, is the reason he's temporarily barred from the F-35 beat, Aviation Week tells Danger Room. The plot thickens. It makes you wonder if one of his 91 Facebook friends tattled on him.] Bill Sweetman notified me this morning that he has been temporarily ordered off the F-35 story by Aviation Week management. Aviation Week editor Tony Velocci initially told me "no comment", but added: "It was supposed to be an internal personnel matter but I'm really sorry to hear that he's spreading it...

FB-22: a Cheaper, Faster, Smarter Bomber A proposal to transform the F-22 Raptor into a high-altitude, first-strike bomber illustrates a harsh reality: The U.S. bombing fleet is ill-prepared to fight wars in regions that are short on friendly nations willing to lend air bases. by Bill Sweetman Turning a fighter into a bomber may seem like trying to convert a Honda S2000 roadster into a pickup truck. Fighters, which are designed to dogfight with hostile airplanes and perform short-range attack missions, are fast and agile; bombers are made to haul heavy loads for thousands of miles. But Lockheed Martin is...

Weapons in Space Weapons in the Heavens: A Radical and Reckless OptionPrograms to WatchFalse Alarm on Foreign CapabilitiesNational Space Policy: Evolution by Stealth? Weapons in the Heavens: A Radical and Reckless Option Michael Krepon Of all the risky “transformation” initiatives championed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the one receiving the least media attention is the weaponization of space. Shortly before arriving for his second tour at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld chaired a commission calling for the U.S. government to vigorously pursue “the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests.”[1]The...

Insurgents 'using Google Earth' By Jasper Copping (Filed: 18/12/2005) Insurgents could be using satellite images from a popular website to mount attacks on British and American bases in Iraq, defence experts said last night. Google Earth allows users to zoom in on almost any location in the world to such close range that cars can be recognised. The site even provides latitude and longitude co-ordinates for buildings. Bill Sweetman, a technological warfare expert with Jane's, the military and intelligence specialist publisher, said the images could enable terrorists in Iraq to pinpoint targets inside military bases. "Information gleaned from Google Earth...

Covers come off UK spy plane By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter The Corax, built by BAE Systems, is the UK's first pilotless stealth aircraft Images of the UK's first prototype stealth surveillance aircraft have been unveiled. The unmanned vehicle, which has been built by BAE Systems, is known as the Corax, or as the Raven. The Corax bears some resemblance to a cancelled US military spy plane called DarkStar, analysts have said. Jane's International Defence Review said the unmanned aircraft "indicated a new direction in combat vehicles for the UK's armed forces". Bill Sweetman, the magazine's aerospace and...

Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works, famed for the U-2 and Blackbird spy planes that flew higher than anything else in the world in their day, is trying for a different altitude record: an airplane that starts and ends its mission 150 feet underwater. The Cormorant, a stealthy, jet-powered, autonomous aircraft that could be outfitted with either short-range weapons or surveillance equipment, is designed to launch out of the Trident missile tubes in some of the U.S. Navy’s gigantic Cold War–era Ohio-class submarines. These formerly nuke-toting subs have become less useful in a military climate evolved to favor surgical strikes over nuclear...

Stealth jets? Hypersonic bombers? What's really being developed at the military's most famous classified base? On a trip to las vegas in 2004, observing from my east-facing hotel room in the pyramidal Luxor Hotel at daybreak, I watched a fleet of six unmarked 737s make commuter flights to nowhere. These aircraft depart every weekday morning from a tidy, anonymous terminal on the western side of McCarran International Airport. A long line of cars pours into a 1,600-spot parking lot as the jets pull away from the terminal, taxi to the runways, and head out into the desert sky. At the...