Saw an interesting plane fly overhead at least 3 times, apparently circling the area. It was a twin-engine, low-wing propeller plane with a large pod or extension under the fuselage, sort of a vertical airfoil shape (i.e. flat bottom and curved sides). I’m just curious if it was some type of military radar system or a NASA science experiment, or something else completely. This was very close to an Army base (Redstone Arsenal) and a NASA center (Marshall Space Flight Center).
The closest I’ve found online was this NASA Gulfstream III with underbelly pod, but the one I saw was definitely a twin-engine propeller plane and the pod was much longer.
It’s certainly not the right plane, but did the pod look anything like this? (Another view here.) That’s a cargo pod that can be fitted to the bottom of a Cessna Caravan. There may be a similar pod available for a low-wing twin.
Sounds like you may have seen an MC-12W. The USAF bought somewhere around 30 of these over the past two or three years. It’s essentially a King Air 350 with a large sensor package attached to the belly. They use them for gathering intel in Iraq and Afghanistan. They have a decent payload, respectable loiter time, they’re fairly quiet, and relatively cheap to operate.
The Forest Service has also been increasingly using King Airs as combination reconnaissance/traffic control aircraft for wildfires. Some of the Forest Service King Airs have a bulge under the fuselage that houses a heat sensor gizmo provided by NASA.
The second link posted by Elendil’s Heir seems to be saying these planes are doing the task normally done by UAVs because they can’t build UAVs fast enough? Seems like a strange situation, but I suppose off-the-shelf hardware is always faster (and cheaper?) to acquire than military-spec hardware.
