From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V2 #25 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 10 December 1992 Volume 02 : Number 025 In this issue: Re: Uncomfirmed Info ... [none] Nellis questions A-12 and F-23 status. Re: NASP funding.. Nellis Sally Corridor See the end of the digest for information on subscribing to the skunk-works or skunk-works-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: mike@shower.rain.com (Michael Heggen) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 15:46:31 PST Subject: Re: Uncomfirmed Info ... larry@ichips.intel.com writes: > > The U of O person responds: > > > According to my "unnamed engineer", > > the technology of the ram-jet is not secret at all. > > That is correct. The concept is not secret at all. There IS however a lot > of secret ramjet technology still being held close to the vest, ie: classified. Yep, and Michael at U of O emphasizes that none of this is being disclosed. According to him, all info that he has passed on is unclassified (if it weren't, I wouldn't post it here, as that is forbidden by the mailing list's charter, among other things). > some of it through DTIC. There is A LOT in DTIC (Defense Technical > Information Center) that we can't get at yet. Maybe one of our NASA members > can at least verify that. Probably not, oh well! That *would* be interesting.... > Please, no offense intended here. As Rick says, there may be an element of > truth in this. I guess I'm most impressed by the comments about maintaining > speed and slowing down. These comments show some insight! But, what do I know. > I just try to read the textbooks on this subject. Who knows, maybe they're > light years ahead of what they teach the kids in school and publish in > textbooks. Some of the AW&ST articles have hinted at this. This is my own personal, uneducated (but very curious) opinion: like you bring up, how up to date are the civilian and declassified textbooks on the subject? Unfortunately, until the US military relaxes its secrecy policies, that is a question we can't answer regarding the present. By examing declassified data, we can see how far ahead of civilian knowledge the military was at any given time in the declassified past, but we can never know about the present or reent past. All we can do is grasp at straws of truth and see if it's grain or just chaff. This entire discussion is certainly helping me expand my knowledge, as it is forcing the "hardcore" skunkers like Larry and Rick to not only say "what" but "why", which is immensely enlightening for the rest of us that couldn't answer "why" if we tried due to lack of knowledge regarding aeronautics, propulsion, stealth technology, or whatever. For that, I must say "THANK YOU" to you both. > Another question I'd like discussed. If they announced the F-117A so that they > could fly it around in daylight, why wouldn't they announce other secret > aircraft, before they started flying them around in daylight? Perhaps because the F-117A was already largely out of the bag anyway? Something like the Aurora (whatever it may turn out to be), which most everyone seems to agree is probably hypersonic and stealthy may not need quite as much protection. Hmm... interesting point though. - -- Michael Heggen "An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy." --Weinberg's Corollary to Murphy's Computer Law ------------------------------ From: swindley@s1.elec.uq.oz.au (Bob Swindley) Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 12:36:21 EST Subject: [none] Sorry, but could you please remove me from this mailing list There is just too much traffic. Bob (swindley@s1.elec.uq.oz.au) ------------------------------ From: shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 19:39:15 PST Subject: Nellis questions MOA = Military Operating Area. The reason that there are two frequencies might be that the area is busy enough to require more than one controller. Or it might be that different areas were set up because there were two squadrons that couldn't get along. Or maybe there were two contractors with competing aircraft. Or maybe it's make-work program. The Navy may be using the area for aircraft flying out of NAS Fallon, too. They do air combat there, which fits nicely into MOAs. Pure speculation on my part, based on absolutely no knowledge whatsoever. We use the restricted area (R-2508, as I recall) which isn't a MOA at all. If I get a chance to ask one of the zipper-suited sun gods about this, I'll relay the answer. Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility, Edwards, CA shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov Of course I don't speak for NASA "A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot ------------------------------ From: shafer@rigel.dfrf.nasa.gov (Mary Shafer) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 92 19:46:13 PST Subject: A-12 and F-23 status. On Wed, 9 Dec 92 14:59:07 PST, kuryakin@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Rick Pavek) said: Rick> Precedence: bulk Rick> Is there anyone that can elaborate on rumors that the A-12 and F-23 are Rick> being actively developed? Sure--they're all hooey. Not very elaborate, but that's life. Rick> Rumor has it that the a/c in progress, parts, assemblies, and tooling for Rick> the A-12 were all shipped to Lockheed. Why weren't they already _at_ Lockheed? Surely no one thinks that the Navy was building the aircraft? Or have I forgotten who the contractor was? If it wasn't Lockheed, there's very little chance that the Navy would spend any money to send this stuff elsewhere to be junked. When Congress says kill it, the Navy kills it. The Navy has no other source of income. Rick> Additionally, the F-23 is rumored to be an active project. Anybody with Rick> a good rumor? Not unless they've built another two aircraft. The YF-23s are sitting out in a fenced enclosure on South Base, by the B-2 complex. They've obviously been there for a _long_ time without being moved. I was over there when the Endeavour made its first landing and I was there again recently and they're unchanged (except that they're even dirtier now). ------------------------------ From: vapspcx%cad@gatech.edu (S. Keith Graham) Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 01:03:43 EST Subject: Re: NASP funding.. As strictly a random rumor from an ex-AE student: He's had several professors complain that you can't get research money for NASP, apparently because the research has been done, and is still classified, and the "government" doesn't want to fund it again. An AE that works with me now was doing Scram-jet air-flow models in the early 80s (maybe even late 70's.. I'll have to check with him on the dates when he started that..) He was working on the Mach-20 kind of planes, but had been told that "the materials won't exist anytime soon". That puts serious research going on right around the "Orient Express" speech.. And what he was talking about *didn't* sound like a civilian aircraft... And the fact that he was doing this general kind of thing is apparently unclassified. Other rumors: about 3rd hand, a navy radar operator reported a plane doing Mach 6+ at sea level... I've heard some other very interesting rumors, but they come even less well grounded so I'll refrain from quoting them... Besides, if they were true, they'd violate the charter of the group on classified materials... (Well, the Jane's article probably contains classified material, but anyway.. :-) Keith Graham Computer Science person surrounded by A.Es vapspcx@cad.gatech.edu ------------------------------ From: "Mike Cancellier" Date: 9 Dec 92 23:29:00 PST Subject: Nellis Sally Corridor Date sent: Rick, The Sally MOA, which does mean Military Operations Area is the entry point to the Red Flag ranges at Nellis. It comes from "Sally forth." The reason there are two freq's is that each team has a different freq. The corridor is on a line between Edwards and Nellis. My father, a pilot for Hughes Aircraft, say the best place to watch is Trona, CA just ouside of Death Valley. I have been there myself, and have been overflown by a high-subsonic B1B at 200 ft, a b52 at 200 ft, a very high-subsonic F111 at <100 ft (that was wild, needless to say), and been strafed by an F14. Neat place to watch airplanes. Never done any listening though. If you can, please send the freq lists, I am a rabid military air listener. About the difference between Groom and Dreamland, I once had a "non-standard" ONC of the area. It showed the Groom MOA, and the Dreamland restricted area. Dreamland is near or within the nuclear test range down there. Groom is farther North. My father used to make daily trips to Groom lake, and or course won't say what he saw there. The story he has of Dreamland is hairy. A P-51 owner/pilot was flying near Vegas about ten years ago. He let himself get lost, or at least turned around, and tried to land at the first field he saw. Well, he saw a big strip and thought it was McCarran. Needless to say it wasn't! He didn't get to close before he was met by two interceptors with weapons that didn't have blue bands on them (i.e. they were LIVE) and was escorted to Indian Wells AAF (the T-Bird field) where he was forcibly removed from his aircraft and interrrogated by some rather earnest OSI guys (AF Office of Special Investigations, the counter-intel types) all day and into the night. At the end of this, we was released, almost without his airplane. I think that if it wasn't a million-dollar warbird, it would have been siezed. He was of course given a stern lecture on not violating restricted airspace, and sent on his way. I have heard this story from two people: my father, and a family friend who worked for Lockheed ADP on the A-12/YF-12/SR-71 when they were in development. I really wish I still had that ONC. I lost it somehow, before I saw the normal one, and realized that none of that stuff is on it. Needless to say, I am not going out there, I value my security clearance, I also value my commission and my job, which by the way has nothing to do with anything that doesn't fly ballistically. I'm just a gopher. I will be living underground most of the time, only coming up for grad school classes. Sorry about the incredible length of this message, but I can rarely tell stories on Skunk-Works stuff as you all know more than I do! Cheers, Mike P.S. I will be leaving for Undergraduate Missile Training at Vandy in January, and this will probably be my last post. You guys have passed a lot of great info along, and it has been fun. Phil, thanks for the great list! *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* | Mike Cancellier, Lt, USAF ICBM Net: 34 06 24 N 117 48 21 W | | CVALJ000@CSUPomona.edu or | | Cal Poly Pomona Geography Dept. 47 55 31 N 97 01 57 W | | Technical Specialist (Reply in 30 minutes, guaranteed!) | | (714) 869-3590 Missileer in Waiting | *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V2 #25 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "listserv@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu". 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