From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #19 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 23 February 1994 Volume 05 : Number 019 In this issue: Article refers to "Aurora" Re: "The Mysteries of Area 51" (WLVI-TV) Aurora fuels & speculation Does anyone have... [Q] Zip fuels & Aurora RE:Aurora fuels & speculation Re: Aurora fuels & speculation Re: Does anyone have... Mysterious Booms in Vegas Re: Mysterious Booms in Vegas Re: [Q] Zip fuels & Aurora 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: rakoczynskij@agcs.com (Jurek Rakoczynski) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 08:24:10 -0700 (MST) Subject: Article refers to "Aurora" For those of you keeping track of articles that refer to "Aurora", I presume that the reference below is to a 1993 January, Jane's_Defence_Weekly article. IEEE Spectrum, January 1994, page 66 In January, Jane's_Defence_Weekly claimed that the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) was really a front for "Aurora," a secret spy plane that flies at Mach 8 and an altitude of 40 to 50 Km and uses liquid methane as fuel. - -- Jurek Rakoczynski, AG Communication Systems, POB 52179, Phoenix, AZ. 85072-2179 Inet: rakoczynskij@agcs.com Voice: +1 602 581 4867 Inet: JUREK.RAKOCZYNSKI@gte.sprint.com Fax: +1 602 581 4022 ------------------------------ From: naa2254@dsacam.dsac.dla.mil (Tom Ohmer) Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 11:16:10 -0500 Subject: Re: "The Mysteries of Area 51" (WLVI-TV) In reply to the mail from ... - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > [...] > -- A night shot of a flyover of a vehicle with the following > light pattern: > > + + == white > + X == red > + > x ----> apparent direction of flight > + > + > + 747 w/landing lights on?!? Tom Ohmer, Computer Specialist, DSAC-AAA 1 614 692 8059 DLA Systems Automation Center, P.O. Box 1605, Columbus, OH 43216-5002 tohmer@dsac.dla.mil ...osu-cis!dsac!tohmer "Sorry, we're closed." -- Sam Malone ------------------------------ From: seb@tadtec.co.uk Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 17:05:51 GMT Subject: Aurora fuels & speculation A thought struck me the other day - speculation suggests Aurora uses an exotic fuel, like liquid methane. We've also had suggestions that Aurora has flown out of RAF Macharanish, Scotland. Does anyone have any information on Macharanish, including runway lengths and if any new fuel storage tanks or similar items have been contructed there in the last 5 years? It might make an interesting tie-in. Steve ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 10:23:41 -0800 Subject: Does anyone have... A nice handy Landsat or aerial photo of Macharanish? Actually, there are probably a number of facilities that could bear examination. White Sands, Holloman AFB, Beale, I'd like to see what they all look like from the air. Thanks, Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! \_______/_(O)_\_______/ | Ruby - kuryakin@hebron.connected.com \___/---\___/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ From: Carl Petter Swensson Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 19:36:11 -0100 Subject: [Q] Zip fuels & Aurora Lately there has been some speculation on this list of whether Aurora, if it exists, might use some exotic fuel. I recently saw a Great Planes (Discovery Channel) episode about XB-70 which was planned to use exotic (zip?) fuels. Does anyone know what these zip fuels were or were planned to be? Did research on zip fuel stop with the end of the XB-70 program? Now some pure speculation: Could cryogenic (sp?) fuel, i.e. liquid hydrogen or an other liquid gas, be used to cool an airframe traveling at 4++ Mach? - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Carl P. Swensson internet: cepe@taskon.no Senior Systems Engineer Taskon AS Gaustadalleen 21 Tel: +47-22 95 86 21 N-0371 Oslo, Norway Fax: +47-22 60 44 27 - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: Alistair M Henderson Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 18:40:51 GMT Subject: RE:Aurora fuels & speculation There has apparently been a fair amount of construction work going on at Macrahanish in the last few years or so. I seem to recall the mention of fuel pipelines but I may be wrong. I don't know the runway length off hand but I do know that SR-71s operated out of there from time to time so it must be a fair length. Anyway, it has now been announced that RAF Macrahanish is to be put on Care & Maintenance status. Quite what affect this will have on any Aurora flights here is unclear. C&M means that there is still a skeleton staff at the base. Could a skeleton staff include personnel to oversee certain aircraft operations? Macrahanish is no stranger to 'strange' goings-on. 7th SOS MC-130Hs regularly visit the place during the hours of darkness and do whatever they do best. Lights out landings are quite common. The base was, until recently, home to a SEALS detatchment but it was withdrawn late last year apparently. My idea for an interesting discussion: special ops in your area. Please join in. ------------------------------ From: Per Danielsson Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 21:07:03 +0100 Subject: Re: Aurora fuels & speculation >Does anyone have any information on Macharanish, including runway >lengths RWY 11/29: 3049x46 m RWY 11: TORA 3049 m, LDA 2877 m RWY 29: TORA 3049 m, LDA 2647 m PD - -- Per Danielsson pd@sics.se Swedish Institute of Computer Science, PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN N59.24.20, E17.56.53 ------------------------------ From: Michael Matthew Guslick Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 16:07:33 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: Does anyone have... Rick Pavek said: [Does anyone have...] A nice handy Landsat or aerial photo of Macharanish? Actually, there are probably a number of facilities that could bear examination. White Sands, Holloman AFB, Beale, I'd like to see what they all look like from the air. Thanks, Rick ***end quote Even better, are there any ftp sites that carry images with resolutions that we skunkers demand? With aurora and exotic fuels - Would it be possible to check how much liquid methane, H2 or other stuff the AF uses? - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Guslick / ^ \ USnail: 711 Hwy. C NAR #53962 ---(.)==<-.->==(.)--- Grafton, WI 53024 michaelg@csd4.csd.uwm.edu SR-71 Blackbird ph.: (414) 377-4428 IRC: HaveBlue TIP #112 "Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball" - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: psychospy@aol.com Date: Tue, 22 Feb 94 17:13:35 EST Subject: Mysterious Booms in Vegas Got two calls this morning (Tues) from media in Las Vegas asking if I knew anything about mysterious booms that startled people throughout the Vegas Valley about 9:30 am (PST). One contact told me he was INSIDE A NOISY FACTORY BUILDING when he heard the sound, and it was loud enough for him and his boss to run outside to see what it was. He described the sound as like a series of bomb bursts, perhaps 10-12 of them in sequence. The sound came in two or three waves between 9:20 and 9:40. The Las Vegas Review Journal will report on the sound in tomorrow's (Wed) edition. Not surprisingly, Nellis AFB public affairs says that it WAS bombing, involving B-52s, B-2s, etc., in the ranges northwest of Las Vegas (61-63). However the nearest perimeterof these ranges is 20 miles away, while the sound was heard intensely all over the Vegas Valley, almost to the California border, at least 50 miles from the ranges. Incidentally, the ranges mentioned by Nellis happen to lie between Las Vegas and Groom Lake. The sound could conceivably be caused by a craft crossing the Vegas Valley to approach Groom from the south, but this is very speculative. Historically, secret aircraft like the A-12 have always taken off and landed to and from the sparsely populated north. Alas, here in Rachel, Psychospy heard nothing. Psychospy theorizes that they chose a southern approach over a densely populated city TO AVOID ALERTING PSYCHOSPY IN THE NORTH. If you know anyone in Vegas, this is the time to call them to get their impressions while the story is still fresh. Psycho ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 20:12:23 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Mysterious Booms in Vegas It wasn't us. Mary Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end.... ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 17:30:35 -0800 Subject: Re: [Q] Zip fuels & Aurora Carl Petter Swensson writes: >Lately there has been some speculation on this list of whether >Aurora, if it exists, might use some exotic fuel. > >I recently saw a Great Planes (Discovery Channel) episode about XB-70 >which was planned to use exotic (zip?) fuels. Does anyone know what >these zip fuels were or were planned to be? I believe they were known as ZIP by the Navy and as HEF by the USAF. HEF stands for High Energy Fuel. These fuels have greater heat release during combustion than traditional hydrocarbon fuels used on aircraft. In the past, and even today, the search for the holy grail, in jet aircraft propulsion fuels, is a dense fuel with high heat release, and good heat sink properties. There are other properties that are desireable for high mach and high altitude applications as well. Hydrogen has the highest specific heat release, but H2 has problems in the specific volume (volume contained by each unit mass of H2) area. There are other combustible elements with higher heat release than HC and less specific volume (greater density) than H2. Some of these are magnesium, aluminum, boron, beryllium, ... . The ZIP/HEF fuel craze of the 50's and 60's was to take these elements and make a fuel out of them for jet propulsion (a rocket is a jet too). Some of these elements are quite toxic, and weren't used beyond testing, or so we're told. Some of the fuels researched had names like Pentaborane, and Decaborane (These fuels have Boron + Hydrogen atoms in the molecule - if I recall pentaboarane is B5H9, decaborane is obviously B10H - something). Different phases of these molecules have been tried as well. Both solid and liquid. The solid forms were known as slurries. The fuel was contained in a solid binding agent. As you can imagine, there were clogging and gumming problems. In fact one of the more intriguing AURORA propulsion mechanisms I came up with years ago was using a pulsejet as a slurry atomizer (something that pulsejets have been used for in the commercial world). Hydrocarbons with additives to promote certain characteristics have been done as well. A case in point is JP-7, where you take a hydrocarbon fuel, raise its flash point to use it at Mach 3 in a wet wing and as a coolant, and then require an additive for when you want to combust it, in this case TEB (TriEthyl Borane - yes Borane as in BORON). Boranes glow green when combusted, and that is where the green burst comes from (the TEB shot) when you watch video of a SR-71 ignite each of its turbojets. Actually this kind of thing (using additives) is still being talked about for hydrocarbon scramjets. Of course we have the hypergolics (ignite upon contact) as well. The very first scramjet that made positive thrust back in 1958 was an external burning scramjet using Aluminum Alkyl as a fuel. This was used to force heat release upstream of the expansion surface (nozzle) on the test article. > Did research on zip fuel stop >with the end of the XB-70 program? No, it's still going on. It's quite fascinating actually. Or at least it was still going on. >Now some pure speculation: Could cryogenic (sp?) fuel, i.e. liquid >hydrogen or an other liquid gas, be used to cool an airframe traveling >at 4++ Mach? Of course. Rocket engines have been doing this since WWII. What you should remember is that anything that takes adequate heat energy as input can be used. This not only includes the traditional convective, conductive, and radiative cooling techniques one would naturally think of, but also things like endothermic chemical reactions, where the chemical reaction takes heat as an input along with a catalyst. In fact, some of the more exotic vehicles would be able to take the speed of heat (so to speak) and do something useful with it. Larry ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #19 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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