http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?121774-NASA-WB-57-in-Afghanistan some good pics of a really cool plane. Always cool to see it flying out of ellington in houston.
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Optical tracking and positioning? That's how they identify the Shuttle's Solid Rocket Boosters during launch (left from right).
To identify top to bottom, left to right. The opposite would be the image of a canopy painted on the bottom of a fuselage to confuse the enemy.....................................
not much of a poster here, more of a lurker, but it looks like both engines are painted the same, the inboard side of each nacelle would be black, along with the canopy surround to fight glare.
Take a look at the second to last picture. They both have black but the A/P's LH nacelle has more coverage
FWIW pics of the RB-57F's that I have in my book collection from the mid 60's show the nacelles painted exactly the same. Don't know why though.
That's a neat airplane and one high flyer.. Listed service ceiling is 68,500 ft for the F version. That not quite as good as a U2, but this carries a lot more stuff. I had a friend who was the GIB managing the ELINT parts on one flying out of Japan during the cold war. He said it was a neat ride.
Probably to cut glare at high altitude... If I remember correctly the NASA TR-1s (U-2) had very similar paint schemes.
It's been a couple years since I was at Kandahar so I pulled it up on Google Earth and the base seems purposefully obscured with some details edited out. Not sure what the big hanger was for as it was a skeleton every time I was there
