747 with an air scoop???

My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?


I'd like to think it was an in-flight LOX production plane, but it's
probably something more mundane. Anyone?


--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
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"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?

It wasn't the YAL-1A airborne laser, was it?

"Neil Gerace" wrote in
:


"Scott Lowther" wrote in
message ...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747
in USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing
at an airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a
truncated cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that.
Does this sound familiar to anyone?

It wasn't the YAL-1A airborne laser, was it?

Careful, you'll scare Brad with that talk...

--Damon

In article
,
"Neil Gerace" wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?

It wasn't the YAL-1A airborne laser, was it?

That was my thought, as well, although I couldn't recall the designation
off-hand.

--
Herb Schaltegger, B.S., J.D.
"Never underestimate the power of human stupidity."
~ Robert A. Heinlein
http://www.angryherb.net

On 2004-07-09, Scott Lowther wrote:
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?

It sounds like photos I've seen of the "flying laser", though the photos
I remember looked a lot more like they had an airscoop than the ones I
can find online. Bah. How mundane.

http://www.de.afrl.af.mil/factsheets/abl.html

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...ps/02_27c.html

I wonder what I'm remembering.

--
-Andrew Gray

"Andrew Gray" wrote in message
. ..

It sounds like photos I've seen of the "flying laser", though the photos
I remember looked a lot more like they had an airscoop than the ones I
can find online. Bah. How mundane.

http://www.airliners.net/Airliners_n...855&ViD=middle

This is the YAL-1A (Boeing Model 747-4G4F) airborne laser, and we see that
it doesn't seem to match the description. Probably an E-4B then, although
that has "United States of America" titles rather than USAF ones.

Neil Gerace wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?

It wasn't the YAL-1A airborne laser, was it?

That was my first thought, bu dad says no... the nose of the 747 was
normal. No big laser-mirror turret.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Or was it maybe the flying telescope observatory?

it could also be a testbed version of the laser plane, or... is he sure it was
a 747 and not a Cobra Ball , Joint S.T.A.R.S. SAR or ELINT type plane?

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?


I'd like to think it was an in-flight LOX production plane, but it's
probably something more mundane. Anyone?





http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...abl/flash.html





--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Scott Lowther wrote:

Neil Gerace wrote:

"Scott Lowther" wrote in message
...
My father drove across northern Nevada yesterday. At one point, a 747 in
USAF markings flew low across the highway coming in for a landing at an
airport (he does not remember exactly where). The 747 had a truncated
cockpit hump... and a large air scoop just behind that. Does this sound
familiar to anyone?

It wasn't the YAL-1A airborne laser, was it?

That was my first thought, bu dad says no... the nose of the 747 was
normal. No big laser-mirror turret.

We also built a 767 with a hump on the back to carry an airborne laser
for missle defense, which could be mistaken for a 747 from the side, at
a distance. "Truncated" would be a good description for the hump, which
does not taper into the fuselage the way the hump does on a 747.
--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address