Saw something odd yesterday

upnorth · March 05, 2008, 01:51:42 AM

Hey all:

Yesterday I was teaching a class in a company very close to the airport here in Brno.

Sometimes when I look in the direction of the airport I can see a tail of something sticking up and usually I can identify it fairly easily. Yesterday, though, I saw something that really confused me. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera so here's a description:

I could see the very top of the fuselage (couldn't see enough to know if it had windows at all) and the tail fin. The overall colour was either white or very light grey and was glossy, there was also a blue band on the vertical stabilizer running from about halfway up the trailing edge to the base of the leading edge.

The fin shape didn't look like an airliner's at all. It bore a resemblance to the Concorde's fin, but a bit bigger, it really looked designed for high subsonic or supersonic flight. I couldn't see any horizontal stabilizers so if it had any, they were fuselage mounted and I'm guessing the wings were low or mid set as I couldn't see evidence of high set wings.

I know that's not much of a description, but does it sound like anything that's currently flying?

Brno's Turany airport is civilian, so I have no idea how much or how little military traffic they might see. I have seen Volga-Dneiper Antonov 124 Ruslans from time to time, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that.

I took a look at airliners.net and searched for pictures taken at Turany but couldn't find anything like it.

Mossie · March 05, 2008, 06:05:43 AM

Concorde type tail, a Backfire maybe, possibly Ukranian with a blue band?

ytown2010 · March 05, 2008, 01:18:27 PM

Quote from: Mossie on March 05, 2008, 06:05:43 AM
Concorde type tail, a Backfire maybe, possibly Ukranian with a blue band?

didn't they retire the backfire in 2004?

Martin H · March 06, 2008, 11:27:40 AM

yep all but two were cut up

Mossie · March 06, 2008, 02:38:10 PM

Wouldn't have to be Ukranian I suppose, it just might explain the blue. Could be some kind of special marking?

Martin, what happened to the two Backfires that didn't get the chop? Russsia take them?

B777LR · March 06, 2008, 02:45:55 PM

Could it be a Tu-160? Hard to imagine given the cold relationship between RU and CZ

Shasper · March 06, 2008, 06:02:13 PM

A An-124 perhaps? I know its a stretch but its possible.

Shas

upnorth · March 06, 2008, 10:37:31 PM

Quote from: B777LR on March 06, 2008, 02:45:55 PM
Could it be a Tu-160? Hard to imagine given the cold relationship between RU and CZ

That was the first thing that sprung to mind, but then the Blackjack has a the horizontal stabilizer up on the vertical and what I saw certainly didn't.

B777LR · March 06, 2008, 11:41:20 PM

NASA operated a Tu-144 for a few years, but i think it has been returned to Russia and been grounded by now.

Does NASA operate any B-1s? An AF version would be too grey.

The last aircraft i can think of is an An-12. The tail looks somewhat like a supersonic aircraft...

Martin H · March 18, 2008, 03:52:07 PM

Quote from: Mossie on March 06, 2008, 02:38:10 PM
Wouldn't have to be Ukranian I suppose, it just might explain the blue. Could be some kind of special marking?

Martin, what happened to the two Backfires that didn't get the chop? Russsia take them?

What happened to them? Museums. one to the airforce museum and the other to an engineering museum/collage