Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!uflorida!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU!pcp2g
From: pcp2g@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Philip C. Plait)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Is it for real?
Summary: yes and no
Keywords: stealth
Message-ID: <749@hudson.acc.virginia.edu>
Date: 11 Nov 88 00:57:03 GMT
References: <696@sas.UUCP>
Sender: news@hudson.acc.virginia.edu
Reply-To: pcp2g@bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU (Philip C. Plait)
Organization: Academic Computing Center, University of Va.
Lines: 36

In article <696@sas.UUCP> sasbrb@sas.UUCP (Brendan Bailey) writes:
>

[stuff about a Honda commercial with Stealth bomber deleted]

>   Now is this real?  I just can't believe that this could be the real
>thing.  Is the government ever gonna release photos of this thing and
>if they were, would they let a car company use it for a ad?
>   Could this be a fake prototype?
>

Funny you should ask.

Not more than an hour ago as I write this, I saw a national newscast that said
the government has released an official picture of the Stealth bomber, shrouded
in secrecy these past few years. The picture shows the plane as black, seen at
an angle from above and to the side. It is the only such picture released, and
it's a little fuzzy (most likely deliberately).

I vaguely remember seeing the Honda commercial, and I don't think that Stealth
looks anything like the real one, which hardly comes as a surprise.

Some of the folks out there may remember that a model company, Testor's, I think
it was, came out with a plastic model of what was supposedly a Stealth plane.
This caused quite a stink, but of course their plane didn't look much like the
real one either (I think....hmmmm.)

Anyway, the real one is slightly larger than an F-16, and costs three times as 
much to make, about $60M. This is all according to the newscast.

As always, I remain,

* Phil Plait                  PCP2G@bessel.acc.virginia.EDU
* UVa Dept. of Astronomy      Grad student (at large)
* 
*"If all men were brothers, would you let one marry your sister?"