Message posted by phil on August 05, 2004 at 22:33:30 PST:
G'day Chris, Mate I have exhausted every avenue to try and find some link (any link) to the mini-B2 seen at Palmdale in 2000. The article then goes on to describe the walk arouund of the two X-32 aircraft the Mr Carman and others came to see. My reading is that as they flew in they saw this mini B-2 parked by a hangar and further along was a U-2, they may well have then entered this very hangar to see the X-32 aircraft. I have no evidence to link the two reports, but I reason that these are the same aircraft, a scaled down B-2 like aircraft, subsonic, used for wide area surveillance with LO features and manned .
The only option I have is to print out the relevant section and hope some brighter person can have more success than I ( likely as I'm basically a 'dumb guy' heh heh). I've covered this before but I think its worth a closer look as its quite revealing.
P.43 Aircraft & Aerospace Sept 2000 by the noted Australian Aviation writer Gerry Carman....
" A&A recently flew into the restricted Boeing facility at Palmdale(inherited when it bought Rockwell), at the edge of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angele, where the X-32A and X-32B were being assembles and tested only weeks before the first flight.
Flying in on a B717 chartered by Boeing and seeing what appeared to be a scaled down version of the B2 stealth bomber beside one hangar and the latet version of the high-flying U-2, with its massive wing span parked further along- with an Sr-71 Blackbird and other types across the other side of the airfield- reinforced the importance of the facility which has been home to many of the U.S 'black' programmes".
This was at a time where Boeing was trying to interest our RAAF into buying the F-18E and the X-32 to replace our F-18A and F-111C/G fleet.
The tone of the article suggests that a few Aussie aviation journo's were visiting Boeing and they were given the grand tour by the execs to make a stronger case for a possible sale.
So they went to St Louis to look at the F-18E and then they were escorted to Palmdale to lok at the X-32's.
One get the impression that its was impromptu and no-one at Palmdale was aware that the execs and the Aussie journo's were coming.
Hence no attempt to hide the "scaled down B-2", it may be possible that this unknown aircraft was right beside the X-32 hangar the visitors entered as that is the next paragraph Mr Carman discusses...
"Entering the otherwise undistinguished looking hangar building, the two technology demonstrators, both wearing a coat of special paint over their composite....structures, stood adjacent so that their unique, deep, pelican-like gullets... were only metres apart".
Is it a Boeing or a Rockwell aircraft?.
Could it be a subscale prototype for the B-2, or even the THAP design by Northrop?.
Perhaps its a more recent design?.
There is an addendum to this story from the European journal 'Interavia' in June 2001 where Bill Sweetman writes "....witness a test conducted by boeing last June (2000) under its JSF conceptdemonstration programme. Boeing's 737-based Avionics Flying Laboratory (AFL) acted as a surrogate fro the JSF, with representative sensors and displays.
A target was detected by an off-board platform-which Boeing, interestingly, declines to identify, although its function was apparently wide area survellance - and the AFL then used its sensors to refine the target's position. This data was then passed to an F-15E, which put a JDAM accurately on target without using any of its own sensors".
Flying in mid 2000 and linked to Boeing now.
It may be the USAF "special platform" that was in the DARO papers in the late '90's and its function is similar to the axed Darkstar UAV where it penetrates enemy terrain and does wide area recce.
The RQ-4 has greater range, so perhaps thats why it survived and the less needed Darkstar was axed and few really complained.
Perhaps a manned aircraft already could do much of Darkstar's work and was already extant or closer to operation than the Darkstar.
Its a bit of a jigsaw and admittedly I am putting my own interpretation on these reports, but I do point out that there are linkages in terms of time, company and location in addition to role similarity to the U-2 which was parked nearby- recce.
Thats the best fit of the data I can fathom but I'd be glad to hear of what others think on this matter and if anyone has other ideas. Gerry Carman still writes for the Aussie journal A&A but he never replied to a letter I wrote to him on his sighting.
That was late in 2000 though and I don't like getting snubbed so I never pushed it, still it has remained in my memory where I've pondered the sighting and role as you can see.
I hope thats of some interest to you and other correspondents here and look forward to your views.
Cheers mate,
Phil
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