Aerospace

 

Is this Air Force's top secret 'Great White Bat' stealth drone? Californian man snaps mystery aircraft above his house that experts believe is successor to SR-71 Blackbird - even though military has not acknowledged it exists

The US Air Force’s top secret stealth spy drone dubbed the 'Great White Bat' could have broken its cover, thanks to the quick reactions of a California man who's believed to have snapped the first ever picture of the classified aircraft.

A craft matching the description of the bat-wing RQ-180 was pictured soaring over Edwards Air Force Base sometime in early October by photographer Rob Kolinsky, who briefly posted the image to Instagram on Saturday.

‘This thing flew over my house several weeks ago and I still have yet to identify it!’ Kolinsky said in a since-deleted post. ‘It’s shaped like a B-21 … but was painted white. Mystery!’

He added: ‘I was not going to post it but I thought that if it were really classified, they wouldn’t be flying it in broad daylight like this’.

The Air Force has never officially acknowledged the existence of the Northrop Grumman-made RQ-180, but Aviation Week reporter Guy Norris identified the aircraft in Kolinsky’s pictures as the classified drone.