UFO...?

zenno wrote: »

wrong. the F-117 flies at around 100,000 feet and it is retired but they still fly it. well it obviously wasn't what the o.p was seeing. if the F-117 could only reach an altitude of 10,000 feet then it would be the worst aircraft ever made.

Erm...
From nationalmuseum

TECHNICAL NOTES:
Armament: Up to 5,000 lbs. of assorted internal stores
Engines: Two General Electric F404-F1D2 engines of 10,600 lbs. thrust each
Crew: One
Maximum cruise speed: 684 mph
Range: Unlimited with aerial refueling
Ceiling: 45,000 ft.
Span: 43 ft. 4 in.
Length: 65 ft. 11 in.
Height: 12 ft. 5 in.
Weight: 52,500 lbs. maximum

The F-117 is classed as an ground attack or interdictor aircraft.
As such it flew at relatively low altitudes around 10,000ft right in the thick of things but aided by its low observability. It isn't even fast at just Mach ~0.3.
By all measures it was an awful aircraft aerodynamically due to it's "hopeless diamond" shape. The need to mask the radar reflections of the curved compressor blades and thermal signature at the nozzle gimped the engines. Very few aircraft can fly at 100,000ft never mind one as underpowered and cumbersome as this.

You're probably thinking of the U2 which was pretty much a jet powered glider.

maninasia wrote: »

This is an old thread, but I'd just like to point out that the US has many many experimental delta shaped aircraft among it's air force and NASA and NSA spy plane related projects.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/05/29/us-air-forces-x-37b-secret-space-plane_n_3350607.html
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/08/11/u-s-loses-contact-with-hypersonic-experimental-plane/


Also the slow flying black triangles blimp like planes are regularly observed all over the US and sometimes in the UK and the Irish Sea area.

They have a single X-37 at most, and it's a mini space shuttle, those wings are for unpowered gliding after a ballistic re-entry. And the hypersonic HTV-2 is destroyed, nor it is a delta winged aircraft - it's a lifting body at best, but most of all it's a hypersonic bullet, lift at those Mach numbers does not require wings.

Delta winged aircraft have been around since the end of WWII. I really don't see the obsession with them in conspiracy theories. It's an aerodynamic means to overcome transonic effects - which is why you see swept wings on every airliner. Once you're supersonic the shock distribution on the leading edge generates the pressure differential needed to sustain lift. Typically these aircraft need to minimize cross sectional area (Area rule or the Coke Bottle effect) so you're going to see slender fuselages and stubby or delta wings.

The likes of the B-2 is subsonic, the flying wing design reduces its side profile while a twist at the wing tips overcomes the lift induced pitching moment. There's nothing alien or magical about this, it's basic aerodynamics. Like many of these jets they are the product of a secretive X-plane program going back to the Bell X-1. Most of it is now freely available and you can go read all about it.

You always hear people come out with the usual rubbish about how they saw a thing in the sky that moved like nothing man made, yet they don't understand the first thing about what they claim to be seeing (or how they're seeing it). Or you get the other claim where people claim that the USAF/NSA/CIA have some amazeballs hypersonic spy plane fleet when DARPA **** up and crash an experimental SCRAM jet into the ocean. The reality is that the US military would love you to believe all this stuff because it makes them sound superior and scary. You're falling for their propaganda. These things cost too much and are almost worthless to any military except as one off technology demonstrators.

What they do have is mostly well documented; they're boring enough little drones that aren't particularly fast, or sexy, but they are more worrying than some black helicopters or reverse engineered UFOs. Fast jets are limited by thermodynamics. You simply cannot carry enough heavy fuel to keep your speed stupidly high and you'll eventually melt your engines as you fight against increasing compressible drag effects. Drones on the other hand are the Toyota Prius of boring stay 'up for days' glider things. They relay on basic old boring glider aerodynamics, fuel efficient engines and modern batteries (you can even build your own, they're that lowtech), and they can follow you and maybe even kill you at any time.

They're even thinking of using them as transmitters for civil communications.
You could use swarms of them to monitor traffic (even as speed cameras) or to monitor the coastlines for fisheries violations for people in trouble.
There's going to be a lot more of them so get used to lights in the sky.