Aurora?

[Airshow_lover]

I'm sure its been posted before but,

Anyone have any comments in this mysterious plane called the"Aurora"?

(or area 51 just for fun )

[town]

Go on google earth, look 60 odd miles north northwest and you should spot the Groom Lake Facility (Area 51).

There are also some other intersting things like Davis Monthan Airbase (military boneyard) Tucson south east,
(I think) Edwards Airforce Base north of LA and if you look in that general vacinity you will also find Majave airport (another boneyard for civil stuff) and Lockheeds Palmdale Skunkworks (with a B2 on the apron and a stealth fighter to the south.

Gordon

[C]

Anyone have any comments in this mysterious plane called the"Aurora"?

Nope... If I was able to comment, I'd have to shoot you...

Having said that, I think "Aurora" has done well to help all the toy and model aeroplane manufacturers who produced models of the "aircraft"...

[TacitBlue]

*looks around suspiciously*
I wouldn't know...



No really, I wouldn't.

Actually, I don't think there is such a thing, and if there is, we'll find out eventually.

[Radopilot]

*pulls out a gun* SILENCE FOR ONE SECOND!!!!!! I AM WITH THE GOVERNMENT!!!!!!!! *whispers discreetly, (the aurora is real, lookie here;http://www.dreamlandresort.com under black projects, just ignore the Lockheed nut)* Now you all must die!!!!!!! YOU HAVE JUST BEEN POISENED, ONLY KATAHU AND HIS JOY DRUGS CAN SAVE YOU NOW, MUAHAHAHAHH!

[Airshow_lover]

ONLY KATAHU AND HIS JOY DRUGS CAN SAVE YOU NOW, MUAHAHAHAHH!

Phewww....I got the last case!

*passes out to town, charlie and tacitblue*

[Mynameisnemo]

i actually posted something about this a while ago, i'll have to do a bit of digging to find the thread but i'll post it here.

[Red_Kite]

Some reading here:

http://www.fas.org/irp/mystery/aurora.htm

Various strange contrails have been reported around the world and one was picked up on a weather satellite image. I'll see if I can find it. From the contrails it is believed that the top-secret plane is using a kind of pulse jet rather than a conventional turbo jet or ram jet, although as far as I know it is still all speculation!  :)

[-sam-]

Aurora or not.. what really interrests me.
During the development of the SR-71 and F-117..
have there been conspiracy theories about mysterious
Black Planes ? Here are a lot of older people who are into aviation and read magazines.. and so on. So I wonder
did something like the aurora hype existed durring
the development of the two planes ? Like blurry
photos and stuff like that.. that turned out to be true ?

[Chris_F]

I'm not old enough to remember the days when the SR71 or U2 were classified.  I do remember the first time we heard about the F117, although I forget the circumstances.  In the years just prior to the F117 becoming public knowledge there were rumors of stealth fighters that couldn't be seen on radar.  Some thought this was the "F19", there was even a video game (a really good one, I might add).  Most folks "in the know" thought the F19 looked something like that D21 drone thing they used to deploy off the SR71.

Then IIRC there was an F117 crash somewhere and we started seeing the first real images of the actual bird, but even at this point we didn't see real F117 pictures, just photos of the Have Blue, the prototype of the F117.  Although it wasn't long after that that we started to see the F117 "in the flesh" so to speak.  My guess is that the powers that be (I think this involves the smoking man from the X-files) decided to declassify the F117 before we had any inkling of the "F19".

One part of me thinks that if the government doesn't want you to know about something you won't know about it.  The other part of me realizes that the government couldn't even cover up a simple burglary like the Watergate break-in.  And after a couple years working for a defense contractor I'm left with the impression that the government and fabled "military industrial complex" would get mired in burocracy and sensless paperwork long before they could concoct a super-duper top secret whichamathing.  Nevermind keep it secret at that "base which doesn't exist", which we all can see on Google Earth as "Area 51".

[Chris_F]

After reading the referenced "dreamlandresort" website about the F117 I now remember the two insances where the F117 became public knowledge.  The first images were aparently in 1988, which seems about right as I remember being about Junior High age at the time.  The first public acknowledgement was when the aircraft was used in the Panama conflict in 1989, which I do remember.  

As a young guy I thought it odd that the Pentagon photos in '88 looked nothing like the "Stealth Figther" being paraded around in magazines.  Heck, there were even plastic models of the "F19" being sold.  The funny thing is I remember them all being very similar to eachother.  It's as if the entire birdwatching industry had slowly come to concensus that this is what the stealth fighter must look like.  It was totally wrong, but by its consistancy you'd believe (at the time) that this is what the actual aircraft must look like.

Honestly at first I thought the Air Force's photos (very fuzzy pictures, but the diamond shape of the plane was obvious) were actually a ruse to hide the real shape of the aircraft since the spy drawings of the "F19" were becoming so common.

It's kinda like the "spy photos" of next year's new cars in all the car magazines.  If you compare them to the actual cars when they debut you'll find they're almost always entirely inaccurate.  But they sell magazines so they continue to be published.

I wouldn't believe anything you think you know about stuff like this "Aurora".

[Poseidon]

Noone can say. I believe such military organizations like USAF have many secret weapons. If you think about it the technology exists more or less. I mean the known technology. After all it seems to be an aircraft able to fly very high at very high speeds with stealth ability. Does not seem really impossible. Of course it is kept secret for obvious reasons.
I don't think it is a simple reconessance plane (a spy) as this job can be fulfilled easlisy by satellites. So, whatever it is, it must be something else. This is my personal opinion.

For sure a lot of fictious stories, images and rumors are always come after such things. I even watched in a stupid TV program about Aurora someone claiming to be an aerodynamics specialist and ex-worker for the US government that Aurora is based on alien technology extracted from found (crashed) flying saucers....

A secret weapon is one thing and science fiction is another. I believe time will come for the public to know of Aurora's existence, or whatever this aircraft may be, as it came with A117.

[elite marksman]

I believe that this statement negates any information in Red_Kite's site.
"... Mach 4, 200,000-ft.-altitude aircraft that could be a follow-on to the Lockheed SR-71 strategic reconnaissance vehicle in the 1990s has been defined by the Air Force Aeronautical Systems Division and Lockheed."

Because this site's density calculator says that at just 5/8 the altitude that the Aurora was supposed to fly at, the relative air density is -0.31%*. This means that for all practical purposes, there is no significant amount air present at 200000'. No air means no pulse-jet engine and no lift for a plane. So unless they built another Orbiter that we don't know about the Aroura does not exist. Why would they build a manned orbiter that inhernently has a significant amount of risk involved with it's flight when they can build a satellite for the same, if not less cost?

[Ivan]

Aurora does exist. No doubt about it

Why?
1: Sattelites can't see everything... most of these are still on old USSR tracks, and for the ones that aren't the schedule is so well known that anyone that wants to hide something from these knows when to pack up.

2: U-2 is too vulnerable. Since the USSR shot one down with a SA-2 the US is searching for an alternative (they found it in the SR-71 for a while). Why risk a slow and brittle high-tech plane with loads of classified equipment.

3: Drones are a nice publicity stunt (cheap, nobody gets hurt, killed or captured when one is shot down, not too much classified gear onboard) but can't think. Losing a few is an option but somewhere down the line a piloted craft with the mind onboard instead of 100s of miles away is cheaper and more effective.

4: Why phase out a plane that is perfectly able to fly over any place on the world in a few hours from departure and flies above any reasonably priced air defence when you don't have a fitting replacement (same or better range, altitude, speed)

[Chris_F]

I don't think it is a simple reconessance plane (a spy) as this job can be fulfilled easlisy by satellites.

That was the reason given for the SR71's retirement.  Well, that and the high cost of fielding an SR71.  Personally though I find it hard to believe that there is no value in doing on-demand aireal photo-recon anymore.  Satelites don't cover the entire earth at all times so if something is going on at a specific time and place that's not under a satelite and you want a photo then there is a need for a platform.  It seems that this would be enough reason to keep at least one or two SR71s around "just in case" for quite some time since, though expensive, it was by all accounts effective.

SR71s overflew Libia after the first bombings to do BDA before the locals could cover up for satelite overflights.  Wouldn't such capability still be valuable?  What if there's another Cuban missile crisis type thing?  U2 photos proved pivotal during that event.

So I think there's a definite need for the capability.  They retired an aircraft which had the capability.  That's a lot of fuel for speculation about how the job is currently being done.

As for what "it" is that's doing the job today I don't expect we'll find out until the platform is obsolete.  Manned, unmanned, high speed, low speed, high altitude, flying in the weeds... some are more likely than others given our knowledge of the past platforms, technology, and challenges.  But beyond that everything is speculation.  Just like those old F19 photos and models.  In the end they were nothing like the actual plane in appearance, function, or mission.