I COULD TELL YOU BUT THEN YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE DESTROYED BY ME -- EMBLEMS FROM THE PENTAGON'S BLACK WORLD

F-22 LOW OBSERVABLES FLIGHT TEST, RAPTOR 4004-JUST PASSING THROUGH

This commemorative patch for a classified flight test of an F-22 Raptor aircraft at Groom Lake shares many symbols with the Special Projects Flight Test Squadron patch. The mascot here is a raptor wearing the clothes of a wizard (like those on the Special Projects Flight Test Squadron patch). The Greek letter sigma hangs from the figure's neck. The collection of six stars, again, is a reference to Area 51. The phrase "IdB" may reference the intended or actual radar cross section measurement of the aircraft. The words JUST PASSING THROUGH reference the fact that, for this test, the airplane had only to fly through the RCS measurement range while engineers collected data from monitoring stations on the ground.

Go to Next Page