That's why I respect test pilots. It takes a lot of balls to look at a stubby winged butter dish sitting on the tarmac and say " I'm going to fly that."
The test pilots fro Northrop knew very well in what they were going to fly, same with the YF-23 and the B-2, Tacit Blue lead the way for these plane. The sad part of the stealth story, that this video has wrong. Tacit Blue tech was never used on the F-117. The F-117 was 100% Lockheed stealth designs and stealth technlogy. Look at it this way. Lockheed had the Ford or GM style stealth tech with radar absorbing material and paint. Northrop has the good stealth stuff, the real deal the best of the best. If you really want a 100% invisible to radar, always bet on Northrop for stealth technology. Because Lockheed only produce the cheap version of stealth.
Saw this aircraft at the Wright-Patt airforce museum and yes, you look at it and ask, "Did this REALLY fly?" That and the museum itself is one of the best in the United States.
I never realized that Tacit Blue had a planned mission purpose. I thought it was purely an experimental platform for early stealth testing - didn't realize it was intentionally planned to be a production reconnaissance ship.
It was originally supposed to house the J-STARs system Which was like an AWACS system for ground units. This saw operational service on be Boeing 707/C135 airframe.
One way they hid this program on budgets was to use parts from other aircraft as much as possible, so they would have very few airframe-specific parts internally and draw less attention from budget hawks. The Garrett ATF-3 turbofan engines were sourced from a drone program and were later sent back to that program once the Tacit Blue testing was completed. The USCG also used the ATF-3 on the HU-25 Falcon/Guardian and 5 or so of the Tacit Blue engines ended up in the CG fleet as a result. I looked up the serial numbers used a while back and realized I had been flying around on one for several months at that time. I started calling that falcon our “stealth” plane from that point on.
@@pkelly3463 This. It's like hot-rodders using a Mustang II or S13 front subframe in a project car. It's cheaper to adapt an existing production part to the project than to design every component from the ground up. Lots of X planes do this, the X-29 has an F-16's FBW and much of an F-5's fuselage iirc.
Haha, stealth falcon! Love it. The Falcon 20 was designed around the wings of the mystere fighter. Hence why it was the Dassault Mystere 20 to the French and given the "Falcon" name to appeal to the American Market. Which it did very well with PAN AM buying quite a few of them. I never managed to see an ATF-3 engine example, but have worked on the standard CF700 and the upgraded TFE731s. Really cool that you had Tacit Blue engines in circulation of the fleet though.
I found the music to be a bit... overbearing? Like, you already recite the script in a very tension-laden way, now the music is trying to crank up the tension, too? I greatly enjoy the content, the information, the footage. But I prefer documentaries to suspense-thrillers.
I actually looks like the shuttlecraft designed for _Star Trek: Phase II_ back in 1977. The filming model had yet to be built when the series was cancelled.
It was lil bro to the 117 some of its technical.aspect ar ebound to be legacy to b2. And another old plane that was supposed to be b52 replace (hustler if im correct) became the skin concept(outer skin)
Overhead shot of Tacit Blue near the end of the vid reminded me of a platypus. Rather ungainly looking, but it flew, and flew quite well for its time drawbacks aside. Always interesting to learn something new about aviation history.
My grandfather worked on this project. It was truly awe inspiring to hear firsthand accounts about the "whale" nickname and the development involved in making it so stealthy
@@bowez9 I have a lot of "classified knowledge" from my time in the military and working for defense contractors. Some stuff will probably go to the grave, but other stuff has since been declassified and I am free to talk about. I keep up on news of this stuff, mostly because I found the work fascinating and still do, even though I'm long out of the biz, so I generally know what is OK to talk about and what isn't. If I have any question, however, I keep my mouth shut.
It amazes me how many videos end in "It is now on display at the National Museum of the US Airforce" I've lived 15 minutes from the place all my life and been numerous times their collection is amazing.
Actually i see this aircraft as the genesis of the "Predator" series of drone aircraft in particular its similar looking design to the new Predator C "Avenger".
RIP NORMAN "KEN" DYSON '60, LT. COL. USAF (RET.) Norman Kenneth Dyson Norman Kenneth Dyson’s testing of top-secret aircraft put him on the ground floor of stealth technology, flying Have Blue, the prototype for the F-117A Stealth Fighter, and Tacit Blue, which demonstrated radically different stealth technologies from Have Blue. After graduating first in his class from the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1960, Dyson went into flight training for the Air Force, and was the top graduate in his class. After four years as a fighter pilot, Dyson attended the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School prior to testing weapons in the F-100, F-101 and F-4 aircraft. He flew the F-100 and F-4 aircraft in the Vietnam War before returning to Edwards AFB as an instructor at the USAF Test Pilot School and later as an F-15 test pilot and Director of the F-15 Joint Test Force. He began classified work in 1976, where he flight tested Have Blue and Tacit Blue until 1982. After Air Force retirement, Dyson joined Rockwell and flew throughout the B-1B test program. He flew the first flight of the X-31 Post Stall Aircraft in 1990 and flew the X-31 through its early testing. He retired from Rockwell as Chief Test Pilot and Director of Flight Test in 1993. Dyson was awarded the Kincheloe Award in 1989 for test flying Have Blue and in 1996 for Tacit Blue after these programs were declassified. He has also received the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, nine Air Medals and Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Aerospace Laurels. Dyson is an Engineering Fellow of the University of Alabama, a Distinguished Alumnus of the USAF Test Pilot School and was named to the Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1997.
@@joecollins1823 He was a close family friend and one of the most intelligent, but at the same time, humble people I've ever met. As he battled cancer, he was one of the toughest, both mentally and physically, men I've ever seen. He is greatly missed, but will never be forgotten. He lived a life that other people dream about, but can only imagine. 🛐 I hope your father and family are safe and healthy 🙏
YES, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Ive wanted a video on this aircraft for a long time, thank you very much. Also check out the ye-5. Its clamed to be the very first stealth aircraft ever. It also has a similar story about a bird sitting on it during rcs testing
Some of the footage shows a C-5 Galaxy hydraulic training aid that I learned hydraulic systems on when I went to a C-5 hydraulic systems class on TDY to Travis AFB in 2005. I worked in the Robins Air Logistics Center in the C-5 engine and pylon shop until being drafted into the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III program in July of 2005.
One of my most prized possessions is a photo of myself booping Tacit Blue’s nose on display in Dayton. It’s funny to think that at one time, I could have spent MANY years in a Supermax Prison just for sharing a photo of the platform. It’s also interesting to see how much of what they developed re: the shape of the plane was later seen on the YF-23. I love seeing that sort of evolution.
Two medium bypass turbofans AND a Garret ATF 3 turbofan? So it had THREE engines? And the embedded engine outlet reduced INFRARED emissions NOT radio emissions! Good research on an interesting and little known subject. Your problem is --- EDITING EDITING EDITING!!!!
@@pgtmr2713 lol....which is literally impossible given their long traditional taste for it. They make barn yard pigs and dung beetles look like rank amateurs.
Always nice learning amazing history. This channel impresses time and time again. Thank you to all those behind the scenes, researching original topics constantly. Stay true to yourselves please. Bravo 👏
I'd not heard of Tacit Blue until I watched this video. A truly amazing aircratf. I particularly enjoyed the bit where there were serious design issues due to the different engineering departments not communicating effectively, if at all. Ask me how I know... lol
I just saw this bad boy at the Museum of the Air Force in Dayton. Weirdest looking plane I've ever seen! Why is it shaped like that??? Even the museum doesn't say anything about it. It looks like it was press-moulded and they didn't bother to trim the flash.
I can’t decide if it’s the proof of the old adage that if it looks good it will fly good or if it is the exception that proves that rule. It must have been very difficult to feed clean air to the engines at high angles of attack. I wonder how much they impeded development by eliminating cross fertilisation of each project with ideas? Great content.
Reminds me of an old flight instructor joke. Ask a student what makes an airplane fly and they describe the Bernoulli principal. Instructor interjects, lots and lots of money is what makes airplanes fly.
The f-117 was the successor to Have Blue. (and unless the DOD figured out time travel the f-117 couldn't have been the successor to tacit blue considering the nighthawk flew a year before tacit blue did.)
Wonderful documentary thank you. But I have to admit this is the first time I've ever heard a documentary actually acknowledged The Groom Lake area north of Las Vegas.
Do you have enough info to provide a separate video on the RQ3 Dark Star? or the successful RQ170 Sentinel?.. I used to be a Northrop Mechanic, Surface and Structure, Major Subassembly. I absolutely loved working for Nothrop, and Jack Northrop's history, biography held me in "aviation thrall" for years.... still does really. I made the cut for workers in Secret City on the B1 but was found to be "buried" in a seniority snafu. I would never have revocated and moved away to a research firm in Silicon Valley. Your videos are top shelf. I never miss one, and am riveted, no pun, every minute!
Tacit Blue's surveillance radar was the basis for the radar installed in the E-8 Joint Stars aircraft, which monitors ad tracks enemy ground forces in real time and allows the US and NATO forces to launch coordinated attacks on them. There is no one replacement slated for the E-8; likely a distributed network of sensors will do the job in the future.
"A black project that was a highly classified component in the assault breaker program whose purpose was validating the concept of mass standoff attacks on advancing armored units employing smart, precision-guided munitions." My testosterone and blood pressure spiked just by hearing that line. Create a sentence 10% cooler and you're going to produce fatal strokes/blown aneurysms in 40% of the male population/5% of female population within five minutes of exposure. Does anyone else get the impression that this project was envisioned by somebody saying: combine the coolest words into the most bad-a**** of sentences and then we'll do whatever it describes?
When the great earthquake hit in Northridge, California. The plane flew very close ground ( not sure on the altitude) taking pictures and monitoring the rescue around the city. The plane was also known as the flying “Bath tub”. Upside down tub with wings.
The X-29, FSW Concept was, by far, more 'Unstable'. The ONLY Reason it Flew, was the Multiple Computer Corrections made every Hundreth-of-a-Second. It required 5 FBW networks, and Three had to 'agree' every 'descion moment' with the Input the Pilot wanted. Think That Over... You've 2-tenths-of-a-second to 'Eject'....
With a program name like BSEX it’s no wonder the project had trouble. There were surely some back door dealings going on. The instability of that airframe was pucker-inducing.
Born in 1949, a model airplane builder and flyer i never outgrew my love of aircraft. The "Dark" series continues to amaze and inform of great aircraft designers and builders. These greats coupled dedicated flyers of some strange and wonderful airplanes and spacecraft, give an old man a glimpse of his youth in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Today as we reach the boundaries flight in our atmosphere, its slightly over 100 years ago that original visionaries lifted their shoulders, to stand on, for those that love and honor flight today! Great series! Great voice! And awesome material!
I remember this plane from back in the late 1970s - early 1980s. I always thought it looked like a giant stuffed ravioli with a couple of tiny wings stuck on. I always wondered what became of it. It clearly was a test plane of sorts but I couldn't recognize any of its features in subsequent craft and it was dreadfully slow comparatively so, it couldn't have been a testbed for advances in jet propulsion technology.
it's great that the USAF museum built the new hangar that allows these aircraft to be displayed properly, but I kinda miss the ratty old hangar across the runway where you could walk among all of the experimental aircraft, look underneath them, and potentially touch them.
Not really. The thing is basically one huge vortex generator with sailplane wings. The lack of stability is partially due to the nature of the vortices generated by the chines, but also due to the CG being far in the rear.
As a retired C-5 flight engineer I must say that there are too many video clips from the C-5 program in this video. A lot of what you see here has nothing to do with Tacit Blue.
This aircraft although quite impressive, would’ve been really amazing had it gone into production. It would’ve been absolutely revolutionary, had it been operational.
Yeah. I think if the US had flight simulators for all the experimental aircraft each company designed flaws could be sorts out on the ground, leading up to the aircraft going into service. We have Dark Skies to thank for this video & similar channels.
Tacit was only made to test radar absorbing material. Hence the almost square air balance at the nose going into a blended fuselage and the wings well are also radar points. Its a test bed. Thats all. And it did go into production! B-2, F-22 and F-35. And what is next!
Another good example of not just reading out the wiki page when you don't understand what it's saying. Despite wiki, the Pave Mover part of the program was not the 'non-stealth portion of the aircraft's targeting system'. If you take an ordinary radar deep into enemy territory and start emitting all over the place you will not last long. The concept was to use a Hughes Low Probability of Intercept (spread spectrum) radar so that it would remain as stealthy as the aircraft. Lots of clips of 1950s and 1960s aircraft and cockpits, and the B-52 plant too. But I see the Lockheed plant getting as much air time as Boeing. All utterly unrelated to the subject here. You utter dolt! They called it F-117D to imply, if there was a minor security breach, that they were just working on a development of the Nighthawk, not something completely new. Tacit Blue was a Northrop, not a Lockheed, product and had no link to the 117 program. You later go on to explain that there was of course no contact between LM and NG. You are the first person in the history of the world to call the Mustang the 'P Five One'. 'Stealth' technology, particularly radar low-observabilty, has been known about since the 1940s. It is all there in the open literature physics (eg Merrill Skolnik Introduction to Radar Systems, 1962). The problem was developing the materials and the aircraft designs that could make use of it, the latter requiring computerised flight control systems to overcome the inherent instability. Tacit Blue was not labelled 'highly confidential'. It was TS Codeword or higher. The problem was that, just like Enigma/Ultra in WWII, to retain utility the whole existence of the capability had to be kept secret, and that would include careful handling of the release of the intel generated to commanders and front-line units. Otherwise these things would be tracked down and destroyed. The skin design was not to 'counter radar cross section'. That's not a thing. It did though minimise effective RCS. Similarly the design didn't 'hit the aircraft with RCSs but also with radio emissions - the amount of heat coming out of it'. This is not just bad English, it's rubbish. Who writes this stuff? I'll accept that RF covers DC to light but you are talking here about the engine intake and exhaust signatures; the exhaust is emitting in the infra-red as you later say. All you need to describe is that the intake was buried, and coated in radar absorbant material, to minimise and radar reflections from the fan blades, which stand out like a dog's b****cks to radar. The exhaust then had to be designed to hide the hot components at the back and mix the gasses with surrounding air to reduce and diffuse the signature in the IR. The computerise flight control system would have worked I'm sure on all 3 flight axes: pitch, yaw and roll. I'm also pretty sure that 'landing' figured quite early in the flight test program. First flight maybe? 'LPI tactics' didn't 'conceal the airframe'. They concealed the use of the radar. If the program had led to serial production it is likely that it would not have been disclosed if at all possible, and for exaclty the reason you cite for disclosing it, which makes no sense. It was already known that recce is good in warfighting. Ask the Romans, Wellington or Lea. Tacit Blue merely investigated another way of obtaining it. This was clearly prepared by someone in a hurry, with no knowledge of the subject, and a poor grasp of English. Why not finish with an analysis of why it wasn't taken forward? Was it not sufficiently survivable after all? Was there a better way of getting the intel? Is there a reason for all the unmanned air system work going on?
9m9s why is buddy holding trimmed pot....?? I mean... I know why he's smiling... I'm smiling right now, myself 💚🚬👽🇨🇦... hehe... and I LOVE the show... just how's the ganj tied into everything....?? 🤔
This was basically a technology demonstrator, it was never thought of to go into production. MAYBE as a drone but it wouldn’t look the same once made into a drone.
I was driving south on El Camino near Wolf Rd when Tacit Blue flew over, just in front of me, maybe 2000ft up, heading for Moffat Field.... It was June 1966. I remember it well because that thing was weird looking and flying low and slow. But what did I see if TB didn't exist untill 1982??
And what was the guy in the pick-up displaying in the passenger window truck of the truck at 9.07 to 9.12...? skunk weed? little inside joke...I guess...hummm
See - "Flying Triangles and the Black Holes on my Fridge" on the net We are Light Eons behind the True Eternals, of course. See - "Pole Shift of Noah's Day About to happen again" on the net Good Journeys All
I find it amusing to a degree that instability in the aircraft is mentioned. Funny that they say the F-117 Wobbly Goblin would not know which way to keep its nose pointed unless it had the advanced avionics to do so. Yet countless RC Scale Models fly just fine, same shape, same aerodynamics. I call BS! But please go to the museum at Wright Patterson AFB. It is DLUX! Tacit Blue is there! Plus many other X Planes.
If I would be interested in scraping data from paranoid users i would found a VPN service company ... all the traffic o from my paranoid user goes via my gateways ;) ... maybe i'm just paranoid ... VPN is good for only one thing, hiding / changing you virtual location to access fenced applications, like Netflix etc. from other regions!
That's why I respect test pilots. It takes a lot of balls to look at a stubby winged butter dish sitting on the tarmac and say " I'm going to fly that."
Test plane: no you wont.
It does look like a God damn butter dish 🤣🤣🤣
They have balls of chromoly steel. A good test pilot relishes the challenge.
The test pilots fro Northrop knew very well in what they were going to fly, same with the YF-23 and the B-2, Tacit Blue lead the way for these plane. The sad part of the stealth story, that this video has wrong. Tacit Blue tech was never used on the F-117. The F-117 was 100% Lockheed stealth designs and stealth technlogy. Look at it this way. Lockheed had the Ford or GM style stealth tech with radar absorbing material and paint. Northrop has the good stealth stuff, the real deal the best of the best.
If you really want a 100% invisible to radar, always bet on Northrop for stealth technology. Because Lockheed only produce the cheap version of stealth.
☝️Brought to you by your friends at Northrop 👍😀
Saw this aircraft at the Wright-Patt airforce museum and yes, you look at it and ask, "Did this REALLY fly?" That and the museum itself is one of the best in the United States.
I had the same reaction when I saw it. It reminded of the old saying, "Put enough thrust behind it an any thing will fly."
Docent: "kinda..."
The aliens kept at Wright Patterson needed a school bus.
That place is one of the greatest places about living in Cincinnati.. Everytime you go there you see something you missed before
@@CraigLYoung Ikr lol it's two big bathtubs glued together
They should have called it "battlefield area long loiter surveillance aircraft experimental" or ballsax
😨😂😂😂
😂
LOL! That's funny af!
Nicely done.
Gold
I never realized that Tacit Blue had a planned mission purpose. I thought it was purely an experimental platform for early stealth testing - didn't realize it was intentionally planned to be a production reconnaissance ship.
Today's stealth and attack drones owe a lot to this project.
Predator/gray eagle/lightning ought to salute their OG grandpa
It was originally supposed to house the J-STARs system Which was like an AWACS system for ground units. This saw operational service on be Boeing 707/C135 airframe.
One way they hid this program on budgets was to use parts from other aircraft as much as possible, so they would have very few airframe-specific parts internally and draw less attention from budget hawks. The Garrett ATF-3 turbofan engines were sourced from a drone program and were later sent back to that program once the Tacit Blue testing was completed. The USCG also used the ATF-3 on the HU-25 Falcon/Guardian and 5 or so of the Tacit Blue engines ended up in the CG fleet as a result. I looked up the serial numbers used a while back and realized I had been flying around on one for several months at that time. I started calling that falcon our “stealth” plane from that point on.
They used components from other aircraft out of Necessity. It wasn't necessarily to "hide" anything.
@@pkelly3463
This. It's like hot-rodders using a Mustang II or S13 front subframe in a project car. It's cheaper to adapt an existing production part to the project than to design every component from the ground up.
Lots of X planes do this, the X-29 has an F-16's FBW and much of an F-5's fuselage iirc.
@@skaldlouiscyphre2453 Thats the point. This isn't just limited to mil either. Look into the hodgepodge of the DC-9/ MD-80+
Haha, stealth falcon! Love it.
The Falcon 20 was designed around the wings of the mystere fighter.
Hence why it was the Dassault Mystere 20 to the French and given the "Falcon" name to appeal to the American Market. Which it did very well with PAN AM buying quite a few of them.
I never managed to see an ATF-3 engine example, but have worked on the standard CF700 and the upgraded TFE731s.
Really cool that you had Tacit Blue engines in circulation of the fleet though.
I found the music to be a bit... overbearing? Like, you already recite the script in a very tension-laden way, now the music is trying to crank up the tension, too? I greatly enjoy the content, the information, the footage. But I prefer documentaries to suspense-thrillers.
Really looks like a Star Trek OG shuttle craft with wings.
I thought it looked like one of those ones the lizards used in "V"..
Pretty much a Gelato II
More like combining a 70's Motorhome with an F35...lol
I actually looks like the shuttlecraft designed for _Star Trek: Phase II_ back in 1977. The filming model had yet to be built when the series was cancelled.
"alien school bus" is about the most proper description of this thing I have ever heard.
I had always (incorrectly) assumed that this aircraft was directly related to the B2 because the cockpit/cabin look very similar.
You got that right
It was lil bro to the 117 some of its technical.aspect ar ebound to be legacy to b2. And another old plane that was supposed to be b52 replace (hustler if im correct) became the skin concept(outer skin)
Your original assumptions is correct. Technology demonstrator/tester for the stuff that went into the B-2
Overhead shot of Tacit Blue near the end of the vid reminded me of a platypus. Rather ungainly looking, but it flew, and flew quite well for its time drawbacks aside. Always interesting to learn something new about aviation history.
My grandfather worked on this project. It was truly awe inspiring to hear firsthand accounts about the "whale" nickname and the development involved in making it so stealthy
That's odd. I know several people (including family)that worked at ORNL, Y12 and K25 and those secrets go to their grave.
@@bowez9 I'm sure there are plenty of things I will never hear about.
@@bowez9 I have a lot of "classified knowledge" from my time in the military and working for defense contractors. Some stuff will probably go to the grave, but other stuff has since been declassified and I am free to talk about. I keep up on news of this stuff, mostly because I found the work fascinating and still do, even though I'm long out of the biz, so I generally know what is OK to talk about and what isn't. If I have any question, however, I keep my mouth shut.
Yea, it wasnt called a whale because of its rectangular shape. That makes no sense. Its bulbous and white like a beluga.
Technician: why the sudden spike on the radar?
2nd technician: what could have caused that?
Owl: who's asking?
Not sure if it really was an owl, sounds more like a bull to me...
Ever see the sci fi show" V"? Tacit blue looks like the alien run abouts from that show
I agree
It looks like they took a boat, turned it upside down then fixed wings to it.
Or, put wings and tail onto a GMC Motorhome. 🤔
@@lancerevell5979 a really stealthy GMC Motorhome.
Great video Dark,
you really have to do a video on the aformentioned 'Dark' Star drone..... or even the Blue Steel Missile. 👍😁👌
It amazes me how many videos end in "It is now on display at the National Museum of the US Airforce" I've lived 15 minutes from the place all my life and been numerous times their collection is amazing.
Starting to get like those Ancient alien astronaut shows. lots of footage that has nothing to do with the sunject
Did we watch the same vid? I observed the opposite.
Actually i see this aircraft as the genesis of the "Predator" series of drone aircraft in particular its similar looking design to the new Predator C "Avenger".
RIP NORMAN "KEN" DYSON '60, LT. COL. USAF (RET.)
Norman Kenneth Dyson
Norman Kenneth Dyson’s testing of top-secret aircraft put him on the ground floor of stealth technology, flying Have Blue, the prototype for the F-117A Stealth Fighter, and Tacit Blue, which demonstrated radically different stealth technologies from Have Blue.
After graduating first in his class from the Department of Aerospace Engineering in 1960, Dyson went into flight training for the Air Force, and was the top graduate in his class. After four years as a fighter pilot, Dyson attended the USAF Aerospace Research Pilot School prior to testing weapons in the F-100, F-101 and F-4 aircraft. He flew the F-100 and F-4 aircraft in the Vietnam War before returning to Edwards AFB as an instructor at the USAF Test Pilot School and later as an F-15 test pilot and Director of the F-15 Joint Test Force. He began classified work in 1976, where he flight tested Have Blue and Tacit Blue until 1982.
After Air Force retirement, Dyson joined Rockwell and flew throughout the B-1B test program. He flew the first flight of the X-31 Post Stall Aircraft in 1990 and flew the X-31 through its early testing. He retired from Rockwell as Chief Test Pilot and Director of Flight Test in 1993.
Dyson was awarded the Kincheloe Award in 1989 for test flying Have Blue and in 1996 for Tacit Blue after these programs were declassified. He has also received the Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, nine Air Medals and Aviation Week & Space Technology’s Aerospace Laurels. Dyson is an Engineering Fellow of the University of Alabama, a Distinguished Alumnus of the USAF Test Pilot School and was named to the Aerospace Walk of Honor in 1997.
I met Ken Dyson when my father worked in the Sabreliner Program Rockwell in Tulsa, Ok. Wow. I never knew his story.
@@joecollins1823 He was a close family friend and one of the most intelligent, but at the same time, humble people I've ever met. As he battled cancer, he was one of the toughest, both mentally and physically, men I've ever seen. He is greatly missed, but will never be forgotten. He lived a life that other people dream about, but can only imagine. 🛐
I hope your father and family are safe and healthy 🙏
Theres even a special place at area 51 named after him, although its probably not the oficial name
“What we need is a flying styrofoam hamburger container. But one you can’t see on Radar… get on it, fellas!”
Just keep those pesky owls away from it! 😄
YES, THANK YOU VERY MUCH! Ive wanted a video on this aircraft for a long time, thank you very much. Also check out the ye-5. Its clamed to be the very first stealth aircraft ever. It also has a similar story about a bird sitting on it during rcs testing
Why the Lockheed Georgia shots? LG had nothing to do with it?
I like the way this one looks. It just needed some pin striping to spiff it up. But, an owl for a hood ornament is right out!
Some of the footage shows a C-5 Galaxy hydraulic training aid that I learned hydraulic systems on when I went to a C-5 hydraulic systems class on TDY to Travis AFB in 2005. I worked in the Robins Air Logistics Center in the C-5 engine and pylon shop until being drafted into the Boeing C-17A Globemaster III program in July of 2005.
Look what happens when you combine a 1970's Motorhome with an F35....
You get Ummmm an F-350 ?
Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring Dark Skies! You can get 73% off a two year plan plus one additional month free at nordvpn.com/darkskies
4 days ago and only relesed now?
Why do you have comercials on sponsored videos?
@@mikeypiros6647 money
@@Stealth_Pilot more like greed !
@@mikeypiros6647 nah
One of my most prized possessions is a photo of myself booping Tacit Blue’s nose on display in Dayton.
It’s funny to think that at one time, I could have spent MANY years in a Supermax Prison just for sharing a photo of the platform.
It’s also interesting to see how much of what they developed re: the shape of the plane was later seen on the YF-23. I love seeing that sort of evolution.
Unless you were a high profile politician.....with a server in their bathroom.
@@TheGravitywerks
Come on next Pizza-gate will be told as fact
@@TheGravitywerks
Unless you are a high ranking politician who started an insurrection because you lost an election
Two medium bypass turbofans AND a Garret ATF 3 turbofan? So it had THREE engines? And the embedded engine outlet reduced INFRARED emissions NOT radio emissions! Good research on an interesting and little known subject. Your problem is --- EDITING EDITING EDITING!!!!
Skunkworks Expectations : Aurora
Skunkworks Reality : This 😂
Nice. This is an aircraft triggering curiosity. One can only wonder what is going on under wraps in our present time.
Yes. Things like the infamous ‘Wichita Triangle’ for example.
Flying kevlar reinforced concrete submarines.
@@Minong_Manitou_Mishepeshu Interesting supposition given the rumors that such has been done. Subs in space I mean.
Their main focus is working on keeping Air Force one from smelling like number 2.
@@pgtmr2713 lol....which is literally impossible given their long traditional taste for it. They make barn yard pigs and dung beetles look like rank amateurs.
is it just me or does Tacit Blue look a lot like the Tictac UFO. makes me wonder if theres any relation.
It's definitely it
Always nice learning amazing history. This channel impresses time and time again. Thank you to all those behind the scenes, researching original topics constantly. Stay true to yourselves please. Bravo 👏
What is especially impressive is the rate at which the high quality content comes out. The rest of UA-cam could learn a thing or two.
What they 👆🏻 wrote.
All the info and quotes are directly ripped off from the interview done by 10 percent truth.
Almost all the B-roll is from before the stealth era.
Yeah, lots of 50’s footage.
True, but having grown up before most of it was available, it's new to me and pretty cool to see. 👍
I'd not heard of Tacit Blue until I watched this video. A truly amazing aircratf.
I particularly enjoyed the bit where there were serious design issues due to the different engineering departments not communicating effectively, if at all.
Ask me how I know... lol
Outstanding engineering
You know the old saying. "Put enough power behind it and even a brick can fly".
I just saw this bad boy at the Museum of the Air Force in Dayton. Weirdest looking plane I've ever seen! Why is it shaped like that??? Even the museum doesn't say anything about it. It looks like it was press-moulded and they didn't bother to trim the flash.
I've read about this in old magazine that cover spy plane, Tacit Blue, aurora, and the most mysterious of all is TR-3B. Can you do the TR-3B as well?
I can’t decide if it’s the proof of the old adage that if it looks good it will fly good or if it is the exception that proves that rule. It must have been very difficult to feed clean air to the engines at high angles of attack. I wonder how much they impeded development by eliminating cross fertilisation of each project with ideas? Great content.
It reminds me of the old F-4's... "Put enough power behind it, anything will fly..."
Reminds me of an old flight instructor joke. Ask a student what makes an airplane fly and they describe the Bernoulli principal. Instructor interjects, lots and lots of money is what makes airplanes fly.
Imagine what they are working on now.
Dark Skies: 3 parts awesome narration + 2 parts vintage film clips of topic + 1 part random vintage film clips
" If the Wright Brothers could have built a P five one..." Are you serious?
Could you imagine the success of this plane if it was available to the same people who buy Learjet and Bombardier?
There are some “gentlemen” in South America who would have bought a few dozen as freighters…
The F-117 was the successor to Tacit Blue, not its predecessor
The f-117 was the successor to Have Blue. (and unless the DOD figured out time travel the f-117 couldn't have been the successor to tacit blue considering the nighthawk flew a year before tacit blue did.)
Tacit Blue was Northrop, Have Blue was Lockheed. The F-117 was also made by Lockheed, but used a diamond shape and no round shape
Alien school bus lol. That is exactly what I always thought it looked like. I always thought it reminded me of a flying saucer crossed with a bus.
Oh, so this is not the Seaview submarine? I was wondering about why there were wings.^^
The SR71 is fast, but not as fast as the narrator..
I remember seeing this for the first time in Dayton. Never heard of it before. "My God, we built a UFO!" It was parked near the Valkyrie.
I pay UA-cam premium and still have advertising in the fu##ing video. F### Nord VPN
Wonderful documentary thank you. But I have to admit this is the first time I've ever heard a documentary actually acknowledged The Groom Lake area north of Las Vegas.
I had no clue this even existed. Thank you for this great content!
Do you have enough info to provide a separate video on the RQ3 Dark Star? or the successful RQ170 Sentinel?.. I used to be a Northrop Mechanic, Surface and Structure, Major Subassembly. I absolutely loved working for Nothrop, and Jack Northrop's history, biography held me in "aviation thrall" for years.... still does really.
I made the cut for workers in Secret City on the B1 but was found to be "buried" in a seniority snafu. I would never have revocated and moved away to a research firm in Silicon Valley. Your videos are top shelf. I never miss one, and am riveted, no pun, every minute!
Was that one dude holding a branch of weed
Tacit Blue's surveillance radar was the basis for the radar installed in the E-8 Joint Stars aircraft, which monitors ad tracks enemy ground forces in real time and allows the US and NATO forces to launch coordinated attacks on them. There is no one replacement slated for the E-8; likely a distributed network of sensors will do the job in the future.
"A black project that was a highly classified component in the assault breaker program whose purpose was validating the concept of mass standoff attacks on advancing armored units employing smart, precision-guided munitions."
My testosterone and blood pressure spiked just by hearing that line. Create a sentence 10% cooler and you're going to produce fatal strokes/blown aneurysms in 40% of the male population/5% of female population within five minutes of exposure.
Does anyone else get the impression that this project was envisioned by somebody saying: combine the coolest words into the most bad-a**** of sentences and then we'll do whatever it describes?
The ground crew sees the pilot walking up and asks. Are you the guy with the big cojones?
if the B-52 is the Buff this thing is the SUmf
I was wating for tessit blue to Show up in your Videos. It has been a important step in Stealth History.
Dark
Amazing look a this cool aircraft. Thanks for the great content.
When the great earthquake hit in Northridge, California. The plane flew very close ground ( not sure on the altitude) taking pictures and monitoring the rescue around the city. The plane was also known as the flying “Bath tub”. Upside down tub with wings.
Baby steps for future stealth platforms. Some similarities to orbital re-entry designs.
So good at gathering Intel it would blow your cover. Ain't that some BS
The X-29, FSW Concept was, by far, more 'Unstable'. The ONLY Reason it Flew, was the Multiple Computer Corrections made every Hundreth-of-a-Second. It required 5 FBW networks, and Three had to 'agree' every 'descion moment' with the Input the Pilot wanted. Think That Over... You've 2-tenths-of-a-second to 'Eject'....
I wish he could talk about current topics but i’m sure all of them are classified but great creator
Gota love the American taxpayers for our fun👍🙏
With a program name like BSEX it’s no wonder the project had trouble. There were surely some back door dealings going on. The instability of that airframe was pucker-inducing.
I wish this would've gotten into Ace Combat
Born in 1949, a model airplane builder and flyer i never outgrew my love of aircraft. The "Dark" series continues to amaze and inform of great aircraft designers and builders. These greats coupled dedicated flyers of some strange and wonderful airplanes and spacecraft, give an old man a glimpse of his youth in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Today as we reach the boundaries flight in our atmosphere, its slightly over 100 years ago that original visionaries lifted their shoulders, to stand on, for those that love and honor flight today! Great series! Great voice! And awesome material!
This is why we don't design planes based on 5-year-olds' drawings
Whats with the guy holding the weed plant at 9:07? I had to laugh, they must have been high to build that thing.
I remember this plane from back in the late 1970s - early 1980s.
I always thought it looked like a giant stuffed ravioli with a couple of tiny wings stuck on.
I always wondered what became of it. It clearly was a test plane of sorts but I couldn't recognize any of its features in subsequent craft and it was dreadfully slow comparatively so, it couldn't have been a testbed for advances in jet propulsion technology.
Undoubtedly, successful reconnaissance is essential in any age, as it often means the difference between war and peace, victory and defeat.
I feel like this would be such an amazing AWACS
Cool to see a video on this unique airplane. I may have “accidentally” touched it in person.
it's great that the USAF museum built the new hangar that allows these aircraft to be displayed properly, but I kinda miss the ratty old hangar across the runway where you could walk among all of the experimental aircraft, look underneath them, and potentially touch them.
It looks like Platypus Perry 😁😁
What's up at 9:08 ?
It’s just a still photo of the edge of the Area 51 exclusion zone.
Wonderful content once again..Thank you..
Just from its appearance the aerodynamics of tacit blue must have been real horrorshow. It's like
teaching a steam iron to fly.
Not really. The thing is basically one huge vortex generator with sailplane wings. The lack of stability is partially due to the nature of the vortices generated by the chines, but also due to the CG being far in the rear.
As a retired C-5 flight engineer I must say that there are too many video clips from the C-5 program in this video. A lot of what you see here has nothing to do with Tacit Blue.
Ngl the thumbnail looks like a flying boat
How does media contact the Dark Skies producers? Thank you for all the great content.
'...not the prettiest... is putting it politely!
HIDEOUSLY UGLY is more accurate! ← ↑ Comment for algorithm + 👍 'd
#OldManPaxus Rating: ☆☆☆☆
"Wow, it's not the prettiest plane I've seen". Agreed
See that milk carton? I want you to make it fly.
This aircraft although quite impressive, would’ve been really amazing had it gone into production. It would’ve been absolutely revolutionary, had it been operational.
Yeah. I think if the US had flight simulators for all the experimental aircraft each company designed flaws could be sorts out on the ground, leading up to the aircraft going into service. We have Dark Skies to thank for this video & similar channels.
Tacit was only made to test radar absorbing material. Hence the almost square air balance at the nose going into a blended fuselage and the wings well are also radar points. Its a test bed. Thats all. And it did go into production! B-2, F-22 and F-35. And what is next!
Another good example of not just reading out the wiki page when you don't understand what it's saying.
Despite wiki, the Pave Mover part of the program was not the 'non-stealth portion of the aircraft's targeting system'. If you take an ordinary radar deep into enemy territory and start emitting all over the place you will not last long. The concept was to use a Hughes Low Probability of Intercept (spread spectrum) radar so that it would remain as stealthy as the aircraft.
Lots of clips of 1950s and 1960s aircraft and cockpits, and the B-52 plant too. But I see the Lockheed plant getting as much air time as Boeing. All utterly unrelated to the subject here.
You utter dolt! They called it F-117D to imply, if there was a minor security breach, that they were just working on a development of the Nighthawk, not something completely new. Tacit Blue was a Northrop, not a Lockheed, product and had no link to the 117 program. You later go on to explain that there was of course no contact between LM and NG.
You are the first person in the history of the world to call the Mustang the 'P Five One'.
'Stealth' technology, particularly radar low-observabilty, has been known about since the 1940s. It is all there in the open literature physics (eg Merrill Skolnik Introduction to Radar Systems, 1962). The problem was developing the materials and the aircraft designs that could make use of it, the latter requiring computerised flight control systems to overcome the inherent instability.
Tacit Blue was not labelled 'highly confidential'. It was TS Codeword or higher. The problem was that, just like Enigma/Ultra in WWII, to retain utility the whole existence of the capability had to be kept secret, and that would include careful handling of the release of the intel generated to commanders and front-line units. Otherwise these things would be tracked down and destroyed.
The skin design was not to 'counter radar cross section'. That's not a thing. It did though minimise effective RCS.
Similarly the design didn't 'hit the aircraft with RCSs but also with radio emissions - the amount of heat coming out of it'. This is not just bad English, it's rubbish. Who writes this stuff?
I'll accept that RF covers DC to light but you are talking here about the engine intake and exhaust signatures; the exhaust is emitting in the infra-red as you later say. All you need to describe is that the intake was buried, and coated in radar absorbant material, to minimise and radar reflections from the fan blades, which stand out like a dog's b****cks to radar. The exhaust then had to be designed to hide the hot components at the back and mix the gasses with surrounding air to reduce and diffuse the signature in the IR.
The computerise flight control system would have worked I'm sure on all 3 flight axes: pitch, yaw and roll.
I'm also pretty sure that 'landing' figured quite early in the flight test program. First flight maybe?
'LPI tactics' didn't 'conceal the airframe'. They concealed the use of the radar.
If the program had led to serial production it is likely that it would not have been disclosed if at all possible, and for exaclty the reason you cite for disclosing it, which makes no sense.
It was already known that recce is good in warfighting. Ask the Romans, Wellington or Lea. Tacit Blue merely investigated another way of obtaining it.
This was clearly prepared by someone in a hurry, with no knowledge of the subject, and a poor grasp of English. Why not finish with an analysis of why it wasn't taken forward? Was it not sufficiently survivable after all? Was there a better way of getting the intel? Is there a reason for all the unmanned air system work going on?
9:08 what the hell does this photo have to do with the video?
9m9s why is buddy holding trimmed pot....?? I mean... I know why he's smiling... I'm smiling right now, myself 💚🚬👽🇨🇦... hehe... and I LOVE the show... just how's the ganj tied into everything....?? 🤔
This was basically a technology demonstrator, it was never thought of to go into production. MAYBE as a drone but it wouldn’t look the same once made into a drone.
I was driving south on El Camino near Wolf Rd when Tacit Blue flew over, just in front of me, maybe 2000ft up, heading for Moffat Field.... It was June 1966. I remember it well because that thing was weird looking and flying low and slow. But what did I see if TB didn't exist untill 1982??
9:09 .....Ummmm....🤔 So, was Denny Jarvi also director of project Cannabis Cultivation, too?
It looks like a movie prop
The F117 is much more unstable. A very good pilot could fly the whale without computer assist. No human can fly an F117 without a computer assist.
It is on display at The Museum of the Air force in Dayton Ohio.
What isn't on display at that museum.
And what was the guy in the pick-up displaying in the passenger window truck of the truck at 9.07 to 9.12...? skunk weed? little inside joke...I guess...hummm
See - "Flying Triangles and the Black Holes on my Fridge" on the net
We are Light Eons behind the True Eternals, of course.
See - "Pole Shift of Noah's Day About to happen again" on the net
Good Journeys All
Certainly not an attractive aircraft but highly efficient at its job
I find it amusing to a degree that instability in the aircraft is mentioned. Funny that they say the F-117 Wobbly Goblin would not know which way to keep its nose pointed unless it had the advanced avionics to do so. Yet countless RC Scale Models fly just fine, same shape, same aerodynamics. I call BS! But please go to the museum at Wright Patterson AFB. It is DLUX! Tacit Blue is there! Plus many other X Planes.
If I would be interested in scraping data from paranoid users i would found a VPN service company ... all the traffic o from my paranoid user goes via my gateways ;) ... maybe i'm just paranoid ... VPN is good for only one thing, hiding / changing you virtual location to access fenced applications, like Netflix etc. from other regions!