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Comment by LolWolf | Hacker News Reader

Note: this is just a general guess.

But my money is on this just being a military test—some SR71-like replacement (probably air-breathing, maybe even unmanned). It's not really out of the question, but a big hole in this idea is that merging with general air traffic is usually a no-no even by military standards.

Anyways, on a somewhat unrelated note, it just reminds me of this[0] story, for anyone even remotely interested in flight.

[0] https://oppositelock.kinja.com/favorite-sr-71-story-10791270...

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I mean, it's been identified as aircraft by pilots nearby. And it has the ability to disguise itself from radar. That's all you really need to conclude spy plane. I know that people had made sightings of previous US planes before they were declassified. A slightly scarier possibility is that its not American.

ATC primary radar is pretty weak. Not showing up (particularly after changing flight direction) doesn't mean much. It's very odd (and illegal) for something to be up in flight levels without a transponder though.

Military test of a stealth plane is the simplest explanation, but why would it not talk to ATC? As a test to see whether it could make it a few hundred miles in a busy air corridor without being noticed?

Probably to not be on record of the ATC, would be my guess.

The altitude is the curious part to me. 37,000 feet is right in the commercial aviation region, though it sounds like they were staying well away from established corridors.

That linked story never gets old.

If you haven't heard him tell it, it's worth a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg73GKm7GgI

I've never heard this before, I've only read it.

I like the context of the written one better. Seems like the focus/slant/whatever changed from the one-upmanship of the written one to let's-piss-off-center of the spoken one.

Always makes me smile. So well written.

This thing disappeared from radar. So if it was a secret military aircraft the it appears to have the ability to hide and unhide its radar signature. Also, if you listen to the FAA telephone calls you'll hear the air traffic controller mention that the object was heading south bound, at a fast clip, and then did an abrupt maneuver and took off north bound. Now, you could say the object just did an Immelmann, but I'm not aware of anything that can perform an Immelmann that fast in an object that large.

Wow that SR-71 photo makes the pilot's face look so doctored. It looks like a video game rendering of a face.

Part of it may be that he was badly burned in a crash in Vietnam.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Shul#Vietnam_war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajjlNYvO1CU

I think the next “SR-71” is hypersonic, part of the “cancelled” HTV-X3 successor program under FALCON. There would be no “chasing” something like that, and it would be.... striking.

No one in the calls even seemed particularly surprised at the speed, so maybe in the high-performance business jet territory.

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