From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V2 #46 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Friday, 8 January 1993 Volume 02 : Number 046 In this issue: Re: Interesting Sweeps Re: NASA Blackbirds Re: Sweeps Re: Interesting Sweeps First batch of images - here they come. JDW AURORA Articles Re: Interesting Sweeps Re: Interesting Sweeps Looking for a job? Looking for a job? The New, Improved Skunkworks. 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: Brent L. Bates ViGYAN AAD/TAB Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 07:59:58 EST Subject: Re: Interesting Sweeps The F-106 has about a 60 degree sweep. Brent L. Bates Phone:(804) 864-2854 M.S. 361 FAX:(804) 864-8469 NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, Virginia 23681-0001 E-mail: blbates@aero36.larc.nasa.gov or blbates@aero00.larc.nasa.gov ------------------------------ From: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu (Dean Adams) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 07:36:12 MST Subject: Re: NASA Blackbirds clark@acs.bu.edu (Jeff Clark) writes: >Hello, everyone. I'm about to make a 1/72 scale model of the SR-71. I'd >like to have it look like the current ones given to NASA at the Ames center >My question is: can someone (hopefully someone at Ames) Well, i'm not AT Dryden... but I have at least been there many times. :-) In case Mary is busy, i'll pass along some info... >tell me what the tail of those SR-71s look like, including maybe some >rough measurments (like say "a red NASA 3/4 of the way from the top"). OK, I have a photo of NASA 844's tail right here... There is a white strip across the whole tail, with a small black stripe border at the top and bottom. This is located at distance from the top just a little more than the overall width of the white strip. ================== N A S A (NASA worm logo in red, centered) ====================== 8 4 4 (white letters, on black tail bkgrnd). > Also, could you tell me if any other markings have changed from the >Air Force-owned jets I believe virtually all the AF markings are gone. - -dean ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com (Larry Smith) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 10:03:16 -0800 Subject: Re: Sweeps Wayne Fiori responds about wing sweeps: >Real curious and without the reference material :) OK. Janes Defense Week Aurora sweep: 75.0 degrees (JDW, Vol 18, #24/25, 12/92) F-111 (wings swept - correct?): 72.0 degrees (GD Eng. - Personal Corres.) HAVE BLUE sweep: 72.5 degrees (AW&ST; 4/22/91; pg. 30) F-117A sweep: 67.5 degrees (AW&ST; 4/22/91; pg. 30) Brent L. Bates writes: >The F-106 has about a 60 degree sweep. Thank You. I'll have to check out the others requested as well. I don't think the non-VG aircraft are as extreme as 70 degrees however. Sounds like significant body lift on an extremely swept vehicle would be a requirement as well, for takeoff, and landing. Possibly we have another reason for air-launch here, although you still might want to land :) . Larry ------------------------------ From: tom@gordian.com (Tom Ambrose) Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 10:04:48 PST Subject: Re: Interesting Sweeps larry@ichips.intel.com writes: [stuff deleted] > > HAVE BLUE sweep: 72.5 degrees > > F-117A sweep: 67.5 degrees > > There is a question about takeoff performance for a vehicle with a 75 degree > sweep. > > But F-117 has a 67.5 degree sweep, it takes off OK. F-111 puts its wings out.> > I wonder how long a takeoff roll a HAVE BLUE had. > > I'm sure weight would be an issue, also being able to rotate at the right > point. Other issues? > > Hmmm . > > Groom does have a long runway. [stuff deleted] According the "The Lockheed F117A" by Bill Sweetman, the takeoff speed is around 180 knots. If we assume similar weight and engines (about 30000 lbs of plane and about 10000 lbs of thrust, the book is at home) and assume some rolling friction, we could approximate the takeoff roll. This, of course, is more like back of the napkin calculations and approximations. Just my cent and half. - -tom ------------------------------ From: brndlfly@Athena.MIT.EDU Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 14:41:27 EST Subject: First batch of images - here they come. Scanned in the first six of the pictures. They're coming your way right now. Description files will follow as I get them scanned. The following six images are from the book "Aces High". Light on prose, heavy on superb photography. A-4a.jpg: A TA-4J in agressor two-tone gray cruising over some farmland. Nice scan. A-4b.jpg: Same TA-4J over snowcapped mountains, heading for orbit. c5.jpg: A C-5B trundles up for a drink, as seen by the boomer. My second favorite of these first six. f18.jpg: A flight of Hornets lines up behind the camera bird. tucano.jpg: I think these guys are maybe the Brazil aerobatic team. Anyway, good shot of the guys in formation. x29.jpg: My favorite fo the six. Surreal shot of the X-29 on the ground at dusk. Neat neat neat! Enjoy. -T P.S.: I am still taking requests for subjects I might be able to get my hands on. No request too weird. I went out and bought "Inside Lockheed's Blackbird" and boy is there a good shot in there! I also have a shot of the Aurora spyplane lined up. Okay, so it's an artist's impression of the Aurora (psyche!). I have NOT been able to find any good shots of Wild Weasel F-105's. The Detail & Scale had some small, poor-quality photos but that's about it. If anybody knows of a better source, let me know. -T ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com (Larry Smith) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 14:23:03 -0800 Subject: JDW AURORA Articles I have a copy of the Janes Defense Week AURORA issue. It's Vol 18, No 24/25, 12 December 1992. Written by Bill Sweetman. The cover shows a computer generated line drawing 4-view of their Aurora concept (rear, top, front, side views) drawn over a blue background (to simulate a blueprint I suppose). There are actually 4 articles on 3 pages. Hypersonic Aurora: a secret dawning? Denial and disinformation Disguised by NASP Radical Engine Technology Here are legal summaries of two of the articles, for discussion purposes only: I'll post the other two in a few days. Denial and disinformation Despite a political climate to let more information out, USAF and Congressional leaders still 'fend off' questions on the hypersonic aircraft. At the same time they avoid direct denials that the USAF is involved in operations of a secret high-performance aircraft. USAF Secretary Donald Rice is one who has brushed off reports of unidentified high-speed aircraft. On Oct. 30, 1992, in a press conference in Los Angeles he said: "The system that has been described in those articles does not exist. We have no aircraft programme that flies at six times the speed of sound, or anything close to that," He cast doubt on "the kind of descriptions laid out in some of those articles". He said such descriptions would take an aircraft of such proportions and capabilities that there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in you knowing where to hide it. Regarding Rice's specific denial concerning a Mach 6 aircraft, Paul Czysz, a former member of McDonnell Douglas's NASP team, and currently a professor of Aerospace Engineering at St. Louis University said, "Mach 6 is exactly where you don't want to fly", because it is a transition point between different modes of any likely propulsion system. The USAF has also been casting doubt on the siesmographic 'Aurora' evidence collected by the US Geological Survey. That data indicates that unifentified supersonic aircraft have been crossing southern California. Recently, Massachussetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory, under USAF contract, analyzed one of these incidents and concluded that it was caused by a US Navy fighter (an F-14) on an over-the-ocean flight-test mission. This explanation of one incident doesn't explain the many incidents recorded from sensors more than 130 km inland, unless pilots have been routinely violating the ban on supersonic flight over metropolitan areas. The USAF Flight Test Center states that the boom carpet of an aircraft at 50,000 ft extends 40km on either side of the flight path. Witnesses have described the booms as a "rumbling" sound rather than the pop-thud of a fighter boom. USAF's credibility is undermined by the fact that the DoD authorizes disseminating misleading information. Steven Aftergood, Editor of the Secrecy & Government Bulletin for the Federation of American Scientists, said: "Once we know that the DoD practices this kind of deception, it becomes harder to discern what's real and what is not." JDW asked Senator Sam Nunn (left), Chaiman of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), about the California booms at a press conference in Dayton earlier this year. Also present was Ohio Senator John Glenn, a senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. As SASC Chaiman, Nunn is briefed on Special Access Programs (SAPs). Normally, the full SASC and intelligence committees get the same briefing. Aftergood has reported the existence of a subset of SAPs called "waived programmes", in which the Secretary of Defense waives the requirement to notify the full committees, and briefs only the chairman and senior minority members of each committee. If the hypersonic aircraft is a waived programme, Nunn would be briefed and Glenn would not. Nunn's response to the question was to refer it to Glenn, without expressly declining to comment. Glenn's response was: "First, I don't know. Second, no comment." Disguised by NASP Has the National Aero-Space Plane - NASP - provided a disguise for Aurora? At a conference in Orlando last month Heinz Pfeffer, head of the European Space Agency's directorate for space transportation systems, told JDW: "NASP is a cover for Aurora. There's no other reason that the industry would put $900 million into NASP. "Aurora has achieved its goals and NASP can be allowed to fizzle out." NASP's future is in doubt because Congress has not approved funds for developing a prototype. ------------------------------ From: gwh@lurnix.COM Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 14:08:36 -0800 Subject: Re: Interesting Sweeps The SAAB Draken has 89 degree/40 (42?) degree sweep in its double delta "Cranked Arrow" wing. The F-16 cranked arrows have about the same sweep, if different wing details (among other things the plane is nose-heavy...). - -george ------------------------------ From: gwh@lurnix.COM Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 14:12:10 -0800 Subject: Re: Interesting Sweeps I wrote: >The SAAB Draken has 89 degree/40 (42?) degree sweep in its double >delta "Cranked Arrow" wing. The F-16 cranked arrows have about the same >sweep, if different wing details (among other things the plane is >nose-heavy...). I lied. It's 79. something degrees sweep on the inner section, not 89. (Duh, it's not STRAIGHT back 8-) BTW, does anyone know who's got the privately owned Draken in the US? I know someone has one, saw it flying somewhere... - -george ------------------------------ From: tom@gordian.com (Tom Ambrose) Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 15:46:53 PST Subject: Looking for a job? Sunday's LA Times Classified had an ad for Lockheed Advanced Development Company. In huge letters across the top, it says, "THE SKUNK WORKS...In Business, In Palmdale!". Also, it shows the famous skunk with outlines of Lockheed planes circling him. Under him, it says, "1943-1993 Lockheed's Skunk Works 50th Anniversary". It mentions working on "such leading edge projects as the Navy's new stealth fighter, the AX, and much more." Just thought you guys would be interested. - -tom ------------------------------ From: tom@gordian.com (Tom Ambrose) Date: Thu, 07 Jan 93 15:33:59 PST Subject: Looking for a job? Sunday's LA Times Classified had an ad for Lockheed Advanced Development Company. In huge letters across the top, it says, "THE SKUNK WORKS...In Business, In Palmdale!". Also, it shows the famous skunk with outlines of Lockheed planes circling him. Under him, it says, "1943-1993 Lockheed's Skunk Works 50th Anniversary". It mentions working on "such leading edge projects as the Navy's new stealth fighter, the AX, and much more." Just thought you guys would be interested. - -tom ------------------------------ From: kuryakin@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Rick Pavek) Date: Thu, 7 Jan 93 17:43:08 PST Subject: The New, Improved Skunkworks. Gee, that navy stealth wouldn't look a lot like the F-23, would it? :-) A point to make on the topic of us talking about classified info... I know, an old topic but it crops up every now and then. From The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence by Marchetti comes this from page 23 of the Dell books March 75 printing: Apart from disclosure of information classified by the Atomic Energy Commission, it is not a crime to disclose classified information unless it is done under circumstances which involve what is commonly understood as espionage - spying for a foreign nation. The government tried, in the prosecution fo Daniel Ellsberg, to stretch the espionage statutes to punish his disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, even though he had had no intent to injure the United States, as required by the statute. Though that prosecution was aborted under the most dramatic circumstances, including a surreptitious attempt by President Nixon to influence the trial judge, it is unlikely that the appeals courts would have upheld such an expansive application of the espionage laws - assuming that the jury would even have brought in a guilty verdict. Me again. So far this book is very entertaining, even considering its age. I'd recommend it. Really is frightening. The nutshell is that the CIA's primary job/focus is not the gathering and desemmination of intel, but rather is that of interfering with foreign governments. I wonder how it is nowadays? Any CIA types on the skunk list? (Not that they'd ever speak up... ;-) Rick Rick Pavek | Never ask a droid to outdo its program. Moved | Left no forwarding address. | It wastes your time | and annoys the droid. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V2 #46 ******************************** 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". If you want to subscribe something other than the account the mail is coming from, such as a local redistribution list, then append that address to the "subscribe" command; for example, to subscribe "local-skunk-works": subscribe skunk-works-digest local-skunk-works@your.domain.net A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).