Camo Jet

Miliary jet flew over me couple days ago while I was driving. Looked like F15 but much larger. Had almost F117-like webbed wings but wings were close up again fusalage and more towards rear of plane. It was almost the size of a 737. Had camo paint and was flying horribly slow 5 miles out, and was inbound. Had either 2 or 4 engines. Was silent approaching but afterburners almost blew out my ear drums right after I drove under it despite its slow speed. Too big to be standard fighter but certainly wasn’t transport. Any ideas? Meanwhile, I’ll search airliners.net for photos. Airport was STL and date was Thurs 2/1.

Slow speed with afterburners? Based on your description it sounds like you saw a B-52 or maybe a B-2. Since this was at STL maybe it was a F-15 or Sabreliner.


B-1 ?

I agree with lancasterperch. My only question would be why the wings weren’t extended forward on approach at such a low speed (if indeed they were “close up against the fuselage”).

LOL!! Maybe he tucked his wings in close because he was cold when he was coming in to land!!

It COULD have been a B1, lancasterperch, but i think the body was a little wider. The camo paint on it was shades of military green. Are all the B1’s gray? When I say the wings were closer to the fusalage, I mean they were shaped at more of inward an angle, instead of 70 or 80 degrees out from fusalage, and closer to tail than center. Here’s another photo of a B1 that shows what I mean about the wings, but the jet I saw was bigger round in the fusalage and engines. Never seen anything like it. We have F-15 sortis here every day so I know what they look like and they’re too small. You could have sat an F-15 on each one of these wings.

The wings on the one i saw were similar to this but a little wider:
wing sample

I mostly remember thinking initially that it was a commercial heavy but as it got closer it was clearly military and I thought to myself, WHAT THE HECK IS THAT??? Definitely had a “fighter jet” type fusalage despite its huge size, so wasn’t a 130 transport.


How about this. F-111. Still active with Australia.

http://www.cloud9photography.us/bj/BJ46_Douglas_B-66_Destroyer_RH_USAF_photographedbyPeterBLewis.jpg

B-66 / A-3 Still active with Raytheon Corp.

I’m reaching for straws on this one. I really cannot think of any other cammo planes in green’s that would fit this description.

Cammo, multi engine, after burner, large, not cargo, swept wing. I thought I had it nailed with the B-1.

Sometimes the U.S. Air Force Grey comes off as greenish in certain light?
If cargo, could be C-17 or C-5. They are loud, and appear to fly slow in flight because of their size.

It may have been some of the australians are taking part at NELLIS at Red Flag also the first time they are using the F/A-22 RAPTOR.

Thanks for all your suggestions, I looked at all of them and then some. I’m beginning to think it may very well have been a B1 bomber. But I am absolutely positive it was 2 shades of green camo paint because I got a close up as it was only a hundred or 200 feet over my head. This photo really shows what I saw without the green pain. I remember 4 burners now, just like in this picture. If it was a B1, I didn’t realize they were that big.

Another B1

…or is that 4 engines and one afterburner LOL (I’m a girl, sorry) :blush:

4 afterburners. If they were lit, I don’t know how “horribly slow” he would have been flying though, especially with the wings swept back. :question:

The “Looked like F-15 but much larger” still bugs me. Wondered if it was a Super Hornet? They are larger (although not “much larger”) than an F-15 and don’t they manufacture the Superhornet in STL?

airliners.net/open.file?id=1167958&size=L

The -15E is 4 feet longer and 1000 pounds heavier than the -18E.

Hmmm, I had a data sheet that was sent to me that showed the Super 18 slightly larger than the 15. Very possible I read it wrong or remembered it wrong. Can’t find what I did with the sheet either. If you know it to be true then I stand corrected as I can’t find my source document.

I don’t know the specs, but I don’t think an F-18 SuperH is going to appear to be “much larger” than any F-15. Having seen both (in the air and on the ground) many times, I would guess that the -18 is a little bit smaller than the F-15, definitely smaller than the Strike Eagle.

Could it possibly be a B1 transitioning to-around or departure. That would get the wings back a bit, full burner and slower speeds. I guess that doesn’t answer the camo question.

Last month I was at STL and there was a constant loop of F-15’s doing touch and go’s. I would say they had a paint scheme more in line with what you described.

They do use F-15s in a camo paint scheme as aggressor aircraft at Nellis and the exercises have been going on.

I am absolutely positive it wasn’t an F-15. I see their sortis every single day, there’s at least one, and many times two or three sortis daily. They are cool to watch because all other traffic stops and they circle over STL as a group, then one by one they drop in a sharp nose dive and land. They’re in groups of 3 to 5, usually 3. They’re tiny fighters compared to the one that I saw. I really think it was probably a B-1. They’re supposed to be over at Whitman AFB though. At first, when it was coming straight at me, I thought it was a 747!! LOL Yes, all 4 burners were lit. It was less than 5 miles out, coming in for a landing westbound on the main runway paralelling interstate 70. May have been as close as 2 or 3 miles out when it went over my head.

I know it wasn’t a hornet because I do pencil and charcoal sketches and started (but never finished) a realistic sketch of a photo of a hornet in flight. The hornet’s engines are “half-domes” (my own term lol) and hug the fusalage. The jet I saw had 4 burners in the rear and a long body in front of wings. He may have been flying faster than it appeared to me because I was driving directly under it in exactly the opposite direction. Someone else suggested a C-17 to me but I haven’t looked at a photo yet. Still haven’t found a B1 yet that has the green paint on it. I could call Lambert and ask, but they probably wouldn’t like that.

This is a C-17. There’s no mistaking it for a fighter of any type, and there are no afterburners. I’d say you DIDN’T see one of these. (Sorry for the link…I can’t seem to get the image to load here.)

airliners.net/open.file/1178946/M/

link to Airliners.net, picture of a B-1 in full afterburner.