Hartman's image of an RQ-170 specially configured for testing making its approach to Vandenberg AFB back in March of 2017. Matt Hartman/Shorealonefilms.com
Warzone/The Drive: Journalists Had A Surprise Close Encounter With An RQ-170 Sentinel At Vandenberg AFB
The chance encounter is the closest the press has gotten to the notoriously secretive stealth drones.
Reporters and photographers were invited out to Vandenberg AFB on Monday to take a closer look at the ICON spacecraft installed aboard a Pegasus rocket, which itself was mounted on Orbital ATK's L1011 launch aircraft Stargazer. After completing their task they headed back toward the base's main hangar and were surprised to see something of an almost mythical mechanical creature sitting on the ramp—an RQ-170 Sentinel.
The base, which is perched along the Southern California coast, was once set to host a second Space Shuttle launch site, but today it usually sends reconnaissance payloads into high-inclination orbits and conducts ICBM test launches. But the facility has other uses as well, and its long runway is an attractive training feature for California-based military aircraft.
Although no squadron of aircraft officially calls the base home, a detachment of secretive RQ-170 Sentinels from the shadowy 30th Reconnaissance Squadron uses the base for testing. This little-known fact was first discovered by our own Joseph Trevithick and it became big news when our contributor Matt Hartman photographed a specially configured Sentinel landing at the base in 2017—a rare encounter that The War Zone was the first to report.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: The RQ-170 Sentinel Drone has now been flying around for almost a decade .... and it is still a mystery.
