This Shadowy Testbed Jet Has Been Flying Missions With A False Registration For Months
The highly modified airliner has a colorful past, but in recent years it seems to have faded deeper into the shadows.
By Tyler RogowayDecember 15, 2017
The shadowy world of flying sensor test bed aircraft, both foreign and domestic, is a fascinating one. These highly modified airliners and business jets do critical work validating new radars, missile seekers, data-links, targeting pods and much more. Some of the shyest among them also work to quantify aircrafts' thermal and radar signatures from an air-to-air perspective. But one of these aircraft—a gonzo-nosed DC-9, known as a NC-9D, with an interesting backstory—has been suddenly quite active and seems to suffer from a case of multiple identifies.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17019/this-shadowy-testbed-jet-has-been-flying-missions-with-a-false-registration-for-months
