posted 10-11-2002 08:45 PM            

Weird!

posted 10-11-2002 09:42 PM            

As for the strange-looking "aircraft", this may be one possibility worth exploring:

28 October 2000
Space Daily

Will Plasma Revolutionize Aircraft Design?
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/future-00o.html

They can reduce drag, repel shock waves and make jet fighters vanish. Will plasmas start an aerospace revolution, or are they just another mirage?

To look at, the test vehicle suspended in the hypersonic wind tunnel is little more than a cone. But inside is a small device that could revolutionise the way aircraft fly, saving fuel and heralding a new age of travel.

It's a generator that sends a beam of microwaves upstream into the Mach 6 flow, ripping apart the gas ahead of the model so that it is flying through a plasma--a boiling mix of positive ions and electrons--rather than ordinary gas.

The experiment, at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, tests a ground-breaking idea developed by Russian researchers during the Cold War. They discovered that injecting a few ions into the flow around a high-speed craft can dramatically reduce the drag it experiences.

With less drag, supersonic airliners might become economically viable, while hypersonic missiles and aircraft flying at more than five times the speed of sound could travel farther on a single tank of fuel. And future generations of space shuttles might rely on plasmas to help them fly during re-entry, which is why NASA is interested.

But there are more clandestine applications. The way plasmas interact with radio waves around aircraft is causing more than a little excitement in the secret world of military aerospace research. Could they provide the ultimate invisibility shield for stealth aircraft? Other researchers have found that plasmas can dissipate shock waves from supersonic aircraft, stifling troublesome sonic booms.

posted 10-11-2002 10:10 PM            

No highlighting, no zoom, inverted.

With Cloud.

posted 10-11-2002 10:24 PM            

Inverted in Photoshop (Reverse CMYK}

posted 10-14-2002 11:55 AM            

That shape kind of reminds me of the ancient gold central american figure of a flying craft.

More information at http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_7.htm

It could be the latest stealth aircraft.

I'd send this one to Jeff Rense if I were you.

posted 10-28-2002 01:39 AM            

Saturday, October 19, 2002

Boeing makes once-secret, subsonic 'Bird of Prey' public

By JAMES WALLACE
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER AEROSPACE REPORTER

"Beam me up, Scotty!

Named after a Klingon spacecraft in "Star Trek," The Boeing Co. yesterday took the wraps off what was once one of its most classified "black" military airplane projects known as the "Bird of Prey."

The Boeing Co.
The Bird of Prey plane is 47 feet long with a distinctive 23-foot wing at the rear shaped like a "W." The Boeing project ran from 1992 through 1999.
The plane, which looks like something that should be flying -- and probably once did -- at the super-secret Area 51 Nevada test range, helped Boeing pioneer stealth technology and new and more-affordable ways to design and build airplanes.

The classified project ran from 1992 through 1999, and Boeing said it decided to make the aircraft public because the technologies that were demonstrated have become industry standards.

"With this aircraft we changed the rules on how to design and build an aircraft, and what we've learned is enabling us to provide our customers with affordable, high-performing products," said Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive of Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems.

The Bird of Prey was unveiled at a ceremony in St. Louis, home of Boeing's fighter jet programs. Among those attending were Air Force Secretary James Roche and Air Force Chief of Staff John Jumper. A Boeing spokesman said the craft will now go "back under wraps," although Boeing is exploring other "opportunities" of how it might be displayed.

"There are restrictions on what we can say," the spokesman said.

The single-seat, subsonic jet made 38 test flights as part of its flight demonstration program, Boeing said.

It was developed by the McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works organization, where many black, or secret, projects for the military ended up, just as they did at the famed Lockheed Martin Skunk Works.

The Boeing Co.
The Bird of Prey plane is named after a Klingon spacecraft in "Star Trek."
Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas in 1997, a year after the Bird of Prey made its first flight in the fall of 1996. Even though Boeing Phantom Works still has black programs that the company can't talk about or even reveal, the organization has become a powerful technology research and development arm for the entire company, including commercial airplanes.

The $67 million cost of the Bird of Prey project was paid by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing.

The program was among the first in the industry to initiate the use of large, single-piece composite structures, low-cost disposable tooling and 3-D virtual reality design and assembly processes, Boeing said.

This technology was used by Boeing when it developed its Joint Strike Fighter demonstration jets. The hallmark of that program was affordability -- developing new design and production methods that would greatly reduce the cost of manned fighters.

Boeing has taken that a step further with the X-45 Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle that it is developing with the Air Force. The X-45, which recently made its maiden flight, drew heavily on technology demonstrated by the Bird of Prey, Boeing said.

The Bird of Prey is 47 feet long with a 23-foot wing at the rear that is shaped like a "W." Powered by the same Pratt & Whitney engine used on the Citation business jet, the Bird of Prey has a maximum speed of about 300 mph and a maximum altitude of about 20,000 feet.

The cockpit is located just in front of the jet engine air intake on top of the plane.

More details about the program can be found on Boeing's Web site, www.boeing.com Popular Science magazine has additional Boeing-supplied photos, at www.popsci.com/birdofprey

P-I aerospace reporter James Wallace can be reached at 206-448-8040 or jameswallace@seattlepi.com

If the photo doesn't appear,I beleive it was a Seattle newspaper article. Thanks again.

posted 10-28-2002 07:30 AM            

That is some weirdo fueselage that is made out of god knows what if it is indeed real.Definately not carbon fiber or kevalr!