From: skunk-works-digest-owner@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu To: skunk-works-digest@harbor.ecn.purdue.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V4 #37 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, 15 October 1993 Volume 04 : Number 037 In this issue: Auroura (?) Re: Auroura (?) Re: Aurora (?) SR-71 losses Message-Id: <15931014134051/0004343121PK3EM@mcimail.com> Re: Aurora (?)/Joshua F-117 bay doors, cont. A modest proposal Re: Aurora (?)/Joshua SR-71 F-117 bay doors, cont. F-117 bomb bay doors Re: F-117 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: Joshua Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 10:48:41 +0100 (BST) Subject: Auroura (?) Does anyone have any details regarding the supposed 'Aurora' black prog ? Joshua ------------------------------ From: megazone@WPI.EDU (MegaZone) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 06:43:50 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Auroura (?) Once upon a time Joshua shaped the electrons to say... >Does anyone have any details regarding the supposed 'Aurora' black prog ? ROTFL.... (finals week, 6:43AM, helping others with their projects when I should be resting for MINE... forgive me...) - -- megazone@wpi.wpi.edu megazone@world.std.com megazone@hotblack.schunix.dmc.com "I have one prejudice, and that is against stupidity. Use your mind, think!" Moderator: WPI anime FTP site, 130.215.24.1 /anime, the anime FanFic archive; rec.arts.anime.stories, questions to anime-dojinshi-request@wpi.wpi.edu GTW d-- -p+ c++(++++) l u+ e+ m+(*)@ s++/+ !n h- f+ !g w+ t+@ r+@ y+(*) ------------------------------ From: Joshua Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 14:52:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: Re: Aurora (?) > > Once upon a time Joshua shaped the electrons to say... > >Does anyone have any details regarding the supposed 'Aurora' black prog ? > > ROTFL.... > Excuse me ? Joshua ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 6:01:08 EDT Subject: SR-71 losses > According to a report from Albert Dobyns on 10-8-93, there were a > total of 20 Blackbirds lost out of a total of 50 built. All of these > losses were due to some sort of failure. That's a loss of 40% of the > aircraft. Why is that number so high? Also, I thought the exact > number of Blackbirds built was still classified even though they have > been retired (according to a report done by Popular Mechanics). > > -- > ------==========**********==========------ > Douglas J. Tiffany u011.oh.vp.com > Varco-Pruden Buildings > 1202 Industrial Drive > Van Wert, Ohio > 45891 > (419)238-9533 Fax: (419)238-2267 > > > > > - -- ------==========**********==========------ Douglas J. Tiffany u011.oh.vp.com Varco-Pruden Buildings 1202 Industrial Drive Van Wert, Ohio 45891 (419)238-9533 Fax: (419)238-2267 ------------------------------ From: TOM PETRISKO <0004343121@mcimail.com> Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 13:40 GMT Subject: Message-Id: <15931014134051/0004343121PK3EM@mcimail.com> Subject: Re: F-117A The picture is a frontal shot and you do not see the doors hanging down. The bombs are definitely attached to the rack. The picture looks to be taken at either Holloman or Tonopah as the airmen are wearing the woodland camo and you can see the big mountains in the background. Maybe the doors were removed for maintenance purposes. I do not know, except that there are no doors hanging down. So, I guess I'll leave it at that. Tom ------------------------------ From: cimshop!KELLEHER%DISNEY@uunet.UU.NET Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 09:47:22 PDT Subject: Re: Aurora (?)/Joshua >> Once upon a time Joshua shaped the electrons to say... >>L >Does anyone have any details regarding the supposed 'Aurora' black prog ? >> >> ROTFL.... >> > Excuse me ? Joshua Well, Joshua, I believe what was meant by the "Roll On The Floor Laughing" comment was this: the Aurora black program hasn't been openly discussed by anybody from the government yet. Maybe the government is the last to know. But it has been one of the fundamental discussion items around here for some time! I think that your question might have struck some of the folks as a bit naive - and perhaps a bit broad - but I wouldn't be surprised to learn you were a relative newcomer to the list. Unfortunately, my mail server didn't include a path showing how to contact you directly (only the list path is shown), but if you have some specific questions, feel free to e-mail me direct. If you are interested in learning *everything* that is "known" about these black programs, stick around on the list. Read with fascination and a large grain of salt. John Kelleher johnk@consilium.com ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 10:32:22 -0700 Subject: F-117 bay doors, cont. That picture had to have been taken at Tonapah. Holloman doesn't have mountains like that... Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! kuryakin@halcyon.com \_______/_(O)_\_______/ | Ruby - \___/---\___/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ From: I am the NRA Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 10:56:01 PDT Subject: A modest proposal (with apologies to Jonathan Swift....) It would (imo) be a good idea (tm) if there was a FAQ. Say a paragraph or two on SR71, F117, U2(?), B2(?) and current speculation on Aurora. (There are those much better qualifed to write it than I, so I won't volunteer to do so.) Ideally, it could get emailed (automatically) to new subscribers. Otherwise, some sort of manual distibution... fwiw. dwp ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 11:01:33 -0700 Subject: Re: Aurora (?)/Joshua > I think that your question might have struck some of the folks as a >bit naive - and perhaps a bit broad - but I wouldn't be surprised to learn >you were a relative newcomer to the list. Or, the problem I was left with was, where to begin! > Unfortunately, my mail server didn't include a path showing how to contact >you directly (only the list path is shown), but if you have some specific >... > If you are interested in learning >*everything* that is "known" about these black programs, stick around on the >list. Read with fascination and a large grain of salt. I took the occasion of Joshua's question to update our verbose version of the bib. which references the most credible Aurora articles along with, in most cases I think, a small abstract of what the complete article says. There are now 32 references in the bib. and with the abstracts it is over 10,000 bytes, which is too large to post in one piece. I believe however when one reads it they are brought upto speed fairly quickly. It is also in order by date of article, so one can get a sense as to how things have happened. So if there are any others that would like a personal copy of this updated bib. please email me. No problem. I'm glad Joshua asked the question. Larry larry@ichips.intel.com ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 11:28:48 EDT Subject: SR-71 According to a report from Albert Dobyns on 10-8-93, there were a total of 20 Blackbirds lost out of a total of 50 built. All of these losses were due to some sort of failure. That's a loss of 40% of the aircraft. Why is that number so high? Also, I thought the exact number of Blackbirds built was still classified even though they have been retired (according to a report done by Popular Mechanics). -- ------==========**********==========------ Douglas J. Tiffany u011.oh.vp.com Varco-Pruden Buildings 1202 Industrial Drive Van Wert, Ohio 45891 (419)238-9533 Fax: (419)238-2267 ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1993 10:32:22 -0700 Subject: F-117 bay doors, cont. That picture had to have been taken at Tonapah. Holloman doesn't have mountains like that... Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! kuryakin@halcyon.com \_______/_(O)_\_______/ | Ruby - \___/---\___/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ From: rh@craycos.com (Robert Herndon) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 14:40:26 MDT Subject: F-117 bomb bay doors I'm not *any* sort of authority on this, nor do I have any references, and the following is mostly a guess, possibly augmented by a faulty memory. Disclaimers out of the way, I was under the impression that the F-117 has bomb bay doors that swing up INTO the bomb bay. Rather than simply hinging out as most doors do, these track up and into the bomb bay so that they are not visible unless you are significantly below the plane. Presumably this helps minimize their radar visibility, too. +rh ------------------------------ From: dnadams@nyx.cs.du.edu (Dean Adams) Date: Thu, 14 Oct 93 23:23:52 MDT Subject: Re: F-117 rh@craycos.com (Robert Herndon) says... >Disclaimers out of the way, I was under the impression that >the F-117 has bomb bay doors that swing up INTO the bomb bay. >Rather than simply hinging out as most doors do, these track >up and into the bomb bay so that they are not visible unless >you are significantly below the plane. Nope... the F-117s two bomb bay doors are of the fairly conventional one-piece "clamshell" variety. >Presumably this helps minimize their radar visibility, too. The way they do that on the 117 is by using an "open/drop/close" sequence which takes just a few short seconds to complete. Also, when the doors are down, the "outward" facing surfaces are the ones with the RAM coating, although I don't know if that helps much. - -dean ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V4 #37 ******************************** 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).