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"Area 51" in Nevada, USA has been the stuff of myth and legend. Known world-wide as the birthplace and testing ground of famous planes like the U-2 Dragon Lady, SR-71 Blackbird, F-117 Nighthawk, and other "black program" aircraft, it has also been the subject of wilder UFO rumours and speculation by people who watch too many X-Files episodes.
In the October 2006 issue of Popular Science, noted "black project" researcher Bill Sweetman pieces together "The Top-Secret Warplanes of Area 51." It covers some of the projects he believes to be underway there, based on patent filings, budget holes, and unfilled niches in the USA's arsenal. Comes complete with concept art pictures, which is always nice.
Now, I'd caution y'all that all of this stuff is speculation. For instance, holes in the US arsenal could be real due to neglect or low priorities. Likewise, patent filings et. al. may well pertain to active programs and research related to the WALRUS mega heavy-lift blimp-aircraft cross, J-UCAS unmanned fighters, HAA/ISIS surveillance blimps, and other less well-known but nonetheless public programs. Etc. With that said, Sweetman's article makes for interesting and entertaining reading.
Sweetman's most surprising conclusion? That the Mach 5-6 Aurora wave-rider aircraft (see extensive GlobalSecurity.org project & budget analysis) may be on again as a $9 billion program, possibly with global strike as well as reconnaissance capabilities.
Cutting-edge aviation is a great categoy to read about. I saw that article a week or two ago. I agree that not every hole is filled by some black project.
The thing that is so frustrating about aviation is that it is basically the same now as it was 50 years ago. We have composites, better engines, and computer pilots, but it basically hasn't changed that much, in my opinion.
Stealth blimps, especially at extreme altitudes, are a platform that seriously warrantes further attention. You just can't beat them for cargo lifting and reconnaisance work -- after all, the flying part is done by gas density, not by burning hydrocarbons.
Along the lines of "neat flying stuff", JP Aerospace has an idea that you can take blimps and actually take huge cargos into low earth orbit. Sounds crazy, I know, but the math seems to work out.
I agree on the super blimps. A few of them wirelessly connected via a supercomputer could be floated over an embattled city to monitor all kinds of insurgent activity. Patterns can be established and eventually real time intel fed to guys on the ground. Of course like many things military, that has potentially chilling implications for here at home.
Put me down for some blimps, too. Like these eyeball-in-the-sky tactical recon balloons.
Even without low orbit monsters, cargo airships are a great idea and they don't need major air facilities to unload.
As an ex-aviator, I'm tickled by the comment that aviation is basically the same as it was fifty years ago, despite advances in technology.
I'll list a few of the the impacts of new technology upon TACAIR since Pappy Boyington did his thing.
BVR: we can now with regularity kill an opponent we can't even see with our eyes. From the forward quarter! Eat your heart out Pappy. Of course, the same can be done to us...
Precision weapons: the difference in resources expended, Pk, and employability is several order of magnitudes in favor of aviators when you are guiding your munitions by laser, wire, or GPS. I'm not sure about risk. In the days of WWII, everybody was slow, and everybody had AAA. Now those who can afford sophisticated SA systems can pose a significant risk. Those who don't are lambs to the slaughter.
Link: it's amazing to a modern aviator to read about our grandfathers stumbling around the skies, just happening onto a Japanese aircraft carrier lacking cover, ripping the shit out of it, and then running home, half of them ditching their aircraft because they fought until well below a BINGO (return from mission) fuel state.
Not anymore: those computers and communications in the cockpit that we have now now provide a much more sophisticated net of information, founded on sensors like airborn radars and SPY3. When it's all working, it's almost godlike, and there is no stumbling around. Which is good. Nobody has the fuel to do so anymore.
In some ways, I can see Daniel's point. We still practice air to air section engagements over and over again... and the principles of that exercise haven't changed a whole lot.
I was surprised in my early training at how much time was dedicated to dog fighting. I attributed it to a couple of factors: One, well, it's fun. So we like to train to it. Two - and this is somewhat ironic - since the US hasn't faced an airforce capable of challenging it since Vietnam, our rules of engagement are very restrictive. We often have to VID the bogey, and so we know that we could very well need those dogfighting skills, even though they seem an anachronism in an age of BVR capability. And three, guidance and defense systems are in a constant race... we build a better missile, the Russians and the French build a better jammer, and then they sell it to our adversaries.
So, like the Phantom drivers in 'Nam, we could well find ourselves surprised one day if we were to let our fundamental dogfighting skills atrophy. At the end of the day, you can't jam or decoy a bullet...
All that said, CAPABILITIES, not just the technology that enables them, have changed ENOURMOUSLY.
That's evident in the air to ground campaign everytime we go to war. All weather, precision strikes fifty years ago? We don't read much about the change in air to air capabilities... because nobody in their right mind takes on the USAFA or the USN in the air.
Who could? Some of the European aviators are sharp and well armed, and would be a real operational threat if one could imagine them going to war with us.
But our current adversaries? Na. BIG changes, IMHO.
That was a great comment, wastelandlive, but you misunderstoood my point.
Certainly war-making technology has come leaps and bounds over the last 50 years. But you still got a wing, a kerosene-burner, wheels and flaps, etc. When I said not much has changed, I meant that we're not seeing personal jet-packs, stealth blimps (that we know), or suborbital (Mach 10+) transport capabilities.
The stealth bomber bends the rules a bit with the way it flies, and the Osprey pushes the envelope some as well. But compare with 1906-1956 -- we went from all kinds of wild designs to basically what we have today: helicopters and airplanes.