From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V2 #61 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Sunday, 24 January 1993 Volume 02 : Number 061 In this issue: Re: Intercepts Re: F-22 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: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu (Dean Adams) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 07:54:15 MST Subject: Re: Intercepts kuryakin@bcstec.ca.boeing.com (Rick Pavek) writes: >I just got my copy of Intercepts today and the part that Larry posted >(At my request) was only a small fraction of the overview of the mystery >a/c story. Well, i'm sure we would all like to see the rest. :-) >One thing that really jumped out at me when I read it today was a picture >of the FOIA reply that R. W. Koch received on Aug 24, 87. It stated >"Our search disclosed no records, or knowledge of, a F-117 Night. Hawk." Right, that is nothing at all like the "F-117A Nighthawk". >At this time, F-117's were regularly flying and most, if not all, of the >a/c had accumulated over 1000 hours. The public announcement was made in >1989. It was on November 10, 1988... eleven years after Have Blue first flew. >Now I don't rule out that the Dept of the AF Freedom of Information Manager >wasn't able to find references to the a/c, but it's pretty obvious that >the information was withheld by someone. >To which the obvious question is: What else are they holding back on? LOTS, i'm sure! >Hope Clinton sees it with a different light. Anybody up for a >write-in campaign? There does seem to be some move on to get a better grip on SAP budgets. AW&ST has a few words on this in the last issue... At least some parts of the government seem to be realizing that secrecy, if not downright silly, is not worth the effort--or the money... Air Force says launch dates and payload data will be declassified "a reasonable period of time in advance" of most DoD space launches. [THIS I have been waiting for a long time] ...the General Accounting Office has found, to no one's surprise, that five black programs received less oversight than comparable non-special access acquisition programs. I also recently picked up a copy of "Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget". It might have some interesting stuff... - -dean ------------------------------ From: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu (Dean Adams) Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 07:54:51 MST Subject: Re: F-22 gt6745b@prism.gatech.edu writes: >A test film we were shown of an AIM-9L Sidewinder launch from the right >intake weapon bay was pretty impressive. The doors opened, the missile >was ejected approx. 2.5 to 3 ft. from the aircraft before motor ignition >and the doors closed. Sounds great. I wish that I had a copy of the tape! :-) >The impressive part was the fact that all this happened in about 1.3 sec >or less. The doors literally opened/closed in the blink of an eye. Nice. But, the way Sidewinders are used on today's aircraft is that the seeker acquires a target *before* it is launched. I guess the F-22 will need to download targeting data into the missile before firing. It would also require the aircraft to have its own IR seeker. - -dean ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V2 #61 ******************************** 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 To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe skunk-works-digest in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@ecn.purdue.edu". 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).