From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V4 #15 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, 16 September 1993 Volume 04 : Number 015 In this issue: Re: Sea Shadow There's stealth and there's stealth... RE: on the GNAT 750 Re: Sonic booms (?) in Marseille (France) Re: Sea Shadow Aaaah, hahahahahaha! Testor's SR-75 Penetrator There's stealth and there's stealth... So many unsubscribe requests- a little upsetting! 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: Jamie Aycock Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 08:53:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Sea Shadow On Tue, 14 Sep 1993, Tim Tyler wrote: > 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. > Yes!! Excellent article.. They alluded (sp?) to a special project of the skunk works several years ago that seemed interesting. Apparently a Russian Sub was sunk (or had sunk) in very deep waters off of Hawaii, and Lockheed designed a "Claw" type machine to retrieve it.. Anyone know any details? Jamie ------------------------------ From: I am the NRA Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 07:42:34 PDT Subject: There's stealth and there's stealth... >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, There is NOTHING AIR BREATHING that is stealthy at Mach 3.5. It glows in the IR like a star, or meteorite. Stealth is not just low radar return it is low _everything_. (A craft in space, with engines off, and painted (ahemmm) deep black, could be stealthy at any speed. Anything in an atmosphere, at Mach 3.5 will be hot. (No, "cooling" doesn't count. The heat has to GO SOMEWHERE, and it will be seen against the (quasi) absolute zero of space...) Now, at Mach 3.5, maybe stealth is irrelavant, 'coz "they" can't catch you or hit you... Maybe. (Or am i picking too many nits ) dwp ------------------------------ From: George Allegrezza 15-Sep-1993 0746 Date: Wed, 15 Sep 93 10:43:50 EDT Subject: RE: on the GNAT 750 The current issue of Aviation Week describes the GNAT 750 as "an unmanned SR-71 follow-on" operated by the Defense Support Program Office. DSPO and the Joint UAV Program Office are fighting for control over a new 24-hr.-duration UAV program. George George Allegrezza | "There's nothing wrong with him that can't be Digital Equipment Corporation | fixed with some Prozac and a polo mallet." Littleton MA USA | -- Woody Allen, "Manhattan allegrezza@tnpubs.enet.dec.com | Murder Mystery" ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 10:10:18 -0700 Subject: Re: 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... I assume that by "mundane" you also are implying that they checked possible known military sources for information. >Do you think this message may be relevant to this list or not ? ie : can >we suppose Black Program tests over Europe ? Yes, I think it's relevant to the list, but, just like the booms over the west coast of the US, we can't prove anything. Of course in the case of the US booms, we have some instrumentation originally implanted in the earth to measure earthquakes, and also the willingness of Dr. Mori to publish his conslusions regarding those sensor readings. We actually need more. We need to pin down several things. 1. We need to determine more precisely where the aircraft is when the booms occur. The latest hypothesis is that the aircraft may actually be out over the Pacific. 2. We need to get pressure versus time readings for those boom events. This will enable us to use far field N-wave sonic boom theory to better estimate several characteristics of the aircraft causing the boom, including its length. There have been several people who have started to obtain number 2 above, and who have actually contacted leading researchers in the field for help. But from what I hear, it hasn't gotten too far. Until we do this we'll never be able to take that hypothesis very far. Larry ------------------------------ From: tim@umcc.umich.edu (Tim Tyler) Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 13:16:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Sea Shadow > > Yes!! Excellent article.. They alluded (sp?) to a special project of the > skunk works several years ago that seemed interesting. Apparently a > Russian Sub was sunk (or had sunk) in very deep waters off of Hawaii, and > Lockheed designed a "Claw" type machine to retrieve it.. Anyone know any > details? > Read 'A Matter of Risk' by Roy Varner & Wayne Collier, Ballantine Books, 1980. ISBN: 0-345-28639-1 It was a highly classified operation to recover all or parts of a Soviet submarine that had sunk in about 17,000' of water. Primary retrieval target was crypto materials. CIA contracted Summa Corp (a Howard Hughes company) to provide their Glomar Explorer ship, & Lockheed designed & built a huge 'claw' device (dubbed 'Clementine') which would be lowered down to pick up the sub. 'Clementine' was stored in the HMB-1 barge which was later used by the Sea Shadow. The operation was mostly successful. - -- 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: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 13:21:42 -0700 Subject: Aaaah, hahahahahaha! I GOT IT! the SR-75 Penetrator kit is in at Toys R Us in Bellevue, WA. They're now one short. Everything is as advertised. Pictures and addresses in the instructions. comes with paint, knife, glue, everything you'll need. Well, except the table and the baby-sitter for when you disappear for two days while building it... Price was $25. Sticker on the box says "$43 Value if purchased separately". What a bargain. Well, I already have all the paint I need, and glue is no problem. What the heck... I love it anyway! Nice decal sheet, too. Solid canopy, no landing gear. (Looks like it's designed for them to be able to add an extra tree - well, 2 trees if you count the clear - that will hold the cockpit detail and the landing gear.) Spot photo and '68 photo both available from US sources. Neato. I know what I'm doing tonight. Gonna build this sucker. 8-) Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! kuryakin@halcyon.com \______-/ [_] \-______/ | Ruby - \-\___/-/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1993 14:15:36 -0700 Subject: Testor's SR-75 Penetrator I don't know if an earlier message I sent made it to the skunk exploder (oooh. That brings mental images... :-) so I'm posting this one. The Testor's kit is out. I'm the first on _my_ block to have one... Everything is as discussed previously. Box are, supplies included, solid windows, no landing gear, glue, paint, all in a big box. Nice decal sheet. $25 at Toys R Us. Nice kit. I know what I'm doing tonight... Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! kuryakin@halcyon.com \______-/ [_] \-______/ | Ruby - \-\___/-/ | Galactic Gumshoe ps if my other email got/gets through then thanks for the bandwidth... ------------------------------ From: agbrooks@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au (Zoz) Date: Thu, 16 Sep 1993 14:31:17 +0930 (CST) Subject: There's stealth and there's stealth... |> >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, |> |> There is NOTHING AIR BREATHING that is stealthy at Mach 3.5. It glows in the |> IR like a star, or meteorite. Stealth is not just low radar return it is low |> _everything_. (A craft in space, with engines off, and painted (ahemmm) deep |> black, could be stealthy at any speed. Anything in an atmosphere, at Mach |> 3.5 will be hot. (No, "cooling" doesn't count. The heat has to GO SOMEWHERE, |> and it will be seen against the (quasi) absolute zero of space...) |> |> Now, at Mach 3.5, maybe stealth is irrelavant, 'coz "they" can't catch you or |> hit you... Maybe. The spec never says that it has to be stealthy *at Mach 3.5*. Presumably it is designed to be stealthy at lower speeds, but still pack enough grunt to get out of a situation fast :) Since it's a strike bird, it's unlikely to be flying at over 21000m during its attack profile anyway. - -- ______ _____________ ______________________ ______ /\####/\ / / / / /\####/\ / \##/ \ /_______ / / _ ______ / / \##/ \ /____\/____\ / / / / \ \ / / /____\/____\ \####/\####/ / /____\ \_/ / / /_______ \####/\####/ \##/ \##/ / / / / \##/ \##/ \/____\/ /_____________________/ /____________/ \/____\/ agbrooks@teaching.cs.adelaide.edu.au ------------------------------ From: sbooth@gallifrey.win.net (Simon Booth) Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1993 23:04:54 Subject: So many unsubscribe requests- a little upsetting! I'm wondering why so many people are unsubscribing from the list? I mean, it's a little irksome to download the day's email only to find more skunk-works unsubscribe messages than aircraft discussion. Just my $.02 worth, not a flame. :-) Ob Skunk Works comment: The Blackbird on static display at Lackland AFB here in San Antonio is painted in glossy black paint and the plane doesn't even feel like metal when you touch it- like touching fiberglass or something! Unless I'm mistaken, is the 'real' paint job supposed to be matte black? :-) Has anyone else noticed this problem with other Blackbirds on display? later! Simon Into the long darkness- |email: Alone in the unknown- |sbooth@gallifrey.win.net I see nothing ahead of me. |sbooth@lonestar.utsa.edu Smashed under the treads of fate- |Simon_Booth@fcircus.sat.us The future is now only a distant memory. | - -from 'Transition: Into the Unknown', 1993| ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V4 #15 ******************************** 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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