lundi 14 juillet 2014

Help ID this airplane?

Trying to figure out what kind of airplane this is. I don't have a lot of detail so bear with me. I have a pretty good idea of what normally flies over my house (airplanes en route to CLE, and also to a local county airport), and this one is puzzling me.



I've seen this airplane just a few times over the past 2 or 3 years, and only at night (when I happen to be out stargazing). I just happened to see it again this weekend. Here are the key points:



1. It always flies W to E whenever I see it (although that probably doesn't mean anything).



2. Estimating the altitude about 5 to 10K, and it flies very slow, slower than any other airplane I've seen.



3. It's very quiet. There's no prop noise, and so it must be a jet engine, but I don't even hear that.



4. There's a single red strobe on the bottom, but it's not a xenon-type flasher. It's one of those rotating red incandescent beacons that's pretty bright, even as it disappears over the horizon.



5. Once I happened to catch it approaching, and I think I remember a pattern of 3 white lights too (center front, and 2 aft, like an oncoming triangle).



I do see aerial refueling over my house during the daytime / early evening, but that's at 20K, much higher than this, plus there's 2 airplanes. I'm thinking this is a military plane of some sort, but I have no idea as to the shape since it's at night.



Any ideas?




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