[kach22i]

Originally Posted by looneybin

The fact that did bank in the turn makes me think it’s an experimental aircraft
Albeit a damn fast one

The right hand turn it did at those speeds is impossible, but I guess one could keep the dream alive by connecting some dots.

U.S. Air Force Is Planning Something Big in the Nevada Desert
The U.S. Air Force is Planning Something Big Out in the Nevada Desert - The Drive

Unusually worded, multi-billion dollar drone services contract possibly points to a new, shadowy unmanned aircraft—and a lot of them.
By Joseph TrevithickApril 10, 2017

.............Still, the details we know of URS Federal Services' contract point to work on an entire operational concept based around something more like a more numerous UCAV fleet than a handful of "silver bullet" pilotless spy aircraft and suggests that these aircraft already exist. There's no indication of weapon system research and development or procurement money involved in this "services" contract.

Follow the money.

There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s start right at the top. This contract with URS Federal Services is worth $3.6 billion, but the program, whatever it is, isn’t expected to end until the spring of 2034. That’s 17 years for those keeping score. The math works out to more than $210 million per year, on average, over that period or $17.5 million every month.

That's a big price tag for services. In 2013, the RAND Corporation estimated that it cost $435 million a year for the Air Force's 20th Fighter Wing at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina to operate three squadrons of F-16C/D Vipers. This calculation included everything associated with flying the fighter jets, such as pay checks for military personnel and supporting contractors, fuel, depot-level repairs, as well as indirect support from the Wing's other elements, including security forces guarding the flight line, civil engineers maintaining facilities, and basic utilities and supplies, such as electricity in the barracks and food in the chow halls. A similar analysis of the 187th Fighter Wing, a unit in the Alabama Air National Guard with just one squadron of Vipers, produced a final price tag of just $63.6 million.

In short, the URS Federal Services' contract could potentially cover the full costs of running multiple squadrons of pilotless planes for nearly two decades................

"We're modernizing the Air Force, so you'll see in the future new aircraft here on the ramps," then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said during a visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada in September 2016. "Then there are other things you also won't see, because we like to have some surprises, also, for potential adversaries." .......................

These comments were squarely in line with the Pentagon's much-touted Third Offset Strategy, a high-technology master plan to push development of revolutionary weapons and associated systems to counter rapidly modernizing near peers.

February 15, 2016
What is the Third Offset Strategy?
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2016/02/16/what_is_the_third_offset_strategy_109034.html

The third offset investments fall into six targeted areas: anti-access and area-denial, guided munitions, undersea warfare, cyber and electronic warfare, human-machine teaming, and wargaming and development of new operating concepts. Much of it is weighted toward the Air Force and Navy.

So what are the specifics of the Third Offset strategy in next year’s budget? There is a combination of small new-start research programs, “black” work in the classified world, and significant accelerations of existing developmental programs. The total investment in this new strategy is $18 billion over five years, with over $3.5 billion being spent in 2017. Over $6 billion of all money shifted to the third offset will be spent on classified programs................