Erm… guess what plane it is or somth else?
With the first glance you can see a plane and it’s shadow.
Seriously though, don’t get the point of this post.
@jim Masterson – not quite ‘straight up’, their thrust-to-weight ratio isn’t that good, but they can pull a pretty steep AoA without standing on their tail.
Best to get up and over the SFO class B as quickly as you can.
wws
May 5, 2011 9:46 am
the point: it’s cool! I love watching the skies, and spotted something fun a couple weeks ago. I’m in East Texas, heard an unusual jet engine whine (unlike modern commercial craft) so I looked up, and saw the silhouette of an F-100 SuperSabre! My first thought was “my god, who’s still got one of those in flying condition??”
Did some searching and found out that the Collings Foundation, out of Houston, has just recently restored one of these and put it on tour – this was almost certainly the one I saw, since it looks like there are only 2 flying F-100’s left in the world today.
Chuckles
May 5, 2011 9:49 am
Five years ago the Register had a similar pic of one of the Eurostar high speed trains arriving at Waterloo station in London from Google Earth.
Owing to the mosaicing of the sat images and the train being split across two of them, the results were ripe for the Registers unique brand of reporting – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/09/stealth_train/
Adam Gallon
May 5, 2011 9:58 am
“Duxford is at Duxford, just south of Cambridge. Home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight”
Wrong. The BBMF is based at Conningsby, Lincolnshire.
I remember, many years ago, driving up the A1 at almost sunset. As I approached the junction with the A14, I saw the silhouette of a plane, huge wingspan, so long I thought it was a jet airliner. As it turned, I saw it was a U2/TR1. Only one I’ve ever seen live, I don’t think we’ve even got one in a museum in the UK.
Kent Draper
May 5, 2011 10:06 am
There is a once classified place on Okinawa called OL8. The SR71’s were nicknamed the “Habu” for a snake there. We used to watch them taxi to the end of the runway and then do a quick vertical launch and be gone 🙂
When I was at Beale, they would sometimes do flyovers that almost broke windows. I believe they have 7 stages of afterburners. Wonderful aircraft, faster than the fastest. Anytime some other aircraft would claim a record, they would send up an SR and not only beat that record but add a bunch to it. I never found out just how fast they could actually fly. Fun times 🙂
Mike M
May 5, 2011 10:28 am
I searched on “U-2” with an image size 192 x 162 and came up with this. So even though it does seem to fit the profile of a U-2 from above and it’s shadow on the ground it’s actually just a duck.
Alexander
May 5, 2011 10:50 am
Well how about a giant skeleton hundreds of yards long
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmp68Er0ZVc ] REPLY: seriously? This is just as much junk as the face on Mars that only exists under certain lighting conditions. – Anthony
Larry Sheldon
May 5, 2011 11:04 am
Classified? Really?
In the early 1960’s I was learning to fly at the Van Nuys airport (at the time the busiest airport in the world) — it was also and ANG base, so you be working with KC97’s and I forget what all from the Guard.
Add to all that all kinds of light aircraft traffic, Lear jets, and a U2 in and out of the Lockheed facility there.
In my first solo I was “cleared to land behind the U2, caution the Lear jet on base behind you” or something like that.
I don’t remember the numbers anymore and I’m too lazy to look them up, but the U2, being a jet engine with sail plane wings attached (and only a single double-wheel landing gear amidships) landed at something like 80 knots, my Cherokee landed at something like 100 knots, and the Lear something like 200.
I said “roger, how about I make a left 360 and follow the Lear?”
dave ward
May 5, 2011 11:06 am
@ur momisugly jasmr & Hector Pascal – you might be interested in this video of the B52 landing at Duxford.
MinB
May 5, 2011 11:15 am
I grew up in Yuba City near Beale AFB and remember when the SR-71 started flying. We kids called it the Bat Plane. Loved the sonic booms too. I don’t remember the locals complaining, guess we all felt like we were in on some great secret. Doesn’t look at all like the SR-71 of my memory, so I’m placing my bet on a different plane and its shadow.
Larry Sheldon
May 5, 2011 11:41 am
While the U2 flew like a sail plane for landing it flew more like an Atlas on take off–once stuff stopped falling off of it on the runway. Seems like its take-off clearance was something like “Coldstream [I think that was its callsign] cleared for take off, contact Los Angeles Center on 14[something]point[something] now”. (The normal sequence would be for most IFR aircraft would be “Cleared for take off”, followed by “contact Burbank Departure control on ….” and maybe some more frequency changes from Departure, then a change to Los Angeles Center.)
1DandyTroll
May 5, 2011 12:12 pm
Yes it be Mr “big boned” Gore and his pansy “business” partner The Hip Smurfey Blue Hip Smurf Director flying around acting green way up in the blue, all fancy, playing hostile invasion force “aptly” named Baron von Stuka (aka th einside joke diving for pleasure).
Richard
May 5, 2011 12:51 pm
I might be being awkward but my impression is that it is two different aircraft. A U-2 to the lower right and one of the extended wing B-57s to the upper left. If I am correct then the fact that the B-57 (aka Canberra) is still flying is more remarkable than the later U-2.
My guess it is a plane flying over the brown area and its shadow is on the gray area. Type of plane? Maybe a glider.
John
REPLY: Try clicking on the link – Anthony
SteveSadlov
May 5, 2011 2:27 pm
I used to watch them taking off. As noted by others, like a rocket.
John Silver
May 5, 2011 3:49 pm
RayG says:
May 5, 2011 at 7:24 am @John Silver, did you forget the F-104? I think that it was also a Lockheed Skunk Works bird.
No, I just don’t want to think about it. I rather think about the unsung hero; the P-38.
DDP
May 5, 2011 5:27 pm
There’s another U2 in flight over Kuwait if you look around in the NE, I can’t remember exactly where though.
1DandyTroll
May 5, 2011 5:32 pm
Come to think of it, but only nazi’s called their flying contraption U anything and only one present day group self proclaimed greenie (communist) hippie’s called themselves you too.
IAmDigitap
May 5, 2011 5:55 pm
Knowing, Anthony’s wife’s from around Marysville, and knowing it was a U2, and that they are flown @ur momisugly Beale, I guessed, successfully, the U2 @ur momisugly Beale answer.
IAmDigitap
May 5, 2011 6:23 pm
Also, I’m experimenting, with expanding the usage, of commas, for art’s sake. I’m developing an ENTIRE NEW BRANCH of MATHEMATICS derived from regular college statistics that of course no one else can understand, and I expect you’ll all accept my calculations on comma usage, and agree, we all have to stop using fire.
Because of course, excessive commas, while in the electronic realm, represent energy NOT used typically, those on paper, which my M.G.C.C. (M.a.g.i.c. M.o.d.e.l) likens unto clouds because they’re both white, and the trees paper comes from make ok proxies if you hold the paper up to a chunk of rock candy and look at it under sunlight.
I use comma math in commatology a lot. I even teach it to other people and guess what?
It’s, worse, than, we, thought, even, though, the, math, isn’t, real.
You see the ends of those commas, pointing D.O.W.N?
Ya know why THAT is? Because commatology and climatology have BOTH INDEPENDENTLY CALCULATED that the SAME POWERS makin them PHOTONS turn around and go DOWN, in the Back Radiation,
is makin them comma ends turn downwards.
Ya see how that works? That thayur’s called sients.
Yessir and boy howdy ya’ll all ought to thank us CommaClimaKarmaTologists fer our discoverin that at SOME point – we cain’t rillie say WHUR: them gravaties is ‘a RUVERsIN: and a makin them energies, and them comma tips, turn RIT arount and go DOWN’rdz, twardz thu GRAYouND!
sEE!
That’s cause ya’ll ain’t COMMATOLOGISTS!
Anyway back to muh ruserch.
Duster
May 5, 2011 6:51 pm
AleaJactaEst says:
May 5, 2011 at 5:56 am
…
It’s not black so you’ve nothing to worry about.
Erm… guess what plane it is or somth else?
With the first glance you can see a plane and it’s shadow.
Seriously though, don’t get the point of this post.
I had the honor of working on the U2 sensor systems (ASARS-2) for 25 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASARS-2
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/22plane.html
@jim Masterson – not quite ‘straight up’, their thrust-to-weight ratio isn’t that good, but they can pull a pretty steep AoA without standing on their tail.
Best to get up and over the SFO class B as quickly as you can.
the point: it’s cool! I love watching the skies, and spotted something fun a couple weeks ago. I’m in East Texas, heard an unusual jet engine whine (unlike modern commercial craft) so I looked up, and saw the silhouette of an F-100 SuperSabre! My first thought was “my god, who’s still got one of those in flying condition??”
Did some searching and found out that the Collings Foundation, out of Houston, has just recently restored one of these and put it on tour – this was almost certainly the one I saw, since it looks like there are only 2 flying F-100’s left in the world today.
Five years ago the Register had a similar pic of one of the Eurostar high speed trains arriving at Waterloo station in London from Google Earth.
Owing to the mosaicing of the sat images and the train being split across two of them, the results were ripe for the Registers unique brand of reporting –
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/09/stealth_train/
“Duxford is at Duxford, just south of Cambridge. Home of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight”
Wrong. The BBMF is based at Conningsby, Lincolnshire.
I remember, many years ago, driving up the A1 at almost sunset. As I approached the junction with the A14, I saw the silhouette of a plane, huge wingspan, so long I thought it was a jet airliner. As it turned, I saw it was a U2/TR1. Only one I’ve ever seen live, I don’t think we’ve even got one in a museum in the UK.
There is a once classified place on Okinawa called OL8. The SR71’s were nicknamed the “Habu” for a snake there. We used to watch them taxi to the end of the runway and then do a quick vertical launch and be gone 🙂
When I was at Beale, they would sometimes do flyovers that almost broke windows. I believe they have 7 stages of afterburners. Wonderful aircraft, faster than the fastest. Anytime some other aircraft would claim a record, they would send up an SR and not only beat that record but add a bunch to it. I never found out just how fast they could actually fly. Fun times 🙂
I searched on “U-2” with an image size 192 x 162 and came up with this. So even though it does seem to fit the profile of a U-2 from above and it’s shadow on the ground it’s actually just a duck.
Well how about a giant skeleton hundreds of yards long
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmp68Er0ZVc ]
REPLY: seriously? This is just as much junk as the face on Mars that only exists under certain lighting conditions. – Anthony
Classified? Really?
In the early 1960’s I was learning to fly at the Van Nuys airport (at the time the busiest airport in the world) — it was also and ANG base, so you be working with KC97’s and I forget what all from the Guard.
Add to all that all kinds of light aircraft traffic, Lear jets, and a U2 in and out of the Lockheed facility there.
In my first solo I was “cleared to land behind the U2, caution the Lear jet on base behind you” or something like that.
I don’t remember the numbers anymore and I’m too lazy to look them up, but the U2, being a jet engine with sail plane wings attached (and only a single double-wheel landing gear amidships) landed at something like 80 knots, my Cherokee landed at something like 100 knots, and the Lear something like 200.
I said “roger, how about I make a left 360 and follow the Lear?”
@ur momisugly jasmr & Hector Pascal – you might be interested in this video of the B52 landing at Duxford.
I grew up in Yuba City near Beale AFB and remember when the SR-71 started flying. We kids called it the Bat Plane. Loved the sonic booms too. I don’t remember the locals complaining, guess we all felt like we were in on some great secret. Doesn’t look at all like the SR-71 of my memory, so I’m placing my bet on a different plane and its shadow.
While the U2 flew like a sail plane for landing it flew more like an Atlas on take off–once stuff stopped falling off of it on the runway. Seems like its take-off clearance was something like “Coldstream [I think that was its callsign] cleared for take off, contact Los Angeles Center on 14[something]point[something] now”. (The normal sequence would be for most IFR aircraft would be “Cleared for take off”, followed by “contact Burbank Departure control on ….” and maybe some more frequency changes from Departure, then a change to Los Angeles Center.)
Yes it be Mr “big boned” Gore and his pansy “business” partner The Hip Smurfey Blue Hip Smurf Director flying around acting green way up in the blue, all fancy, playing hostile invasion force “aptly” named Baron von Stuka (aka th einside joke diving for pleasure).
I might be being awkward but my impression is that it is two different aircraft. A U-2 to the lower right and one of the extended wing B-57s to the upper left. If I am correct then the fact that the B-57 (aka Canberra) is still flying is more remarkable than the later U-2.
I love snooping around, especially when you find stuff like this. The interesting thing about Google maps / earth is that you can get different images as you zoom in/out. Tinker AFB with an AWACS taking off – now you see it, now you don’t.
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&ll=35.402965,-97.381707&spn=0.004408,0.006899&t=h&z=1
and
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&ll=35.40296,-97.381724&spn=0.003117,0.003449&t=h&z=18
(make sure you switch to the satellite view. And it shows the AWACS over and over again as the series of photographs was taken)
And sometimes, if the camera is at an oblique angle, you can get some remarkable images such as http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&ll=35.410213,-97.3788&spn=0.001558,0.001725&t=h&z=19 which shows a beautiful side-shot of a group of B-1’s sittin’ in the sunshine.
OK small correction: the first link should be http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&ll=35.402965,-97.381707&spn=0.004408,0.006899&t=h&z=17
My guess it is a plane flying over the brown area and its shadow is on the gray area. Type of plane? Maybe a glider.
John
REPLY: Try clicking on the link – Anthony
I used to watch them taking off. As noted by others, like a rocket.
RayG says:
May 5, 2011 at 7:24 am
@John Silver, did you forget the F-104? I think that it was also a Lockheed Skunk Works bird.
No, I just don’t want to think about it. I rather think about the unsung hero; the P-38.
There’s another U2 in flight over Kuwait if you look around in the NE, I can’t remember exactly where though.
Come to think of it, but only nazi’s called their flying contraption U anything and only one present day group self proclaimed greenie (communist) hippie’s called themselves you too.
Knowing, Anthony’s wife’s from around Marysville, and knowing it was a U2, and that they are flown @ur momisugly Beale, I guessed, successfully, the U2 @ur momisugly Beale answer.
Also, I’m experimenting, with expanding the usage, of commas, for art’s sake. I’m developing an ENTIRE NEW BRANCH of MATHEMATICS derived from regular college statistics that of course no one else can understand, and I expect you’ll all accept my calculations on comma usage, and agree, we all have to stop using fire.
Because of course, excessive commas, while in the electronic realm, represent energy NOT used typically, those on paper, which my M.G.C.C. (M.a.g.i.c. M.o.d.e.l) likens unto clouds because they’re both white, and the trees paper comes from make ok proxies if you hold the paper up to a chunk of rock candy and look at it under sunlight.
I use comma math in commatology a lot. I even teach it to other people and guess what?
It’s, worse, than, we, thought, even, though, the, math, isn’t, real.
You see the ends of those commas, pointing D.O.W.N?
Ya know why THAT is? Because commatology and climatology have BOTH INDEPENDENTLY CALCULATED that the SAME POWERS makin them PHOTONS turn around and go DOWN, in the Back Radiation,
is makin them comma ends turn downwards.
Ya see how that works? That thayur’s called sients.
Yessir and boy howdy ya’ll all ought to thank us CommaClimaKarmaTologists fer our discoverin that at SOME point – we cain’t rillie say WHUR: them gravaties is ‘a RUVERsIN: and a makin them energies, and them comma tips, turn RIT arount and go DOWN’rdz, twardz thu GRAYouND!
sEE!
That’s cause ya’ll ain’t COMMATOLOGISTS!
Anyway back to muh ruserch.
AleaJactaEst says:
May 5, 2011 at 5:56 am
…
It’s not black so you’ve nothing to worry about.