From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #10 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Sunday, 13 February 1994 Volume 05 : Number 010 In this issue: Re: Groom F-14 lost in crash [none] F-14 & F-4 Ferris camoflage schemes - Revisited 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: Dave Jordan Date: Fri, 11 Feb 1994 11:24:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Groom Hello fellow Skunkers... Could someone give me a list of reasons why they think the government should _not_ seize the public land around the Groom Lake area? It would seem to me that there would be more pro's than cons. First of all, they do have the right, because, hey, they are the government. Secondly, although it would probably put a halt to weekend warrior reconnaissance to the Groom Lake facility, it WOULD undoubtedly add security to some of our top secret projects. Although speculation on Mach 6 aircraft and secret Navy submarines is fun (which is why I am on the list), it scares me that I know somewhere, somehow, no matter how harmless this information might seem, it could fall into the wrong hands, and hurt a) America and b) people operating this top of the line equipment (which could be ME someday). Speculate all you want about these craft, but also give the government some leeway to invest in our National Security. I'd like to communicate to people one - on - one (so not to clutter the list any more) if you have any questions, feel free to respond. Very Respectfully, David E. Jordan MIDSHIPMAN 3/C, USN ------------------------------ From: John Erling Blad Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 23:25:21 +0100 Subject: F-14 lost in crash One F-14 Tomcat and a F-18 crashed saturday. The F-14 pilots ejected and was rescued by a helicopter, the F-18 landed. Both came from "Saratoga". The acc. was outside Brindisi. John ------------------------------ From: smithbrown@saturn.rowan.edu Date: Sat, 12 Feb 1994 20:24:06 EST Subject: [none] Where is the Saratoga currently docked? (That was the name of the ship that the two planes that crashed were from). Also, since the group is on the subject of the 'Hustler', what happened to them, are they in some Boneyard or what? Thank you for coninueing to put up with off topic mailings, as a new subscriber I find all the mail informative and interesting. Don Smith ------------------------------ From: clark@acs.bu.edu (Jeff Clark) Date: Sat, 12 Feb 94 23:31:10 -0500 Subject: F-14 & F-4 Ferris camoflage schemes - Revisited A few weeks back, there was a discussion on Ferris camoflage schemes for the Navy's F-14 Tomcat. This is roughly similar to WWII 'dazzle' or 'splinter' paint schemes for ships. A picture of two F-14s decked out in Ferris paint is in the s-w archives. The scheme was also tested on F-4S Phantoms. I found a recent reference to this in Fine Scale Modeler, December 1992 issue, and I'm going to quote a bit because it sets a few things straight, including the correct name for it. "In the early 1980s, the U.S. Navy experimented with several low-visibility schemes for combat circraft. Among them was the gray "Heater-Ferris" scheme, applied to F-4S Phantom IIs assigned to Naval Reserve sqaudrons VF-301 and VF-302 stationed at Miramar NAS, California. The scheme was developed by Cmdr. C.J. 'Heater' Heatley, who was inspired by the deceptive camouflage created by aviation artist Keith Ferris. "In addition to making the aircraft hard to see in air-to-air combat, the pattern also makes it difficult for an adversary to determine which way the aircraft is headed and how far away it is. Some Heater-Ferris Phantoms had black false canopies with white 'helmets' applied on the underside of the forward fuselage to further confuse enemy pilots" The article goes on to describe the colors used. The single page includes a large color four-view of the scheme, and three smaller 4-views of variations to the scheme. While the F-14 scheme used a dark topside and light underside (generally), the F-4 scheme can be best described as (viewed from above) four diagonal shades of gray, going from dark on the port wing to light on starboard. The variations changed the slant and order of the stripes. The whole scheme is pretty wild, as gray airplanes go, and if someone in the Boston area has access to a color scanner, I could try to get the picture out (barring any problems with copyrights) Jeff Clark clark@acs.bu.edu (who really shouldn't have done this on a Saturday ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #10 ******************************** 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. 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