According to a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense, a U.S. spyplane flying over the Sea of Japan, in international airspace, near Russia’s eastern border, was involved in two near collisions with passenger planes in a matter of a few hours.
According to the State-controlled media outlet Sputnik News and to the Interfax agency, Defense Ministry spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov acknowledged that American spy planes conduct flights along eastern Russia daily, but “this time, while maneuvering along the international air route, the US spy plane created a real threat of collision for passenger aircraft, which could lead to catastrophic consequences.”
The Russian spokesman criticized the American aircrew for their “unprofessional actions” that could lead to a disaster while the Russian Defense Ministry has summoned a US defense attaché calling for an immediate explanation of the incident.
The near-misses involved a Swiss and a KLM flights.
The Pentagon is unflinchingly tight-lipped about any new, high tech planes it has in the works. But every so often, a bit of information manages to squeak out into the public domain.
In 2013, the U.S. Air Force sent a secret spy plane out over the Pacific region. The unknown aircraft – possibly a drone – flew “national collection missions” – a euphemism for strategic intelligence against states like North Korea or China.
It was one of five different types of aircraft flying these missions. The Pentagon’s top headquarters asked the flying branch to use its U-2 Dragon Ladies and RC-135V/W Rivet Joints to take high resolution pictures and scoop up radio chatter, according to an official history of the Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency – a.k.a. AFISRA – for that year.
“Other USAF aircraft flying national collection missions included the RC-135U Combat Sent, the RC-135S Cobra Ball and the aforementioned [redacted],” the history stated.
War Is Boring obtained the heavily redacted historical review through the Freedom of Information Act. In 2014, the flying branch renamed AFISRA to the 25th Air Force.
[...]
So what is the mystery aircraft? The blacked-out portion of the document suggests the missing portion is five to seven characters long. With that in mind, the super secret RQ-170 Sentinel – a six character designation that would fit in the redacted segment – is one possibility.
[...]
Of course, the censored plane could be something entirely new. For decades, the Pentagon and the CIA have repeatedly acknowledged advanced aircraft projects — after the fact — only to decline to release any significant information about them.
Descriptions of China's reported hypersonic aircraft appear similar to the US SR-71 Blackbird strategic reconnaissance aircraft, pictured. (Internet photo)
China may have recently conducted a successful test of the fastest hypersonic aircraft in the world, reports Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao.
According to a report released Friday on the official website of state-owned aerospace and defense giant Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), one of its test flight centers has completed an initial test flight on an unspecified high-altitude, super-fast aircraft with a "unique flying style."
Though the report was deleted shortly after, military analysts believe it is likely that China is developing a new hypersonic aircraft that can travel at five times the speed of sound.
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works is designing a next-generation high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) surveillance airplane, known internally as RQ-X or UQ-2, as an optionally-manned successor to the U-2 and Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk.
U-2 programme officials told reporters at the Skunk Works headquarters in Palmdale, California, that its engineers have been mulling designs for stealthy HALE platform that would combine the best of the U-2 and its unmanned rival, the Global Hawk.
The advanced research and development arm of Lockheed is essentially pursuing an improved version of the U-2, which is powered by the same General Electric F118 engine and optimised to fly at 70,000ft or higher. It would carry many of the same sensors, since those are already calibrated for use at that altitude. The biggest difference will be the aircraft’s low-observable characteristics.
“Think of a low-observable U-2,” says Scott Winstead, Lockheed’s U-2 strategic development manager. “It’s pretty much where the U-2 is today, but add a low-observable body and more endurance.”
The disclosure comes on the 60th anniversary of the U-2 programme, and as stagnant defence budgets force the Pentagon to choose between retiring the U-2 or Global Hawk.
The US Air Force has no formal requirement for a U-2 successor, nor has it released a time frame for when it might start pursing a next-generation HALE platform.
The Air Force's current plans for high-altitude surveillance, keeping the decades-old U-2 flying while upgrading the new RQ-4 Global Hawk drone, will not meet the demands of the military for reconnaissance, and the service needs to start again with a new aircraft to replace both spy plans, the head of Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works said.
The Air Force's fiscal 2016 budget request will keep the U-2 flying until 2019 while funding upgrades to the Global Hawk's sensor package to put the drone on par with the aging spy plane. The move will have the drone take over the spy plane's missions in full, though the differences in capabilities means that neither aircraft can really do the other's job.
"I ask myself, when will a program be initiated, which I think will be unmanned, to replace both and do the full set of missions accomplished by both the U-2 and the Global Hawk" said Rob Weiss, the executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's advanced development programs, or Skunk Works, which originally designed the U-2.
Air Force officials have repeatedly said there is an ever-increasing demand for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance around the world. The service does not have enough operators, and is trying to upgrade its ISR fleet to keep up with demand.
"There is no opportunity to replace both of them based on current demand," Weiss said.
The Air Force had originally sought to cut it's brand-new Block 30 variants of the Global Hawk, saying the U-2 was more capable and had a cheaper cost per flight hour. The service flipped its position, and in the fiscal 2015 request tried to retire all of its U-2s, a move that Congress blocked. The compromise in the newest spending request looks to appease Congressional concerns and keep the spy plane in the air long enough to meet short-term demands of combatant commanders.
But the difference in capability will mean this plan could mean a shortfall in ISR capability, Weiss said. Northrop Grumman is developing a "universal payload adapter" to take the sensor suite from a U-2 and fix it to the drone. The $487 million project is expected to take three to four years to develop and test, according to an Air Force report to Congress.
There is technology advanced enough to be able to develop a new system to address the need for high-altitude surveillance, but now it's an issue of funding and deciding to move forward.
link.
The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of drones and manned spy planes recorded nearly 50 days’ worth of surveillance video every 24 hours in 2012, according to one former top official.
The video comprised a portion of the roughly 1.3 million megabytes of data that the Air Force’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency gathered daily, then-lieutenant general Larry James said at an industry event in April 2012.
Today James works for NASA.
The general’s remarks—and other surprising insights into the Air Force’s spying efforts—are included in the ISR Agency’s official history for 2012, a heavily-redacted copy of which War Is Boring obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
In the two years since James revealed the extent of the flying branch’s aerial spying, the Air Force has changed significantly—retiring many aircraft and adding others, all in line with the Pentagon’s shifting operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other war zones.
But it’s unlikely the aerial spies are less busy today than they were in 2012.
There was a giant upsurge in UFO sightings in the 1950s. It would not be unreasonable to blame that on the zeitgeist. Russians and rockets and Russians with rockets, coming right after the Germans aimed for the Moon but hit London. Mass psychology is a plausible explanation.
But such logic would be wrong!
link.
