I didn't even know this museum existed but it's now on my bucket list. I've been to several other museums, but none have the lineup I see in the background of this video. I didn't even know there was an intact Valkyrie left in existence, and who wouldn't want to see YF22 in person? Is this a place that can be done in a day or does it require a few to really check it all out?
@@thelonewrangler1008 There's a lot to see and a lot of walking, it took me two days. It is free though. Having a production spec F-22 and the YF-23 among others more than makes it worth it though.
@@thelonewrangler1008Been several times, and I from Ohio. If you don't want to be rushed, try and plan 2 days. The museum has 4 large hangers. An outdoor section, and a large memorial square. You can Do it in 1 day, but you may have to hurry. The good news is that it's completely free, and they have a decent size cafeteria. There is a hotel across the street so it makes it easy.
@@thelonewrangler1008it’s the best museum, having 3 of the 4 USAF 5th gens, atm only the F-22 and YF-23 are on display but they are currently restoring the X-32 to be put on display next to the YF-23
I went to the Dayton museum last year and marveled at this strange plane. I was there thanks to your vids on the XB-70 and YF-23, being a life long mil aviation nerd. Great video here, and thanks for your other stuff.
I did not know this plane still existed, let alone, was on display! Photographs appear so often of it in flight testing. I had no idea it was available to see up close! Thanks for sharing.
Wow! I've done some research on this plane and its unique shape is so it could also dive into water to avoid detection and missile attacks. It is completely amphibious and can be used as a troop carrier on beach invasions and its rounded under surface is so that it could more comfortably land inside of volcanoes for vertical take off and landings.
Very nice video on Tacit Blue. Thanks for sharing. My uncle was very much involved with the Tacit Blue Project. It was one of his pet projects. My uncle worked for the Northrop Corporation as a chemist. He came up with the radar absorbant material back in the early 1960's. It took him 10 years to convince our government how useful it could be. By 1976, the Tacit Blue Program was born. The aircraft was purpose built as a surveillance aircraft. Its odd shapes was designed to prove how well my uncle's radar absorbant material would work on curved surfaces. It proved to work quite well. His radar absorbant material was adopted for use on the Northrop B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber that is still today classified.
I enjoyed that video, thanks. Being in the Air Force back then I remember that jet. A side note, the B-2 started arriving in the Air Force in ‘93, not ‘97. I watched a fly over in ‘94 or ‘95 at Langley AFB. Very impressive.
They aren't mutually exclusive. Human engineers building technologies in deep black SAPs doesn't mean no UFO sightings are from NHIs that exist outside this planet. Electrogravitic vehicles are real from what we're slowly learning.
Thanks Paul. Quite a lot of interesting information in this one ! I certainly doubt envy your task of editing those 100 gigs of video you took. That's quite some "Steer Cred" you are building up to get access to this museum , too ! I think I might not be the only subscriber who might be a little jealous of you touring through all these museums and displays of old aircraft, rockets, bunkers, and other assorted and unique things. Thanks heaps !🎉
8:35 So there you are. The photographer is looking into the cockpit from outside the hatch and it is an upward firing ejection seat.....so that must be how the pilot entered.....from an upper hatch.
They do such a good job with that museum, and it’s still amazingly free to get in. I grew up just outside Dayton, as a teen we’d drive to Vandalia to a hobby shop then over to WPAFB and park off a street to watch planes land. That would usually be followed up with a trip to the museum and hang out all day.
While I was flying FB-111s, it was easy to identify Ford cars and trucks along busy highways...they were the ones being towed trucks by tow trucks which were usually Chevrolets or GMCs.
Paul, great as usual. This is certainly a unique aircraft and one that demands your video expertise. Two comments. One, “technically” and chronologically, the YF-12A was the fighter development of the A-12, while the SR-71 was the reconnaissance version of the YF-12A. Two, in the background of this video is one of my favourite aircraft, the Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech". I hope you do a video on this unique, and apparently VERY LOUD aircraft.
Thanks mate. Yes point taken aobut the YF-12. Yes that's the Thunderscreech in the background and while it will be featured in my whole museum video it won't get it's own separate video as I ran out of time. The museum were very kind in supervising me (so that I could jump over the barriers) for 2 hrs. Maybe I'll visit again next year and do a proper video on it :)
Paul, Love you channel. It clear you do a great deal of research for your tours, and not just read placards and Wikipedia. Would love to see you do more tours of helicopters.
I've seen this in person at the museum myself, and you cannot understate how much it looks like a wooden mock-up when you look closely at the surface! I suppose that is just due to the RAM coating and the strangely featureless skin
People on forums point out that the plane was painted with a thick layer of paint before it went on display. That's why you can't see any panels or even the cockpit door on it. An unpleasant sight...
@@MM_Legacy They likely stripped off ALL the stealth coating off the Tacit Blue before it ended up at the museum. Who knows what else they removed or altered on the airframe to foil anybody trying to steal secrets from that plane. 1) You don't want to allow a potential enemy to come up and scrape off coating to be sent back home to be analyzed in a lab! 2) For every stealth aircraft I've ever read about, the coatings were highly toxic! It's bad enough that techs have to wear hazmat gear when repainting the F-117. The B-2 has special hangars where robots do all the repaint and resurfacing for the stealth coatings; some of the cost of that plane went into building and refitting B-2 hangars with automated surfacing equipment. Part of they why haven't put nuclear-powered vehicles besides the 1950s submarine Nautilus on display is the cost of removing classified nuclear reactors and making the vehicles safe for public display! All the F-117s on display were sanitized for museums for reasons #1 and #2. Same happened here! It's unfortunate the Tacit Blue was "damaged" but that's the price of keeping some things secret.
@thewalrus6833 the cockpit door is located on the bottom, to the right side of the pilot's seat. I can't find any pictures showing it, but in the Air Force Museum's Cockpit 360 view it is clearly visible. For some reason, right now none of the Cockpit 360 views are working. Hopefully just down for maintenance.
Another great airplane museum I will never get to see 😢😢😢 Lucy you Paul I will have to see if you did a tour of this one so I can see all the planes 👍👍🇦🇺
went there last year for my vacation, it's beyond awesome. I never got the chance to see an SR-71 fly when i was in the USAF as they ended the program in 1990 when I went operational. I was able to finally see one up close at this museum and touch it, an absolutely fantastic museum to see.
Very neat! I remember isolated images of this plane being discovered and I felt people didn't know what to make of it and did not take it seriously. I did some work around Dayton and definitely should have visited this museum.
this looks like a predecessor to a vehicle captured on google earth, passing over a highway in Colorado (ifirc), but using a quadcopter style arrangement of turbines, but almost nearly this stealthy boxy shape.
Thanks for producing this little video as I've always wondered what happened to this aircraft and you answered questions I've always wondered about. Very well thought-out content...
Thank you for the video. The ATF3 has unque core flow design choices that make it inherently suited for a low thermal signature independentt of the installation design, This demonstrated to great affect on the YQM-98 and some LTO Dassault applications. ATF3 + Tacit Blue combined together to be as cool as a cucumber!
Thanks again Paul for some great footage and interesting snippets of information eg.. both engines had to be started at the same same because of the air intake arrangement. Very interesting flying machine is the Tacit Blue!
Museum is amazing and highly recommend it. If you go don’t forget to look up since a lot of displays are hung from ceiling Thank you for this video. When I saw this plane at the museum I wanted to know more but found very little on it online and on RUclips. So really happy to get more info. I felt like that about a lot of aircraft in that museum. They have an amazing collection but some of them don’t have that much info on them.
This bird was so elusive. It held the same premise of the Aurora, in that people swear it exists, but there was no hard evidence (at the time) to support it. Yet it did exist.
The museum is a must see. Plan on a long day, as there is a ton of great stuff to see. Special thanks to the bosuns - truly knowledgeable and respectable folks! For a soundtrack, i suggest The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Live at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
I remember going here when I was probably about 10 years old they had the XB-70 still sitting outside!!! I grew up in Ohio so it was only about 2 hours away
Growing up in the 80's and early 90's around Edwards Air Force Base was a great life. Edwards Dryden NASA did research on our private plane because it was accidently painted with RAM. That happened to be bought from a government auction at Rockwell in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Our airplane is also the only private airplane that had clearance to land at Groom Lake aka Area 51.
This is one of the aircraft my biological father worked on back in the 80's. I know this plane by Orca. The crew called it Orca due to the blow hole on top (air intake). I found out about Orca around 1990.
A really interesting tour video Paul, as usual. It's a bizarre and extremely unaerodynamic looking aircraft! Surely that nose could have been extended a meter or so to make it more aerodynamic??!
The air force museum is amazing! The Valkyrie behind this plane will certainly be an interesting video to watch. Although I'm really impressed by the amount of information you obtained on this weird quirky little plane, I'm less impressed by your statement on Ford vs Chevy. Everyone knows Chevy is the superior manufacturer, hence LS the world... 😂
I'm lucky enough to live only a couple hours away and visit Wright-Patt a good hand full of times a year. A good day just walking among some of the best engineering humanity has to offer.
Is that a Saab 29 hanging in the background at around 6 minutes? Such a cool little jet, (if it is.) I love these videos Paul, so much av-geek eye candy 😍😍 ... OH MY GOSH... THERE'S A THUNDERSCREECH TOO!!!!
The plane was also known as the “Flying Bathtub” too. The plane did make news when in San Fernando, California it flew over to take photos of the damages caused by the great Northridge Quake in 1994. A book came out about a week later called “4:01” which was the time of the Quake. The photos were said to be taken by the plane. One more thing is that a pilot was interviewed saying the plane was unstable. If the computer didn’t helped. The plane would not fly.
Er not quite. The aircraft, being solely constructed for aerodynamic research, never carried any cameras, and made it’s last flight in 1985, being placed into storage that year, before being revealed to the public in 1996.
Oh my God! I have been waiting for this for so long. Thank you for providing us a fascinating look at one of the weirdest looking plane to come out of the stealth airplane era.
Another very interesting video. I definitely need to visit Dayton and check out this museum (I said this after your last series of videos filmed there... but this time I will... i promise haha!)
True or not, I was under the impression it was designed to linger over a battlefield and monitor positions of enemy fortifications, tanks, and troop movements. Wasn’t it also called BSAX?
Rumor has it that it was there for several years before being declassified. It may have been moved to make room for something else even more interesting.
5+1 stars for Area 51. It's the unofficial logo for the facility, and has appeared on quite a few morale patches over the years. Search for books by Peter Merlin and Trevor Paglen for more
B-2 was not revealed in 1996 or 1997 (he said both during the video). It was rolled out in November 1988 but "revealed" to the press many months before that. In fact the existence of the program was never classified, only the details. Tacit Blue on the other hand was completely black until it was revealed in 1996.
@@PaulStewartAviation No, I mean, originally. As in, how does the pilot get into the aircraft. I don't see any obvious doors or even access ports. Thanks!
I thought the SR-71 had intentional panel gaps since air friction would heat the plane up enough to seal the panel gaps - It's why it used to take off with the minimal fuel load and then refuel once airborne at speed. I mean there's footage of one on a runway just leaking fuel all over the place whilst it was taxing. A tad worrying but I suppose they knew what they were doing.
UK and Australia must be building a B-21 class type of aircraft. Why else would Paul Stewart reference it? I've been seeing posts in the media about Avro Lancaster from defense personal in the UK and Australia.
those stealthy storm shadow and other cruise missiles being used in Ukraine (Sevastopol, Crimea) shows their stealth shape and technology easily defeats Russias best air defenses
This museum was a bucket list item for me for a decade. Finally went a week ago and will never forget it.
I didn't even know this museum existed but it's now on my bucket list. I've been to several other museums, but none have the lineup I see in the background of this video. I didn't even know there was an intact Valkyrie left in existence, and who wouldn't want to see YF22 in person? Is this a place that can be done in a day or does it require a few to really check it all out?
@@thelonewrangler1008 There's a lot to see and a lot of walking, it took me two days. It is free though. Having a production spec F-22 and the YF-23 among others more than makes it worth it though.
@@thelonewrangler1008Been several times, and I from Ohio. If you don't want to be rushed, try and plan 2 days. The museum has 4 large hangers. An outdoor section, and a large memorial square. You can Do it in 1 day, but you may have to hurry. The good news is that it's completely free, and they have a decent size cafeteria. There is a hotel across the street so it makes it easy.
We have friends in the area and have been twice now. I still feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.
@@thelonewrangler1008it’s the best museum, having 3 of the 4 USAF 5th gens, atm only the F-22 and YF-23 are on display but they are currently restoring the X-32 to be put on display next to the YF-23
I went to the Dayton museum last year and marveled at this strange plane. I was there thanks to your vids on the XB-70 and YF-23, being a life long mil aviation nerd. Great video here, and thanks for your other stuff.
I did not know this plane still existed, let alone, was on display! Photographs appear so often of it in flight testing. I had no idea it was available to see up close! Thanks for sharing.
Excellent video Paul! The USAF Museum never ever gets old. That beautiful XB-70 in the background, still makes my heart skip a beat❤
Wow! I've done some research on this plane and its unique shape is so it could also dive into water to avoid detection and missile attacks. It is completely amphibious and can be used as a troop carrier on beach invasions and
its rounded under surface is so that it could more comfortably land inside of volcanoes for vertical take off and landings.
😂😂
Very nice video on Tacit Blue. Thanks for sharing. My uncle was very much involved with the Tacit Blue Project. It was one of his pet projects. My uncle worked for the Northrop Corporation as a chemist. He came up with the radar absorbant material back in the early 1960's. It took him 10 years to convince our government how useful it could be. By 1976, the Tacit Blue Program was born. The aircraft was purpose built as a surveillance aircraft. Its odd shapes was designed to prove how well my uncle's radar absorbant material would work on curved surfaces. It proved to work quite well. His radar absorbant material was adopted for use on the Northrop B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber that is still today classified.
Thanks for the extra information! :)
TACIT Blue, not ‘Tacid’ Blue.
I enjoyed that video, thanks. Being in the Air Force back then I remember that jet. A side note, the B-2 started arriving in the Air Force in ‘93, not ‘97. I watched a fly over in ‘94 or ‘95 at Langley AFB. Very impressive.
The B-2 is a 1982 design.
My biological father worked on that project as well.
I am forced to wonder how many supposed UFOs are actually weird looking things like this
I think quite a lot are.
I agree.
They aren't mutually exclusive. Human engineers building technologies in deep black SAPs doesn't mean no UFO sightings are from NHIs that exist outside this planet. Electrogravitic vehicles are real from what we're slowly learning.
UFOs don't make jet engine sounds , don't have wings and accelerate very fast. So no, non.
@@DCrypt1 all UFO sightings are man-made craft for secret projects. That's why most sightings only appeared in USA, not anywhere else
Thanks Paul.
Quite a lot of interesting information in this one !
I certainly doubt envy your task of editing those 100 gigs of video you took.
That's quite some "Steer Cred" you are building up to get access to this museum , too !
I think I might not be the only subscriber who might be a little jealous of you touring through all these museums and displays of old aircraft, rockets, bunkers, and other assorted and unique things.
Thanks heaps !🎉
Yes it's great watching the channel grow and Paul get access to more and more museums!
The fuselage reminds me of a lifting body design. How did the pilot enter this aircraft?
Another fantastic, Mr. Stewart!
"How did the pilot enter this aircraft?"
Good question.
8:35 So there you are. The photographer is looking into the cockpit from outside the hatch and it is an upward firing ejection seat.....so that must be how the pilot entered.....from an upper hatch.
Teleportation, mostly.
The rest is classified.
😅
Another winner, Paul! Many thanks!
They do such a good job with that museum, and it’s still amazingly free to get in.
I grew up just outside Dayton, as a teen we’d drive to Vandalia to a hobby shop then over to WPAFB and park off a street to watch planes land. That would usually be followed up with a trip to the museum and hang out all day.
While I was flying FB-111s, it was easy to identify Ford cars and trucks along busy highways...they were the ones being towed trucks by tow trucks which were usually Chevrolets or GMCs.
😂😂
I need to go there again. Last time was 35 years ago.
A lot more stuff is indoors now.
It wasv35 years ago
Worth a long trip, you may need 2 days to take it in.
Because of health issues I won't make trip.
Paul, great as usual. This is certainly a unique aircraft and one that demands your video expertise. Two comments. One, “technically” and chronologically, the YF-12A was the fighter development of the A-12, while the SR-71 was the reconnaissance version of the YF-12A. Two, in the background of this video is one of my favourite aircraft, the Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech". I hope you do a video on this unique, and apparently VERY LOUD aircraft.
Thanks mate. Yes point taken aobut the YF-12. Yes that's the Thunderscreech in the background and while it will be featured in my whole museum video it won't get it's own separate video as I ran out of time. The museum were very kind in supervising me (so that I could jump over the barriers) for 2 hrs. Maybe I'll visit again next year and do a proper video on it :)
Paul, Love you channel. It clear you do a great deal of research for your tours, and not just read placards and Wikipedia. Would love to see you do more tours of helicopters.
yes there are so many channels where they use old footage and read of the wikipaedia article. Sometimes they read it word-for-word of wiki!
Nice one mate! Epic effort getting that much footage so quickly, looking forward to the coming content!
The museum was a much different place back when I first visited as a kid…circa 1963.
I've seen this in person at the museum myself, and you cannot understate how much it looks like a wooden mock-up when you look closely at the surface! I suppose that is just due to the RAM coating and the strangely featureless skin
People on forums point out that the plane was painted with a thick layer of paint before it went on display. That's why you can't see any panels or even the cockpit door on it. An unpleasant sight...
@@MM_Legacy They likely stripped off ALL the stealth coating off the Tacit Blue before it ended up at the museum. Who knows what else they removed or altered on the airframe to foil anybody trying to steal secrets from that plane.
1) You don't want to allow a potential enemy to come up and scrape off coating to be sent back home to be analyzed in a lab!
2) For every stealth aircraft I've ever read about, the coatings were highly toxic! It's bad enough that techs have to wear hazmat gear when repainting the F-117. The B-2 has special hangars where robots do all the repaint and resurfacing for the stealth coatings; some of the cost of that plane went into building and refitting B-2 hangars with automated surfacing equipment. Part of they why haven't put nuclear-powered vehicles besides the 1950s submarine Nautilus on display is the cost of removing classified nuclear reactors and making the vehicles safe for public display!
All the F-117s on display were sanitized for museums for reasons #1 and #2. Same happened here! It's unfortunate the Tacit Blue was "damaged" but that's the price of keeping some things secret.
@@MM_Legacy Aah, there was a cockpit door, I wondered how the pilot got into the aircraft.
@thewalrus6833 the cockpit door is located on the bottom, to the right side of the pilot's seat. I can't find any pictures showing it, but in the Air Force Museum's Cockpit 360 view it is clearly visible. For some reason, right now none of the Cockpit 360 views are working. Hopefully just down for maintenance.
@@rollertoaster812 Thanks, I found this on Google images - www.secretprojects.co.uk/data/attachments/47/47991-a4311e383c60943526267d8d3ebe618f.jpg
Another great airplane museum I will never get to see 😢😢😢
Lucy you Paul I will have to see if you did a tour of this one so I can see all the planes 👍👍🇦🇺
This museum is now on my list of must see places and you just gained a new sub. Thanks for the vid
Welcome!
went there last year for my vacation, it's beyond awesome. I never got the chance to see an SR-71 fly when i was in the USAF as they ended the program in 1990 when I went operational. I was able to finally see one up close at this museum and touch it, an absolutely fantastic museum to see.
I am fortunate to live close to this museum,.. i really must visit it again!
Paul as usual a superb vlog
I've been waiting for a new upload, great video Paul!!
More to come!
Been waiting for an upload!
This is just the first of many from this current visit to the USA :)
Very neat! I remember isolated images of this plane being discovered and I felt people didn't know what to make of it and did not take it seriously. I did some work around Dayton and definitely should have visited this museum.
Thanks man! So glad I found you.
Welcome!
Awesome video. Thanks for all the informative. Keep up the great work.
This is a new airframe to me that i never knew existed. Appreciate your content as always
Always very nice to watch these video’s, tnx!
Holy moly. Saw the tile, thought 'Oh look, Grady is going to tell us about Tacit Blue.'
this looks like a predecessor to a vehicle captured on google earth, passing over a highway in Colorado (ifirc), but using a quadcopter style arrangement of turbines, but almost nearly this stealthy boxy shape.
Hello sir, keep up the good work making your videos.
Your fan.
From Singapore 🇸🇬
Thanks for producing this little video as I've always wondered what happened to this aircraft and you answered questions I've always wondered about. Very well thought-out content...
Thank you for the video.
The ATF3 has unque core flow design choices that make it inherently suited for a low thermal signature independentt of the installation design, This demonstrated to great affect on the YQM-98 and some LTO Dassault applications. ATF3 + Tacit Blue combined together to be as cool as a cucumber!
My favourite aeroplane that nobody’s ever heard of. (The upside-down bathtub with wings!)
Thanks again Paul for some great footage and interesting snippets of information eg.. both engines had to be started at the same same because of the air intake arrangement. Very interesting flying machine is the Tacit Blue!
Museum is amazing and highly recommend it. If you go don’t forget to look up since a lot of displays are hung from ceiling
Thank you for this video. When I saw this plane at the museum I wanted to know more but found very little on it online and on RUclips. So really happy to get more info.
I felt like that about a lot of aircraft in that museum. They have an amazing collection but some of them don’t have that much info on them.
Glad you enjoyed it!
That was fun to watch. I learned a ton.
Love that museum!!! Grew up in the area. Can’t wait to take my boys at some point.
This bird was so elusive. It held the same premise of the Aurora, in that people swear it exists, but there was no hard evidence (at the time) to support it. Yet it did exist.
I like all smooth and rounded rear ends including this one.
The museum is a must see. Plan on a long day, as there is a ton of great stuff to see. Special thanks to the bosuns - truly knowledgeable and respectable folks! For a soundtrack, i suggest The Glenn Miller Orchestra, Live at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
What?? I've never heard of this airplane !
Why wasn't I informed?
Another great video 👍
NMUSAF is my favorite place in the whole world. It's incredible.
I remember going here when I was probably about 10 years old they had the XB-70 still sitting outside!!! I grew up in Ohio so it was only about 2 hours away
Smooth and rounded rear end 😏
WOAH, I wasn't aware this was even on display!
I remember when this plane was released and the Air Force insisted it was nothing more than a "test mule" to see if 2nd gen stealth technology worked.
Amazing, Paul !! 🙂
Growing up in the 80's and early 90's around Edwards Air Force Base was a great life.
Edwards Dryden NASA did research on our private plane because it was accidently painted with RAM. That happened to be bought from a government auction at Rockwell in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Our airplane is also the only private airplane that had clearance to land at Groom Lake aka Area 51.
At Northrop, people who worked on it called it the Whale. Those who worked on it were called Whalers.
Once the most secret thing on earth. Hard to believe it got off the ground.
Thanks for another interesting video. One of the development aircraft on the way to the present. Very nice.
This is one of the aircraft my biological father worked on back in the 80's.
I know this plane by Orca. The crew called it Orca due to the blow hole on top (air intake).
I found out about Orca around 1990.
I saw it when I was working at groom lake. Rumor was it was called The Whale.
A really interesting tour video Paul, as usual. It's a bizarre and extremely unaerodynamic looking aircraft! Surely that nose could have been extended a meter or so to make it more aerodynamic??!
Was there not also a hav blue plane? Heard it was buried out at groom lake. Nice piece of history. Glad it still exists
The 'Alien school bus' haha
Great job sir. Keep it going 👍
This is a great one Paul, super rare bird
Hilarious alien school bus , all aboard to Roswell , lol !
The air force museum is amazing! The Valkyrie behind this plane will certainly be an interesting video to watch. Although I'm really impressed by the amount of information you obtained on this weird quirky little plane, I'm less impressed by your statement on Ford vs Chevy. Everyone knows Chevy is the superior manufacturer, hence LS the world... 😂
Fantastic video as always. I'm UK but would love to visit the museum one day
What’s the significance of the dragon ball placard in the cockpit at 8:42?
Good question! hopefully someone might be able to answer your question
It's the unofficial "logo" for Area 51 - 5+1 stars. Search for books by Peter Merlin and Trevor Paglen for more info.
I'm lucky enough to live only a couple hours away and visit Wright-Patt a good hand full of times a year. A good day just walking among some of the best engineering humanity has to offer.
That might be the cutest plane ive ever seen. Ironic that its military
Never heard of this aircraft before! Looks really odd but it actually flew!
Is that a Saab 29 hanging in the background at around 6 minutes? Such a cool little jet, (if it is.) I love these videos Paul, so much av-geek eye candy 😍😍 ... OH MY GOSH... THERE'S A THUNDERSCREECH TOO!!!!
Keep an eye out as I have a video coming where i tour around the whole museum :)
What's the radar return of a wright flier? It steered not with surfaces that hinge but by warping the whole wing
The plane was also known as the “Flying Bathtub” too. The plane did make news when in San Fernando, California it flew over to take photos of the damages caused by the great Northridge Quake in 1994. A book came out about a week later called “4:01” which was the time of the Quake. The photos were said to be taken by the plane. One more thing is that a pilot was interviewed saying the plane was unstable. If the computer didn’t helped. The plane would not fly.
Er not quite. The aircraft, being solely constructed for aerodynamic research, never carried any cameras, and made it’s last flight in 1985, being placed into storage that year, before being revealed to the public in 1996.
What a strange but cool looking aircraft! Thanks!!
FYI, the B-2 was actually revealed to the public in late 1988.
Oh my God! I have been waiting for this for so long. Thank you for providing us a fascinating look at one of the weirdest looking plane to come out of the stealth airplane era.
Glad you enjoyed it!
what a great channel ,,,,,,
Thanks!
Wow that thing had full span flaperons
I heard this was originally supposed to fill the roll of the E-8 JSTARS
No. It was for stealth concept
@@briancooper2112 ...with a giant prototype synthetic aperture radar on the side
@@blurglide it literally looks like a city bus flying.
It was supposed to demonstrate the JSTARS radar system on a stealth platform
Another very interesting video. I definitely need to visit Dayton and check out this museum (I said this after your last series of videos filmed there... but this time I will... i promise haha!)
You should!
If this is what they're willing to show off, imagine the absolutely WILD sci-fi era tech in use today.
I can't believe this thing actually flies.
It would have been cool to view the camera entering the craft so we could see what it was like to get into it.
The cockpit pictures were provided by the museum. All doors and panel gaps have been sealed and painted over, sadly.
Does the fuselage also create lift,it looks wing shaped.
Yes it would and the chines helped with that.
How do they get in?
It's not a spy plane. It was never used as one. It was a tech demonstrator for tech used in the B-2 bomber and E8-C Joint STARS aircraft.
It secretly monitors the enemy. That’s the definition of a spy. Remember that some of this remains classified
True or not, I was under the impression it was designed to linger over a battlefield and monitor positions of enemy fortifications, tanks, and troop movements.
Wasn’t it also called BSAX?
I expected this to be housed in Dysons Dock instead of a public museum.
Rumor has it that it was there for several years before being declassified. It may have been moved to make room for something else even more interesting.
I wonder how the heck the pilot gets in and out?
Door was behind the front landing gear, before being sealed and painted over.
I'm just curious as to the story behind what looks like the 6 star dragonball in the cockpit. lol 🤣😂
Glad I’m not the only one lol
5+1 stars for Area 51. It's the unofficial logo for the facility, and has appeared on quite a few morale patches over the years. Search for books by Peter Merlin and Trevor Paglen for more
It's the unofficial "logo" for Area 51 - 5+1 stars. Search for books by Peter Merlin and Trevor Paglen for more info.
B-2 was not revealed in 1996 or 1997 (he said both during the video). It was rolled out in November 1988 but "revealed" to the press many months before that. In fact the existence of the program was never classified, only the details. Tacit Blue on the other hand was completely black until it was revealed in 1996.
Fords don't smoke because when you are pushing it home from the engine dying it is hard to spot from the air.
😂
@@PaulStewartAviation I just bought a 2024 Ford Edge, it has a heated tailgate so it keeps my hands warm in the winter when I am pushing it home!
How do you get into the cockpit??
I doubt you can
@@PaulStewartAviation No, I mean, originally. As in, how does the pilot get into the aircraft. I don't see any obvious doors or even access ports. Thanks!
Did you see where they took the DARPA off it
I'm afraid not??
I thought the SR-71 had intentional panel gaps since air friction would heat the plane up enough to seal the panel gaps - It's why it used to take off with the minimal fuel load and then refuel once airborne at speed.
I mean there's footage of one on a runway just leaking fuel all over the place whilst it was taxing. A tad worrying but I suppose they knew what they were doing.
That's correct. I explained that in my SR-71 tour video and the reason why the fuel wouldn't ignite even though it was leaking through the fuselage
UK and Australia must be building a B-21 class type of aircraft. Why else would Paul Stewart reference it?
I've been seeing posts in the media about Avro Lancaster from defense personal in the UK and Australia.
Ah ok 🤷♂️
The museums would be one of the only reasons I would ever visit the US. But, i dont want to have any bullet holes put in my body.
it looks like a landing ship from the 1980s TV show V
Technically isnt that a pelican tail not a "V" tail?
You’re probably correct
The fact that this is on display makes me wonder what Area 51 is testing these days
Agreed! Very cool stuff that we won’t see for another 20 years.
those stealthy storm shadow and other cruise missiles being used in Ukraine (Sevastopol, Crimea) shows their stealth shape and technology easily defeats Russias best air defenses
That isn't F16 landing gear.