Message posted by Mark on June 28, 2006 at 22:42:21 PST:
Hi, guys, Warmest Regards,
Regarding the subject of "flying triangles", there are multiple catagories of aircraft with a somewhat triangular shape. The largest would be the "Stealth Blimp" or LTAV (Lighter-Than-Air-Vehicle)
which were based on an original concept by the founder of Aereon Corporation in New Jersey (and patented). The design was called the Aereon Dynairship. Being a small company with little funding, the Air Force basically stole the design and gave the challenge of building a prototype to Lockheed's LTAV division based somewhere near Columbus, Ohio. Their design, essentially the same as the Aereon Dynairship, was called the STOL-340, having a length of something like 475 feet and more or less triangular. Its cross section lengthwise would look like the chord of a wing. Subsequent versions were said to be 600 feet or more in length, and I have interviewed at least a half dozen witnesses who have seen this vehicle near the Northrop RCS (Radar Cross Section) test range in the foothills of the Tehachapee Mountains northwest of Lancaster and Palmdale in the early 1990's and other locations, such as the mountains south of Edwards AFB near the ski resort in the mountain community of Wrightwood. Other sightings have been just south of Edwards AFB itself. During a conference call with several Lockheed personnel based at the Ohio LTAV division, (during the course of illustrating another story for PM entitled "Return of the Battle Blimps", it was disclosed to me that these programs were "still very much alive" as of that date, (around 2001).
The hull on this updated "blimp" was said to be a "ridged hull" of a composite material, and internal compartmentalization using silica-based aerogels and bulkheads was the solution to prevent
bringing the vehicle down with bullet holes. The original Aereon Dynairship Patent called for externally-mounted propellers and engine nacelles. The STOL-340 and subsequent variants used internally mounted turbofan jet engines with vectored thrust and acoustic noise cancellation for silent operation.
Lift capability was immense. The vehicles could easily lift a complete mechanized Army division, if the sizes reported are accurate. To help you visualize the concept, a hot air balloon the size of a city bus will lift a 500 pound Chevrolet big block engine. Just scale that up to something 600 feet long, 120 feet thick and 400 feet wide (at the widest part).
The second catagory of Triangular aircraft is in fact the TR-3A, which is very similar to the three view drawing shown in the TR-3A link given earlier. Those drawings were part of an article I illustrated for Popular Mechanics some years ago, and the image was lifted directly from my copyrighted art without my permission. As a humorous aside, the first Squadron to fly this platform used that same artwork in their squadron patch.. (I've seen one!) The design did vary somewhat from the information I was given initially to illustrate the cover and story art about this aircraft. It was in fact built, (a McDonnell-Douglas product) --now Boeing, and the first aircraft were launched between 1991 and 1993 from the MD aircaft factory near Long Beach in the wee hours of the morning. (I interviewed a witness, who was a fire systems consultant to MD at the time). My witness stated that they appeared to be conventionally powered jet aircraft. The first active squadrom was based at Tonopah, where early flight training began, with several squadrons being redeployed from that location in later years.
The third catagory of "triangular aircraft" is one I have only been made aware of more recently, and it is a platform that has been deployed in several different sizes. The smallest size, is about 19 feet long, 9 feet wide and resembles a very shallow, three-sided pyramid. There are three white spheres partially embedded within the underside of the fuselage at each corner, each being held in place by three sets of forked "clasps" that are silver in color. The surface of these spheres is striated vertically, (like a pumpkin) and each striation has a rasp-like scaling like the texture of the upper side of a scallop shell. The backbone of the aircraft is flat with the widest part being at the apex directly above the cockpit, which accommodates a two-member flight crew. The canopy strongly resembles that of the F-117A, and the lower edge of the canopy hatch itself is cut in a sawtooth pattern for reduced RCS. The entire craft is made of a carbon-kevlar-like composite material, with a fine wire mesh embedded within the skin. The craft employs an advanced flight control system based on the Biefield-Brown Effect, and may postdate the F-113G which was said to employ an "anti-gravity" propulsion system but was shaped like a stubby surfboard having a V-shaped pair of vertical stabilizers and a single ventral stabilizer, according to a recent disclosure by a retired Lockheed engineer familiar with the program. This vehicle was also said to have a large toroidal shaped coil at its center, probably part of a massive Tesla Coil for ultra-high voltages used in the capacitors of the propulsion system.
Word of this last aircraft type came to me from a former Special Forces soldier who was assigned to a detachment of the 160th SOAR, 10th Group out of Fort Sam Houston. He was part of a crash recovery team when one of these vehicles crash landed northeast of Halle-Leipzig, East Germany on 4 May, 1989 at about 1 AM local time. The crash was due to pilot error. The pilot had clipped the top of a pine tree while flying nap-of-the-earth, and cresting a ridge near the crash site. The impact broke the rear third of the fuselage upward, giving it an appearance something like an odd scorpion. The rear white sphere became detached from the rest of the vehicle, and several Army rangers were sent to recover this object as it continued to float around the hillside near the crash for hours afterward. The sphere and most of the avionics of the aircraft were extracted in modules, as were other key components. The balance of the fuselage was burned on site with several thermite grenades. The recovered sphere was captured in an aluminum equipment locker and removed from the site at the end of a 100 foot synthetic lanyard suspended below a specially shielded CH-53 Super Stallion. Air Cover was provided by one fully armed Apache helocopter.
There are several reports here in the U.S. and throughout Europe of larger triangular-shaped vehicles of this type. Some estimated to be about 300 feet on the longer sides. The most notable characteristic of this vehicle from the standpoint of identification is that it flies "base forward". That is to say, its forward-facing edge is the shortest of the three sides of the triagle. It looks like an arrowhead flying backwards. The design itself implies that the vehicle employs stealth technology, but its flight envelope is unknown. Other witnesses have said that it was absolutely silent while in operation.
Mark McCandlish
In Reply to: Re: those traingle things again posted by Sundog on June 28, 2006 at 22:19:28 PST:
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