(Air) Experimental Sabreliner

Took a spin around the service drive at YIP looking for any hidden treasures that may have came in and I found this guy! A 1970 North American NA-265-60 with an experimental registration. Owned by Williams International Co Llc. Not really sure what "experimenting" they are doing with it or what the purpose of the pod is, maybe someone else has some information on it.

Nice pic, I have had occasion to ride in a couple of Saberliners. Great little planes. I can't imagine what the pod might be used for.

Williams International manufactures small jet engines. My guess is that the fixture on the Saberliner is used to test new jet engine designs in the air.

any other pictures? thats a nice one though.

I'm in agreement with carefree...

I say it's a pylon for mounting testbed engines as well.

Nice find man.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #9749290
I'm in agreement with carefree...

I say it's a pylon for mounting testbed engines as well.

Nice find man.

My guess is the pylon is to simulate the horizontal stabilizer of whatever airplane they are planning to put the engine on. Probably some inlet distortion testing or something? That' s just my guess though. Pretty cool.

RadAL wrote in post #9749250
any other pictures? thats a nice one though.

Thats the only one I took. I had to shoot it through a chain linked fence so I couldn't exactly walk around it to get other angles.

I wish I could get it in the air but there is no flight history for it. The registration shows it hasn't flown in over a year so it must go under a call sign. However if it does, that is blocked because I show no Sabreliners coming into Willow Run. I will just consider myself lucky to have got it on the ramp.

The FAA's website says that "This aircraft's registration status may not be suitable for operation." It's status is listed as "In Question"

http://registry.faa.go​v …ults.aspx?NNumb​ertxt=15hf