From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #9 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Saturday, 12 February 1994 Volume 05 : Number 009 In this issue: Groom Re: "Secret" Navy Sub surveillance & Re: Charter but Robot 330 Re: Skunk Works Charter Re: Groom Hustler Nostaglia Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #8 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: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 04:31:23 -0800 Subject: Groom [begin forward] POLULAR SCIENCE TO FEATURE GROOM LAKE aka. "AREA 51" AS COVER STORY... The March Issue of Popular Science due out in about 2 weeks, will feature Groom Lake "Area 51" as it's Cover Story. According to Glenn Campbell, noted "AREA 51" researcher, Author of the famed "AREA 51" Viewers Guide and all around fly in the Air Force's ointment, This article should go a long way in getting the story [on "AREA 51"] out to the public, as this is a major publication. With all the media attention the test site is getting lately this should help in the fight to stop The Air Force from seizing 3,972.4 acers (to be exact) of public land just outside of "AREA 51". In a request fo withdrawal filed with the Bureau of land Management [BLM] The Air Force sites public safety and safe secure operation of the Nellis complex, as the reason for the request for the withdrawal. At a Public Hearing held Jan. 31, 1994 in Caliente, NV. about 45 people lined up at the local VFW to speakout against the proposed land grab. Thanks to all the letters the BLM received, a second hearing has now scheduled for March 2, 1994 in Las Vegas, to allow more speakers to attend. * ------------------------------ From: (Thorongil) Paul Adams Date: Fri, 11 Feb 94 08:06:55 CST Subject: Re: "Secret" Navy Sub surveillance & Re: Charter but > From: Corey Lawson > Subject: "Secret" Navy Sub surveillance > > Although this isn't airplane-related, this past Monday's NY Times had a > front-page article about what the US Navy has been doing for the last 30 > or so years with converted missile and attack submarines and deep-sea > surveillance, data-gathering, etc. I heard about this on alt.culture.hawaii of all places. Following is the post from that group in case any is interested. (If not, skip it.) - ----- From bob@kahala.soest.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) Subject: retired UH professor details covert US sub spy role [From a New York Times article] In testimony to a US senate hearing record to be published next week, John Craven, a professor emeritus of the University of Hawaii and former director of the Navy's Dep Submergence Systems project in the 1960's has described how, for decades, the US operated a secret fleet of specially-equipped submarines which did deep-water intelligence gathering. Starting with the Halibut, a converted guided missile submarine in 1965, a series of nuclear submarines were given major overhauls and equipped with large calbe spools, racks of reconassiance gear, remotely piloted undersea vehicles, and small thrusters to keep the subs motionless beneath the ocean surface. They used this gear to "sweep" the ocean floor for lost ships, subs, planes, weapons, spacecraft, and nuclear warheads...from various countries. The techniques used were somewhat similar to the way Robert Ballard (former UH grad student, now with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) used to find, explore, and photograph the wreck of the Titanic (using RPVs from a surface ship). The Halibut, which the Navy said at the time had been converted to be the first mother ship for Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicles, explored, and probably recovered equipment from the Soviet Golf-2 class missile submarine that sank 750 miles northwest of Hawaii in March 1968. Although the Navy and the DIA thought that "...optimum recovery of intelligence information...was achieved", the CIA though otherwise, and portions of that same Soviet missile sub were recovered six years later, in 1974, by the Glomar Explorer, a 618' ship built for the CIA. Other naval experts, speaking under the condition of anonymity, have confirmed most of Craven's commentary, say that the undersea intelligence gathering is still going on, and that disclosure of its existence may well have international diplomatic repercussions. - -- Bob Cunningham bob@soest.hawaii.edu School of Ocean & Earth Science & Technology, University of Hawaii - ----- > From: tim@umcc.umich.edu (Tim Tyler) > Subject: Charter > > Maybe I just don't have enough time to read Internet mail as some of you, > but I'm really getting annoyed at all these posts that start off with "I > know this is off topic, but..." > > "...but" what? "I know this is off topic, but I don't care" seems > to be the answer. No, it is not "I know this is off charter, but I don't care" but is instead "I know this is off charter, but I think the rest of the List may find it interesting." I have learned a lot from "off-charter" chatter. :) | Paul Adams / --(O)-- \ paul@erc.msstate.edu / _|_ \ M-12/D-21 _____(O)_____/_._\_____(O)_____ Sort of ... :) \___/ ------------------------------ From: John Erling Blad Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 19:28:43 +0100 Subject: Robot 330 Some facts from a news note from NTB: In 1950 Saab had plans for making a nuclear missile. It was to be a guided weapon to be used against naval bases and ports along the baltic coast. It is stated that the missile was virtually indestructible with the current armament of that time. The missile, it is called a rocket but it seems to be more of a cruise missile, was 4 meters long and could carry a warhead weghting 3-400 kg at a speed of 3-4 mach. It was a guided weapon and should be guided with "long wave links", this is probably somewhere betveen 150khz and 600khz. The actual text is "controlled by a net of longwave transmitters", perhaps it is not a guided weapon but uses the transmission as a kind of "decca". Testing of the prototype continued until 1959 when it was discontinued in favor of Viggen. The testin reached vind tunnel tests. NTB is quoting "Oestgata Correspondenten" in Linkoeping. They have a story about it and an interview with Tore Gullstrand, a former leader at Saabs rocket division. The note about guiding of the missile is my speculations, and not part of the story. Lately there have benn numerous discussion in Norway, and probably in Sweden, about how far the nuclear programs come before they where halted. One former leader at "Institute for energiteknikk" told in on newsreport that they had enriched plutonium for "educationel purposes" as late as in ~1985. Sweden also had a project for making a nuclear bomb, and an asossiated bomber. This was unveiled some years ago. I dont remember the names, but someone shure does! John Kill a whale! ------------------------------ From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 94 11:01:48 -0800 Subject: Re: Skunk Works Charter Rick Pavek says: > Perhaps the name of the mailing list SHOULD be changed... :) Let's hear it for the odoriferous-small-carnivore-manufactory list! A name that long should deter postings by those too frivolous to type it. -- Jay Freeman ;-) ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 11:32:33 -0800 Subject: Re: Groom >The March Issue of Popular Science due out in about 2 weeks, will feature Groom >Lake "Area 51" as it's Cover Story. Yes. And from what I've heard (last night actually) it's already on newsstands in the East and Midwest. My source said the cover has the 1988 Groom sat. shot on it. He read sections of it to me. Some new rumors are in there that sound like they deserve follow-up. Larry ------------------------------ From: Tom Frost(aka Yosemite Sam) Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 15:59:35 -0700 Subject: Hustler Nostaglia Larry, Your letter brought on a wave of nostaglia for me....way back in '62-'66 I was in the 43rd Bomb Wing (Medium) at Carswell when the B-58 became operational......it was really quite a sight to watch them scramble for an alert....especially at night when those 4 J-79's lit off their A/Bs...wow.... 20ft long blue flames !!!!!!! too cool............... I was in the 43rd AEMS (Armament & Elect Maint Sqdn)....working on the Bomb Nav System.....we used to go out to the flight line after a mission to de-brief the crews, and sometimes the paint jobs on the nose and the leading edges of the delta would be SCORCHED !!!!! from the heat of flight....you KNOW those babies were COOKIN'......literally....... Thanx to Oregon State for taking over the tedious duties of list-serv admin !!! Later, Tom | Tom Frost tfrost @zia.aoc.nrao.edu | | Servo Group Leader National Radio Astronomy Observatory | | Very Large Array Site Plains of San Augustin New Mexico USA | | "Ignorance is temporary......Stupidity is permanent" ------------------------------ From: "Mike Bishop" Date: Fri, 11 Feb 94 20:41 EST Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #8 > > From: tslage78@Calvin.EDU (Thomas Slager) > Date: Thu, 10 Feb 94 19:37:57 EST > Subject: Off charter but... > > Have any of you been to a warbird museum in Orlando? I have a friend who > will be down there and he was wondering what they had, and how big the > collection was. Any help would be, um, helpful. > > thanks > Thomas... The museum you are looking for is called, Flying Tiger Warbird Museum, or something of that nature. Anyway I was there in '90 and they were in the process of restoring a Corsair. They have several types of planes on display, biplanes and WWII Navy fighters. There was a fuselage of a B24 in the 'yard' that was to be their next project. They also have a big airshow on Dec. 31st every year. And one fellow that worked there was giving rides in an open cockpit biplane for a modest sum. If you want more info I'll have to dig out my stuff from our trip. Mike - ----------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Bishop SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC (919)677-8000 ext.6651 - ----------------------------------------------------------------- As always ladies and gentlemen..... this is an exhibition not a competiton..... so... no wagering, please. -- David Letterman - ------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #9 ******************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.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@mail.orst.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@mail.orst.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 mail.orst.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).