From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V3 #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 Saturday, 24 April 1993 Volume 03 : Number 025 In this issue: F-117 story Sightings of Black Manta Re: Crickmore's New Book Any more info on the `Stealth Ship?` Re: Any more info on the `Stealth Ship?` Re: Latest Intercepts reports 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: brndlfly@Athena.MIT.EDU Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 11:18:22 EDT Subject: F-117 story I just heard a little something from a friend of mine that intrigued me. Seems his dad worked at Kirtland AFB a couple of years back, and a Nighthawk decided to take a pit stop there. He walked out on the mat to take a look. He says the skin feels like 600-grit sandpaper (something I would attribute to the paint; production line shots in This Is Stealth suggest that the radar-absorbent sheets they use are pretty smooth). To the point. When the pilot got back into the airplane, he put on a pair of BIG gloves with a bunch of wires coming out of them. Nothing else of interest, but that made me stop and think. Anybody have an idea what these might have been? Are they std. issue F-117 stuff or might they be something more exotic (I'm thinking advanced human interface type stuff). -T T Velazquez MIT Aero/Astro brndlfly@athena.mit.edu "Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggy' until you can find a rock." ------------------------------ From: bpatters@PCS.CNU.EDU (blake patterson) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 13:37:17 EDT Subject: Sightings of Black Manta The mention of sightings of the "shuttle logo" craft brings to mind some incidents of not necessarily THIS craft, but mystery, high-speed craft in general. A Biology instructior I had several years ago was retired Air Force. He told of an incident where he was boarding a plane that was leaving from southern California to Hawaii. This "strange" craft was departing at the same time from the same military base. When he arrived in Hawaii, the plane that had taken off apparently had made the trek in about 45 minutes! He was astonished. He was also unable to find out more about this vehicle. Also, my father--then an aeronautical engineer at NASA, Langely--saw, on the Eastern Shores, the contrails of a craft at a considerable altitude travel across the sky at a speed that could have been nothing shy of mach 4. He, as well, was left wondering what the craft was, but still it is interesting to hear of mysetery-sightings nonetheless. This occurred in the late 70's. bpatters@pcs.cnu.edu ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 11:16:04 -0700 Subject: Re: Crickmore's New Book Jim Chandler writes: >This is not entirely correct. This is not an SR-71 Reunion. It is a >Blackbird Reunion. The difference is subtile but there. Sorry Jim and sorry to all U-2 enthusiasts everywhere. Thanks for the clarification. Larry ------------------------------ From: planey (Michael C Planey) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 93 14:24:14 -0500 Subject: Any more info on the `Stealth Ship?` To whom it may concern... Does anyone have any further info on the reported AP photo of the Navy`s Stealth Ship -- i.e. size, mission, capabilities, etc... I know a few folks who would like to know more about this beast. (No, we`re not the Russian Navy either:) Thanks. ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1993 17:52:16 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Any more info on the `Stealth Ship?` Looking at the markings on the side of the Sea Shadow ship in Defense News, it's about 140 ft long and about 40 ft wide. from the front view, I'd say it's 20 or so ft above the waterline. It's obviously from the F-117 faceted school of stealth _and_ the B-2 faired school. Flat topped, with ogival sides, and the bow and stern are two faceted ogives. The only windows are on the bridge, in the bow. It's a catamaran, of course. I'll mail this article, with the two photos, to someone who can scan them in when I get back from a week of TDY in Virginia, if someone will volunteer. The article says virtually nothing about the Sea Shadow except that it cost $245 million since the mid-1980's. A coworker who's more courant in these things tells me that it looks like the Sea View in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com On Fri, 23 Apr 1993, Michael C Planey wrote: > > > To whom it may concern... > > Does anyone have any further info on the reported AP photo of the Navy`s > Stealth Ship -- i.e. size, mission, capabilities, etc... > > I know a few folks who would like to know more about this beast. > > (No, we`re not the Russian Navy either:) > > Thanks. > ------------------------------ From: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu (Dean Adams) Date: Thu, 22 Apr 93 06:33:44 MDT Subject: Re: Latest Intercepts reports Larry writes: >Back in the first half of 1991 I saw a copy of a presentation foil (no >security stamps on it at all) that contained some drawings of present >and possibly future military vehicles. The present day aircraft had their > line drawings filled-in and shaded. >The possible 'future' aircraft had their shapes represented with white >lines without any filled-in color. In other words the 'future' aircraft > were portrayed with a kind of "not all there yet" or a 'ghostly' nature. Interesting! So what company/agency created this thing?? Were there any sort of logos or credits given on it? >There were "not all there yet" shapes representing four aircraft. >The F-22 shape was one. A satellite shape was another. What did the satellite look like? Was it similar to anything known? Could it have been Milstar? As far as I know there have NEVER been any sort of drawings released for the recce sats. >What may have been a high altitude propeller driven reconnaissance >aircraft was a third (somewhat like a U-2R with a propeller >- not the Condor), Hmmm... manned or unmanned? (or could you tell?) >and the forth was indeed a pure delta shaped, jet powered aircraft whose >shape looked like it would very much be in agreement with the Gibson >shape and the shape described by Rick from the current Intercepts. >I will retain the details seen on the drawing for future 'incidents'. Yea, that sure sounds intriguing. Feel free to pass along any other "details"! >The filled in or 'real' aircraft represented on the foil were: >the U-2R, the F-18, the Tornado, the F-16, the F-15E, Strange combination... especially the Tornado! >One of the tracked vehicles was also represented as "not all there yet". Did it look like anything especially exotic? >Since the foil had no classification stamps we all know it just >couldn't be real. However, since the Gibson sighting, I've had >it at the back of my mind. Yea, who knows what to think... - -dean ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V3 #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". 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". 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