black predator


Message posted by will on July 07, 2003 at 22:57:21 PST:

Janes reports on the existance on a black predator version for deep penetration surveillance roles .

I didn't get the chance to read the full extract but its another interesting item.

Finally, if anyone is interested, a few years ago (2000/2001) in a local Australian journal 'aircraft&aerospace' an aviation journalist here visited Boeing along with a few other Aussie journalists as at the time Boeing was pitching the F-18E and later the X-32 as a RAAF F-18A/F-111C replacement.

Anyway, the execs at Boeing were pretty gung ho and took the Aussies down to palmdale in a 717 for a look at the X-32, and as the plane was landing, the writer saw next to a hangar, a sr-71, a U-2 and a small aircraft he described as a 'baby B-2' parked next to the hangar .
The writer even acknowledged this fact in his article when he saw the baby b-2 near the sr-71 and u-2 and he must have gotten a real surprise as he looked out the window of the 717.

The tone of the article suggested the people at palmdale were caught on the hop as they were not expecting the execs to show up with the Aussies.

The writer is an experienced aviation writer here, and has been in the business for well over 15 years I'd say. It may have been an ordinary B-2, but he was definite in his description of it as a baby b-2 on the ground near the sr-71 and u-2.

I wrote to the man, when I read this asking him to give more detail but never got a reply... sigh.
At the time I thought it may have been the mythical Tr-3a or perhaps a subscale b-2 prototype that was suggested 20 years ago, but he never replied.

If anyone likes, I'll look up the article again if you have any questions.

Glad to be of help,

Best wishes from Australia.
Will.


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