The Northrop Grumman RQ-180 "White Bat", a United States surveillance drone developed in early 2010 with an estimated wingspan of 130 feet, only two widely accepted photos of it exist

Posted by atomicbamboo47@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 37 comments

The first photo was taken in the South China Sea near the Philippines, while the second was taken near Edwards AFB. Last is an artists rendering based on the second photo

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DaButtNakidWonda@reddit

The fruit paste is delicious, and the pottery is lovely.

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James_TF2@reddit

“It’s made from guano”

“Mmmm, guano, why does that sound so familiar?”

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Ghost-Rider9925@reddit

I thought a picture existed of it on a flight line at one time. Pretty sure I remember reading an article about it.

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er1catwork@reddit

Is that the 170? Or the 180? I think there was a head on image of it (170) in Kandahar and they named it “the ghost of Kandahar” or something like that…

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The RQ-170 is a different flying wing than the "RQ-180"*, having a shorter wingspan and being design for high-altitude battlefield surveillance in advance of forward deployed troops. The "RQ-180" first flew in 2010 and entered initial operational deployment in the mid-2010s judging from documents accessed by Aviation Week & Space Technology, although no photos of it during flight testing have been released.

*The Northrop Grumman unmanned flying wing which fills the P-ISR role left vacant in 1998 due to the retirement of the SR-71 was referred to as "RQ-180" in a December 2013 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology, but "RQ-180" is probably not the UAV's true designation.

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Ghost-Rider9925@reddit

Maybe it was the 170

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er1catwork@reddit

My bad! It was “The beast of Kandahar”!

https://www.sandboxx.us/news/rq-170-the-air-forces-secret-beast-of-kandahar/

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er1catwork@reddit

I can picture the image but don’t remember the details lol

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foolproofphilosophy@reddit

Wild guess but I feel like we’re headed to the B-21 being a standoff command and control platform to direct other standoff platforms like the RQ-180 to carry cruise missiles etc. A standoff for the standoff to the standoff lol.

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xenona22@reddit

I’m pretty sure one of these were knocked down by Iran and that’s how they were able to develop/advance their drone tech , well it was the 170 but I would be curious as to what the difference is .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93U.S._RQ-170_incident

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One-Swordfish60@reddit

I've made it a hobby of going over to r/chemtrails and arguing with them lol I almost wanna cross post this to see what they make of it

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dmr11@reddit

Looking at some of the top posts, I suspect that sub is like /r/Tiresaretheenemy with troll-mode dialed up to 11. At least, I hope so.

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FatStoic@reddit

"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company." - Rene Descartes

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One-Swordfish60@reddit

As a man who's been serving hard in those trenches trying to educate the misled..... unfortunately not.

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BoarHide@reddit

Thank you for your service!

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Monneymann@reddit

The Cabal attempting to turn us gay for the elections

I have never been there but thats what I think they’ll say.

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Pilot0350@reddit

I'm pretty sure I've seen one of these, or at least something like it.

We were at Kandahar loading up some stuff that a C17 had brought in (we were an MV squadron running standard night ops bs) and the Ssgt and I who were standing near the ramp watched this massive RPA taxi by that didn't fit anything we knew about. The crazy thing was it was taxiing without lights on, which is what drew our attention, so we flipped down our nvgs and watched what, at the time, I thought was a B2 taxi by. I realized later they wouldn't have those landing in the country, so I just wrote it off as something that wasn't declassified yet (which wasn't too abnormal). It was too large to be an MQ-9 and not the right shape to be a global hawk, but seriously big for what it was. Pretty neat experience imo.

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TreadItOnReddit@reddit

Oh? So how frequently did you see something that wasn’t declassified yet?

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FoxPhire0@reddit

Nice try China

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TreadItOnReddit@reddit

haha, yeah...I'm not Chinese... When you say it was "The beast of Kandahar".... what other names could we make based on unidentified planes and the AFBs you were at? Asking for a comrad...

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DeerStalkr13pt2@reddit

That’s classified.

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Gregoryv022@reddit

Probably the literal Beast of Kandahar

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BreadKnife34@reddit

I looked up "northdrop shite bat" lol

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HICSF@reddit

Is this the one the Iranians hacked and brought down?

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atomicbamboo47@reddit (OP)

That's it's close cousin, the RQ-170. It's much smaller and was just as secret as the RQ-180 until one pulled an icarus and Iran shot it down.

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