I saw an odd jet aircraft this morning take off out of Nellis AFB northeast of Las Vegas, NV.Here's a crop from a pic I tried to take with my phone as it climbed out - it's bad I know, but it's all I have:It looked like a smaller/shorter/stubbier U-2 painted in all white. The wing's root chord was a lot longer than a U-2's is (it looks thinner than it was in the angle from the pic). It was a single engine with the exhaust coming out the tailpipe, clearly an older turbojet - there was a visible smoke trail behind it.My first thought was some kind of vintage British jet or something like that, but I'm really not sure.Anyone have any ideas? I'll know it if I see it in a pic.

Global Hawk Ryan?

Is it perhaps a predator or something like that?

I don't think it was a drone - definitely not a Global Hawk, it didn't have that hump or the V tail.

Its i think one of the NASA/Air Force U-2's. From the angle, it looks right.

I've seen U-2s before, I'm pretty positive it wasn't one, it was too short to be one and the wings were too wide lengthwise (chord).

Could it have been a WB-57? One departed Nellis AFB about 9:48 am today. If so, it was NASA 6 according to Flight Aware.http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/Don Bohr

Ryan,I was going to disagree with you and say it's a Hawk, but I'm assuming your eyes are better than your camera, and you saw it transition the frame of view. So even though the hump of a Hawk wouldn't be apparent from the camera shot's angle, I'm assuming you saw it from other angles to rule that out. I'd say the same for the V-tail.After that, I was going to disagree with you and say the U-2's wing is a lot wider at the root than you gave it credit for, but most of the active U-2s have those big tanks on the wings (and all the white NASA ones do now, I believe). The old jet smoke would fit, though.To be honest, I can't think of an old jet with that high of an aspect ratio.

The Global Hawk isn't stationed at Nellis AFB plus, the only Hawks painted white are NASA ones, operating out of Dryden. Perhaps an A-10 Thunderbolt? It possibly could be a B-1 Lancer, if the wings were out. At that angle, the four engines may have looked like two or one.

Edited January 6, 201214 yr by pjc747

Looks like it could be the NASA WB57 (modified English Electric Canberra) that took off yesterday morning. Looks like it landed again 3 minutes later and then took off for Groom Lake around lunch time. Looking at this linked image of the WB57 though, you can see that the remaining fuselage behind the wing is about the same length as the wing, whereas in your picture (although difficult to see the ratio exactly due to the angle) it looks like the wing is set further back along the fuselage with less remaining fuselage behind the wing than the WB57. So it might not be, but as you mention it looked like an vintage British jet with the smoke, it does sound awfully like the Canberras I used to see operating from RAF Mildenhall (NASA) and RAF Marham (RAF).

Edited January 6, 201214 yr by tutmeister

Could it have been a WB-57? One departed Nellis AFB about 9:48 am today. If so, it was NASA 6 according to Flight Aware.http://jsc-aircraft-....nasa.gov/wb57/Don Bohr

That's definitely it! Thank you! I must have been wrong about the exhaust coming out the back - I was seeing it from a moving car on I-15...

My pleasure, Ryan. Glad to do it after all the work you've done for us.Don Bohr