From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V4 #14 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 15 September 1993 Volume 04 : Number 014 In this issue: Re: Stealthy Moslems on the GNAT 750 Drawings of Naval F-117 Northrop "Blackbird" Nukes in Azerbaijan? Sea Shadow SR-75 Kits Sonic booms (?) in Marseille (France) Re: Aerofax Stories Re: Space Access Society updates SR-75 and Testor's strategy Space Access Society 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: Mark Grant Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 15:35:13 BST Subject: Re: Stealthy Moslems Jamie Aycock wrote: > On Mon, 13 Sep 1993, Rick Pavek wrote: > > Did you know that while Bosnia is melting down and Arafat and Rabin > > are playing buddy-buddy that Iran slipped 10,000 troops into > > Azerbaijan (former Soviet territory)? > > Damn... Hadn't heard that one... Are there still nukes in Azerbaijan? > > Jamie > If they're anything like Kazakhistan, they've probably sold them to Iran already.... So, does this make Iraq our friend again ? Mark ------------------------------ From: Dr Shelly Pope Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 08:59:47 PDT Subject: on the GNAT 750 General Atomics makes and operates the GNAT 750. It is a UAV (Unmanned Airborne Vehicle) that is available for lease. Not all of its customers are military-related: the DOE will be using it this fall or winter as a platform for scientific instruments. The eventual goal is to make long duration and high altitude measurements, e.g. of the radiative fluxes in the atmosphere and the effects of clouds. Shelly ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 10:43:30 -0700 Subject: Drawings of Naval F-117 In this week's issue of AW&ST (9/13/93), there is an article on the Lockheed Naval version of the F-117. This aircraft is a proposed interim solution to the Navy's current problem of the lack of a stealthy attack aircraft, brought about by the cancellation of the Avenger II, and the current redirection of the AX effort (or whatever they call that program now). There is a nice drawing of the aircraft. Upon a cursory inspection, the fuselage looks the same, but the wings and empennage are different. This looks like the same concept to be published in the 50 year history of the Skunk Works, available in a few weeks. There's a nice article along with the drawings. It sounds like the Navy doesn't want it, but I haven't read very far into the article yet. There is also an interesting article on a Mach 14 waverider that McDonnell Douglas is testing the off-design performance of. Sounds like the ultimate goal may be - son of SWERVE. The article is an excellent introduction to basic waverider concepts. Also they mention a Naval wind tunnel with Mach 16 capability. Also, for those of you who are into high Mach air sucking and squeezing, like me, there is an interesting article on some NASA work on HSCT (High Speed Civil Transport) inlets that show a working variable angle external compression inlet spike. This is interesting in that traditionally this function has been performed by a translating (move fore and aft) inlet spike (ala SR-71). The spike featured in the article has a variable angle (gets fatter or skinnier) instead of translating (moving fore and aft). Larry ------------------------------ From: urf@ki.icl.se (Urban Fredriksson) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 20:20:14 MET DST Subject: Northrop "Blackbird" Northrop are proposing a advanced tactical fighter-bomber as a successor to SR-71 and F-111. The proposal looks _very_ much like a Blackbird with only one fin and a wing sweep back of about 73 deg. It is supposed to be stealthy an "...represents a low-to-moderate development risk". It's designed for a cruise speed of up to Mach 3.5 above 21 000 m, combat radius 2700 km. Take off weight 57 tons, armament four AIM-120 and six SRAMs for the attack version, the recce version beeing 10 tons heavier and have four AIM-120s plus 2300 kg recce equipment. Span 15.6 m, length 39 m. As the tail is vertical, it will be made of non-radar-reflecting material, the rest of the airframe will be configured to only reflect radar in eight very narrow lobes. [Flight International 15-21 Sep 1993] - -- Urban Fredriksson urf@icl.se Docendo discimus ------------------------------ From: bentzr%postoffice.agcs.com@agcs.com (Richard S. Bentz) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 08:52:24 MST Subject: Nukes in Azerbaijan? I understand that the Soviets deployed strategic nuclear weapons in only four republics: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. I seriously doubt that there are any "nuclear prizes" in Azerbaijan (or Armenia). Rick - -- Richard S. Bentz VOICE: +1 602 582 7090 AG Communication Systems FAX: +1 602 581 4022 POBox 52179, Phoenix AZ INET: bentzr@agcs.com 85072-2179 ------------------------------ From: tim@umcc.umich.edu (Tim Tyler) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1993 15:02:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Sea Shadow The OCT 93 issue of Popular Science has a short article titled 'The Secret Ship' aboout that SWATHy 'Sea Shadow,' which the SkunkWorks designed for the USN. - -- Tim Tyler Internet: tim@ais.org MCI Mail: 442-5735 GEnie: T.Tyler5 P.O. Box 443 C$erve: 72571,1005 DDN: Tyler@Dockmaster.ncsc.mil Ypsilanti MI Packet: KA8VIR @WB8ZPN.#SEMI.MI.USA.NA 48197 ------------------------------ From: bruce%pages@uunet.UU.NET Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 13:47:43 -0700 Subject: SR-75 Kits Well, The San Diego area is pretty clueless about this thing. Could some kind soul who knows forward me all of the details about this thing (like stock numbers?) so that I can tell my local (and quite pompous) hobby store to order one. "SR-75, there's no such thing, you mean an SR-71.... I can assure you there is nothing new out, because if there was we would have it...." Thanks in advance Bruce ------------------------------ From: hanneton@magbio.ens.fr (Sylvain HANNETON) Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 23:46:34 +0200 Subject: Sonic booms (?) in Marseille (France) Very recently, a noise similar to a sonic boom has been reported several times (4 or 5 times during two days) over Marseille, in the south of France, at the seashore of Mediterranea. After having considered "mundane" explanations (meteorits, explosions abroad reflected through temperatures inversions and so on..), the officials and the specialists seem to now promote the hypothesis of an aircraft creating sonic booms at the south of Marseille... Do you think this message may be relevant to this list or not ? ie : can we suppose Black Program tests over Europe ? Emmanuel Marin. ------------------------------ From: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 18:44:35 -0700 Subject: Re: Aerofax Stories sp2stes1@hugin.his.se (Stefan "Stetson" Skoglund) says... >Maybee because some air-frames wasn't intended for US use. >for example: >the list of tail-numbers says 55 was built. >Lockheed's list says 60 were built. >Why the difference ? >Did Taiwan or Pakistan bought planes directly from Lockheed. >That could be sensitive. Could be... I noticed that the U-2 "fact sheet" I have from Lockheed says: " Number produced by Lockheed: classified " BTW, they refer to Groom as a "secluded dry lake bed in Nevada". - -dean ------------------------------ From: graumann@acs.ucalgary.ca Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 18:51:59 -0700 Subject: Re: Space Access Society updates Yes please, I would like to be kept up to date on SSTO stuff. ------------------------------ From: kuryakin@halcyon.com Date: Tue, 14 Sep 93 19:15:59 -0700 Subject: SR-75 and Testor's strategy Well, big bucks is not exactly right, but it's close. Testors realizes that the IPMS (International Plastic Modeler's Society) type of modeler, the one that orders kits from mail-order and buys detailing kits and different decal sheets isn't the primary buyer of their kits. They estimate that only 5% of their kit sales are accounted for by the hard-core modeler. And that, by the way, is why you see more automobile kits than airplane kits... As a result, they decided to accomodate the large chain stores first since these stores account for the bulk of their sales. Sure, it's blatent and mercenary. But I'll take their side, since they have to make money to stay in business. Can't do it for free or even cost. If they don't think something will sell, they don't make it. But look at it from this angle... All you have to know is where to find it. It's going to show up in the hobby stores, it's just going to be a couple of weeks later. And if you buy it at Walmart or Toys R Us, you're going to be paying *>LESS<* than if you bought it for full retail at the hobby store. All it amounts to is they've quantified their priorities a tad differently. I'm more opposed to strategies that used car dealers use... This I can live with. Buy your glue and paint at the hobby store, and if you can wait, or have some deepset loyalty to your hobby store, the kit. Otherwise, save some money and get the kit at the discount chain. My $.02... Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! kuryakin@halcyon.com \______-/ [_] \-______/ | Ruby - \-\___/-/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ From: Scott E Mcwilliams Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 00:08:25 -0400 Subject: Space Access Society I too would be interested in being kept up to date on Delta Clipper and so on. If anyone's interested, and has the time and money, This year's space development conference is being held at SUNY-Buffalo in early October. Thanks! Scott McWilliams SEM@acsu.buffalo.edu ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V4 #14 ******************************** 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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