I found where they parked it. https://www.google.com/maps/place/38%C2%B043'29.8%22N+93%C2%...
Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
231–240 of 390 posts
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#232afternoon delight
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#233Now that we have an exact match of what a plane like this looks like from the point of view of a satellite, one could scan the entire Google maps for this same image.
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#234Interesting that Google hasn't taken this down yet or at least blur out the map tile.
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#235[deleted]
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
The B-2 Spirit is insane. People usually know the SR-71, but I personally think the B-2 is straight up savage - aesthetically alien, impossibly aerial, and incomprehensibly powerful. Its silhoutte is terrifying: https://i.imgur.com/WqMvxXg.jpg What a beast: https://www.northropgrumman.com/what-we-do/air/b-2-stealth-b...
That's while probably really effective at its job, it's not really the most of anything. The B-1B for example is faster and can carry more ordinance.
B-1B is not as stealthy. B-2 Spirit is in a different league along with the F-117.
Also I learned something new: It's not 'ordinance', but 'ordnance'[1]. Almost looks like a spelling mistake.
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Omg, are they sooo huge? I just realised how big they are for the first time in my life. What a sight! [edit] 172ft = 52m wingspan!
They don't really seem that big in person. And they're amazingly hard to see from any distance since they're essentially just a thin flat airfoil. Here's a not-especially-good video I just uploaded of one flying over my farm from this summer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyXSuFj0naQ
Off topic but wow your farm is beautiful
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#238I live on a farm very close to this area. All the B-2s are based at nearby Whiteman Air Force Base. They fly over often -- one even fly over my farm today about an hour ago. This one was probably on final approach during the summer when the winds are usually out of the south and was probably about 2,000 feet above the ground.
I grew up in the south of the state but I remember them flying overhead when I was a kid now and again. Always stood out like a sore thumb, left a particular contrail too as I recall.
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#239Interesting how the three separate R/G/B images are taken independently a few ~seconds~ milliseconds apart, with a different color filter placed over the image sensor. I assume this is to maximize resolution, since no Bayer interpolation [0] is needed to demosaic the output of a traditional image sensor that integrates the color filters onto the sensor pixels themselves. As these satellites are not intended to photog…
These are pushbroom linear sensors stacked up in the focal plane. The spectral channels are physically separated by larger distance than neighboring pixels in a Bayer grid. There is a time delay between each channel sweeping over the same location that gets corrected when the final imagery is aligned. The moving plane at altitude violates assumption of a static scene and exposes the scanning behavior.
Exactly! I'm working on some stuff now to exploit this very effect, the small time difference in the bands can be used to find velocities of moving objects.
Re: Stealth bomber in flight on Google Maps
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
The cars aren't flying at altitude though. They're farther from the satellite.
How low are these satellites? I wouldn't expect the altitude of a plane to be any significant proportion of the altitude of a satellite.
The satellites are probably greater than 400 km altitude, or so, while the plane is probably 10 km. The plane is in the same rough order of magnitude as really tall mountains, which the satellite is presumably designed to compensate for, so I agree with your general assessment.