The world is seemingly at war. With multi-front conflicts raging in Eastern Europe and intensifying in the Middle East, this period of elevated World War III risk has coincided with the emergence of some of America’s most advanced stealth aircraft.
The latest sighting comes from the Greek news website OnLarissa, which reports that a planespotter captured a “mysterious” stealth-bomber-like aircraft operating near Larissa, Greece, near the Hellenic Air Force (HAF) base.
The local outlet stated, “The ferocious warplane was reportedly parked due to a malfunction at the 110th Fighter Wing military airfield,” adding that the plane was likely an “American superweapon, the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit.”
However, well-seasoned US-based journalists who specialize in aviation and military coverage at The Aviationist disagree with OnLarissa’s assessment that the plane is the B-2 Spirit. In fact, they suggest this could be the first-ever glimpse of the highly classified, next-generation stealth surveillance drone, the RQ-180, developed by Northrop Grumman.
“The closest match we can find, corroborated by anonymous sources with some familiarity with the clandestine jet, is with the famous (yet still classified) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance UAV operated by the U.S. Air Force that we have come to know as the RQ-180,” The Aviationist reporter Kai Greet wrote in a note.
Greet pointed out, “Larissa is no stranger to a U.S. military presence, and has hosted MQ-9 Reaper detachments on an ongoing basis. It does remain unclear, though, if these images genuinely depict an RQ-180.”
Across the Atlantic and over the Mojave Desert, a planespotter captured what he believed was the USAF testing the B-21 Raider stealth bomber earlier this week (view here).
Read the full article here