[HN Gopher] Upside Down Air Force
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       Upside Down Air Force
        
       Author : stevage
       Score  : 79 points
       Date   : 2025-02-25 10:16 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.frontiernet.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.frontiernet.net)
        
       | latchkey wrote:
       | Discussions on similar submissions:
       | 
       |  _The USAF 's "Upside-Down Air Force"_
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40544829 (June 1, 2024 -- 84
       | points, 14 comments)
        
       | dmurray wrote:
       | > Instead of flying the aircraft over test antennae, the
       | airframes (usually minus their tails) are suspended upside-down,
       | under or near the instrumentation.
       | 
       | Why not make a hole in the ground and put the antennae under the
       | airplane that way?
        
         | KineticLensman wrote:
         | Because then the interesting electronic emissions would be
         | radiating into the ground, not to nearby test equipment.
        
           | dmurray wrote:
           | I was intending to put the test equipment in the hole.
           | 
           | Since "flying over test antennae" was an option, it shouldn't
           | be a problem that there's solid ground (the bottom of the
           | hole) underneath the test equipment.
           | 
           | I think the real answer is that they need more angles than
           | keeping the aircraft flat and level and putting the antennae
           | below it would provide. The aircraft have to be suspended
           | anyway, so they can be rotated and have different profiles
           | measured.
        
         | ambicapter wrote:
         | I think the intention is to radiate into the ground, not into
         | the sky, where spy satellites can possibly sense the stray
         | emissions.
        
       | morellt wrote:
       | I'm a current DoD contractor employee at Griffiss, and it's a
       | real trip to see just how much cool stuff is/was being done at
       | the base when it was still active. There is still cool research
       | being done but nothing at this scope for a while now. It makes me
       | kind of sad to see all of this activity being sent away from NY
       | to Cali, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, etc. Not a whole lot of
       | large-scale testing/development going on up here nowadays.
       | Getting stories from the old timers is always fun, though.
        
         | morellt wrote:
         | FUN FACT: This is the same base Woodstock '99 took place at :D
        
       | dylan604 wrote:
       | "This must be the full-service island"
       | 
       | I'm dead. For that to be one of the only captions, I'm just glad
       | I wasn't taking a sip when I read it.
        
       | gunian wrote:
       | thought this was about the airforce of a newly created republic
       | called upside down
        
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       (page generated 2025-02-27 23:00 UTC)