The image depicts 'LoS to target -2°", not "LoS to the horizon -2°", which is what you claim. Draw a line from the plane to the horizon (tangent to the sphere) then lean it down two degrees more, where does it point now? I'd make the drawing for you but I need to eat, see you all later
Not my claim. See post #124.
No problem, by 'you' I meant generally all those who claim etc etc. etc., not you specifically. But just for reference the claim which would destroy my model is that the -2° are relative to the horizon. I'm perfectly fine with the claim that the -2° means the ATFLIR looks sligthly downwards from the airplane. And.. if this argument surfaces again I'll use the drawing you posted, adding the line to the horizon and the other one 2 degrees lower, for a visual example, it's very nice. Thanks!
I've not looked at the details, but it's plausible that it's something very far away. I think to move forward you'd really need as much of date/time, location, and camera heading as possible.
Zip the files, then click on "Attach Files" and attach the zip file.
Thank you @Mick West . If/when you can please look into some of the details (posts 106, 107, 108). I really think the case for Gimbal being the Atlas might be compelling, even without the additional data you rightly suggest, which have been long searched and discussed with few results. In a nutshell (and omitting the numerous caveats):
Whatever you do with the graph, please make sure to be clear about your own additions and interpretations, which I may not agree with.
Ah sorry, I did not realize it was your propriety! Sure thing, should I use it I'll ask you permission first by PM.
How do you know this? Supercarriers and F-18 can range pretty wide. I know the exercise zone, Jax zone I think, is near Jacksonville (it's not easy to find infos on where it actually lies, or at least I couldn't find anything but generic statements such as 'east of..'). I know Jacksonville and West Palm Beach are pretty far apart, but yet again supercarrier groups + F-18 can range far and wide. Obviously any firm proof Gimbal was recorded anywhere near Jacksonville and at least down to Cape Canaveral would destroy my model. On this I agree!
Thank you! I saw it, and it was just under my nose!! You saved me.
Thanks for the meteo data and for the interesting suggestion. Unfortunately I think my model cannot certainly pinpoint an exact location or heading for the F-18, the most it could do, but with a lot of math work, is to find a range of possible positions and headings could have had. So the suggestion is nice and now I go check where my models predicts the plane to be with respect to the coast, but even it turns out it goes the right direction, that's probably just luck
Indeed the reference to the night helps! Unfortunately the reference to Jacksonville doesn't, not at all. Now maybe a solution may be found which can place the F-18 near Jacksonville and still see the Atlas, but I doubt it (at least as I tried to do it) and I won't ever try to.
I was thinking "hugely" in terms of "starting to be to big a coincidence to believe it was just a coincidence." To my mind, a, let's say, 1/9 chance of happening just by unrelated happenstance is high enough not to be compelling -- especially when you consider other sorts of launches not in the count I found. That said, I remain intrigued with the possibility that the object is a launch. I'd not be surprised at all if that turns out to be the answr, if anybody ever can nail down the date and time of the video, especially considerng the other points you raise. It's just that, to me, there being a launch at some point in a two day span is not sufficiently unlikely to seem significant, in and of itself. Your mileage may vary, of course.
I'm really sorry and I apologize if my answer gave you the impression I was being snarky, that was not my intent at all (this extends to all my posts in this thread, but see the note(*)).
Thanks a lot! I have and additonal question though, where is Virginia Beach in Florida? I can only find Virginia Beach, Va., but that's hundreds of km north of Florida.
Okay thank you! Virginia Beach is a bit too far from Florida for my model, but your above quoted sentence looks promising, thanks!
Source
Source
(Same source)
I find it hard to understand the meaning of the last sentence, sorry. What does it mean the figther being 'behind Gimbal' (I very much agree on the left side part)? About the (really cool) simulation, see later.
I don't exactly understand here too. What I can say is that, in my model, the lines of sight are sub-parallel (at least when projected on a plane), this is necessary because it creates the same effect we see in the video, namely that the distance between the clouds and the Gimbal does not change much. This, by the way, then allows to retrieve a reasonable number for the distance travelled by the Atlas, 200km away (which strongly depends on the pitch angles, being that far). It may well be a coincidence, but it's pretty remarkable.
All what you say is really interesting, give me a little time to digest it
. What I can say at the moment is:So you are right, but considering the movements along the whole video is outside the scope of what I can possibly do.
IR contacts are one thing, radar returns claimed to be the same as the IR contact is another thing (if they weren't the Atlas solid boosters after all, as @Leonardo Cuellar suggested a long time ago, they detach before the first stage engine turns off. It might even explain the 9% increase in size of the Gimbal which has been reported, not that explaining that is in any way necessary to my model).
Anyone know which mission it was? Even better, where (more precisely than 'off the coast of Jacksonville') that exercise was done, or which kind of exercise it was, any info really? It's declassified they say, so this should be possible to do.
[dimesbag2]: think there is a big elephant in the room here : the direction of scanning of the clouds.
In the analyses of the lines of sight, we have all agreed on the fighter being behind Gimbal, seeing it on its left, then being right behind it as it closes on it. Like simulated on this flight simulation :
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/gi...lines-of-bearing-and-or-dcs.11836/post-253998
The dispute is whether the line of sights can be parallel, or if they cross. This is very important, cause parallel line of sights allow for a steady trajectory, but if they cross, the trajectories become very hard to reconcile with a plane (or we need to start tweaking the rate of turns arbitrarily to make it work). So the parallel line of sights has been the consensus so far for Gimbal to be a mundane object moving steadily.
Now, bear with me. If we look at the video, the clouds move from left to right, i.e. they are scanned by the camera from right to left (or in another words we see more and more of the clouds to the left of the FOV).
Let's put this information into the equation, and consider parallel line of sights with a simple schematic. That gives us something like this :
Parallel (or at least non-crossing) line of sights
See the problem ? If we are in this configuration, the camera should scan the clouds from left to right, i.e. we should see more and more clouds to the right of the FOV. This doesn't work.
Now, if the lines of sighting cross, it's possible to reconcile what we see with the clouds.
Crossing line of sights
In that configuration we see more and more clouds to the left of the FOV. This is the configuration we see in the video. This to me suggests that there is parallax happening as the fighter moves around Gimbal relative to the background. Such parallax would not occur with parallel lines of sight.
With crossing lines of sight, it becomes very difficult to build a steady trajectory for a distant plane or a rocket that would not deviate too much from the lines of sight we have (you can try playing with the rates of turn here : https://www.geogebra.org/m/p4zhvaaf)
Something very important to notice is that the background stops moving at the end of the video, from azimuth angle L3 to R7. This happens while the plane rate of turn does not diminish, it evens increases. This is a strong constraint for the lines of sight to be close from each others at the end, hence for the object apparent motion to decelerate and stop, or change direction (which plane or rocket can make a sharp turn like this ?). Those last 5 seconds are very important and have been overlooked imo.
[Mauro]
All what you say is really interesting, give me a little time to digest it
The Mission was called COMPUTEX.
No snark detected on my end, I was just interested in how likely or unlikely a rough coincidence of a launch with the UFO incident might be. We're all good!
I know I already answered saying I don't think the 'stern conversion' manouver matters much, because the pilot could have been badly mistaken about the real distance of the IR source in the sky. But thinking about this it came to my mind that... and here followed a discussion which seemingly supported my theory but actually was a colossal blunder on my part. But given it would now be cheating not to mention it, and given this 'stern conversion' thing might shed some light on the evolutions in the sky of the F-18, I'll talk a little about the 'stern conversion' manouver, as reported by @Itsme:
A small bit of evidence: 2015-01-25 of appears in the EXIF data from the original .WMV files released by the DoD
