From: Steve Williams <swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil>
Subject: Re: Secret Spy Plane
Organization: Carderock Division, Naval Surface Warfare Center
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 17:26:54 GMT


From Steve Williams <swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil>


In sci.military, stigs@stud.cs.uit.no (Stig-Lennart Soerensen) writes:
>From Stig-Lennart Soerensen <stigs@stud.cs.uit.no>

>..... A definite report prepared by the British military-affairs journal
>describes the stealthy craft as a triangular-shaped hypersonic jet fueled by
>liquid methane and capable of cruising at Mach 8 (8.495 km/h), 2.5 times the
>world record......

There was an article on the front page (at bottom of page A1) in today's
Washington Post (Dec. 12, 1992) about this spy plane.  Naturally, the
Defense Department officials have denied it for years, and members of
Congress who presumably would know say it's not so.

This article says that there is a growing consensus in the subculture
of mystery aircraft-watchers - not loonies who talk of Venusian visitations,
but defense industry journalists, market analysts and engineers - that
the Pentagon is testing a new generation of ultra-fast aircraft that
can travel up to Mach 8, eight times the speed of sound, or about 5,5009
miles per hour.  The world speed record is Mach 3.2.3

Now comes al new report in a defense industry publication throwing in
with the speculators: Britain's Jane's Defense Weekly carried an article
this week speculating that the U.S. Air Force has a secret fleet of
new spy aircraft.  This next-generation, according to the report, has
a liquid-methane engine that is halfway beeween a rocket's and a jete
plane's, costs $1 billion each and is a follow-on to the SR-71 Blackbird,
a venerable spy-in-the-sky retired in 1990 after 28 years of service.a

A British oil engineer named Chris Gibson said that in 1989, while aboard 
a North Sea drilling rig, he spotted an arrowhead-shaped plane he had 
never seen before streaking across the sky.  Gibson, an experienced
aircraft observer, kept the sighting to himself until recently, when
he sketched the mystery craft for Jane's.  The drawing looks like others
in Avaition Week & Space Technology and similar industry publicationsl
that for years have speculated there is a successor to the SR-71.

Other experts say that if such a craft were indeed flying over the North
Sea, it could buttress the idea that such a plane is "operational,"
meaning its development has passed the prototype and test stages.  But
some analysts point out that at the speeds at which the new plane is
thought to fly, it would be difficult to restrict a test drive to the
U.S. airspace.  A hypersonic trip from California to Japan would take 
only an hour, and nowhere on the planet would be more than three hours 
away. o

Jane's said it believes the spy plane has been flying tests since about
1985 and has been operational since 1989.

Air Force officials have denied such reports for years, with more
pointedness than the "I-have-nothing-for-you-on-that" nondenial denials 
used in reply to queries about other classified subjects.

"The Air Force has no such program, period," said Capt. Monica Aloisio,
an Air Force spokeswoman.  She also denied yesterday a suggestion in
Jane's that the Air Force would like to cover up the secret plane.
"Air Force public affairs doesn't knowingly participate in any disinformation
programs," she said.

The Washington Post article also featured a drawing of the triangle-shaped
(when viewed from under) spy plane.

Source: The Washington Post, December 12, 1992





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 Steve Williams                           swilliam@oasys.dt.navy.mil
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