From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #31 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Friday, 11 March 1994 Volume 05 : Number 031 In this issue: new Skunk Works ASTOVL aircraft Re: Unsolved Mysteries RE: new Skunk Works ASTOVL aircraft What Does AURORA Mean? ddn Re: What Does AURORA Mean? Re: Unsolved Mysteries Video Bolides 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: TRADER@cup.portal.com Date: Wed, 9 Mar 94 22:30:02 PST Subject: new Skunk Works ASTOVL aircraft Since this group is about the Skunk Works (Lockheed Advanced Development Co.), I feel that I should tell the readers about a new Skunk Works plane that I found in military budget documents. The Skunk Works is designing a lightweight, single engine, ASTOVL (Advanced Short Takeoff, Vertical Landing) aircraft for the U.S. Navy. Under Program Element (PE) 0603226E "Experimental Evaluation of Major Innovative Technologies" project EE-24 and PE 0603217N "Air Systems Advanced Technology Development", this new aircraft is being funded. It's a long way from flying -- wind tunnel tests of the full-size model won't be for 2 more years. This program would produce an aircraft similar to the Harrier jump jet. I don't know the code-name of this aircraft, but since ARPA funding is involved, a HAVE designator may be used. (The Stealth fighter demonstrator was called HAVE BLUE, a new tactical missile has been funded under the name HAVE FLAG, and surveillance technology against cruise missiles is being developed under the HAVE DUNGEON program. Perhaps, this new Skunk Works aircraft will be called HAVE MONEY...) Paul McGinnis / TRADER@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 15:00:28 MET Subject: Re: Unsolved Mysteries >>I saw the "golden dripper" tape. Unless that sucker was clearly >>observed maneuvering, >>Russ >It didn't maneuver. Level, low, right over Edwards AFB (looked like) >from West to East (yes, they didn't tell you it was right over Edwards >in the show). >Larry (Fri, 4 Mar 1994 11:57:11 -0800) >> The tape just showed >>it moving parallel to the horizon, and leaving bits of incandescent >>material in its wake. A classic bolide. >On the tape, it does look like it might be a bolide. Just curious... what is the probablily for a bolide to fly right over Edwards AFB just when an AW&ST film crew is there ? J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: George Allegrezza 10-Mar-1994 0815 Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 08:15:53 EST Subject: RE: new Skunk Works ASTOVL aircraft The Lockheed ASTOVL program has been out in the open, although some of the technologies involved are no doubt classified, especially in the materials area. There is a companion program to develop another ASTOVL, and I believe McDonnell Douglas has the contract. One version will have a shaft-driven lift fan, and the other a gas-driven lift fan, but I don't remember which company uses which technology. There have been several articles in Av. Week over the past year or so, with some commentary regarding ARPA's decision to once again fund large-scale air vehicle prototype programs after years of emphasis on computing and microelectronics programs. George George Allegrezza | "I'm going to Euro-Disney!" Digital Equipment Corporation | --- Jim Kelly Littleton MA USA | allegrezza@tnpubs.enet.dec.com | ------------------------------ From: mangan@Kodak.COM (Paul Mangan) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 09:58:05 EST Subject: What Does AURORA Mean? I was just playing around with the thought of AURORA and how we speculate about it. Have we ever tried to figure out why it might be called Aurora. Perhaps it is an acronym for its job. So I tried to come up with a possible acronym that would give some clue. Here is mine and I would like to hear some others: 1. Advanced Universal Remote Orbital Reconnaissance Aircraft "None of our pilots are flying that" TRUE 2. Advanced Universal Reconnaissance Orbital Recoverable Aircraft 3. Advanced Universal Reconnaissance Orbital Recovery Aircraft XR75 ???????? 4. Auxillary Underwater Recovery for Orbital Reconnaissance Aircraft Hmmmmmmmmm .....can you say SeaShadow Paul Mangan ------------------------------ From: wege@s1500.bc.PeachNet.EDU (Tony Wege) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 10:41:55 EST Subject: ddn Hey Folks, I have been attempting to get public domain access to the defense data network (ddn). I have tried a number of methods using eMail addresses that have been provided without much luck. I would appreciate any assistance that anyone could provide. Thanks, Tony ------------------------------ From: freeman@maspar.com (Jay R. Freeman) Date: Thu, 10 Mar 94 12:54:36 -0800 Subject: Re: What Does AURORA Mean? > So I tried to come up with a possible acronym [...] 5. Amalgamated Useless Rumors On Reconnaissance Aircraft 6. Acronym Undefined, Reveals Obsessions with Rumored Aircraft Or maybe it's all a typographical error: Clearly, the canonical project name for vehicles under development by the Skunk Works would be... AROMA!! ===== (And that might stand for Advanced Reconnaissance Orbiting Manned Aircraft... Wait, no, hold on, I can stop any time now, I'll just go have another double espresso and calm down...) Jay Freeman (*) (*) Just Another Yankee, Fondly Reading Extraneous Entertainment, = = = = = = = Muttering At Nothing = = = ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Thu, 10 Mar 1994 15:11:19 -0800 Subject: Re: Unsolved Mysteries >>>Re: the computer-enhanced/enlarged photo of the possible TR-3A, >>>did anyone else notice the faint landing gear entending down from >>>the bottom of the craft? Larry responded: >> No I didn't. I've looked at this thing many many times. I'll look again. Russ Schnapp responds: >Oh, I definitely saw three landing gear on the computer enhanced >image. Looking again at a tape of the UM show, I do see two little dots, possible landing gear components, on the enhanced UM STILL ONLY, not on Steve's video or the blowup of Steve's video. I have heard from Steve that UM has color enhanced some of that still, to enhance understanding of the image. In other words, for these purposes, don't rely on that still. Rely only on the shape in the video. Either that shape hits your aircraft recognition cache or it doesn't. If it hits your cache then it is still only a maybe, but you alone will know how much of a maybe. Russ wrote: >>I saw the "golden dripper" tape. Unless that sucker was clearly >>observed maneuvering, Larry responded: >It didn't maneuver. Level, low, right over Edwards AFB (looked like) >from West to East (yes, they didn't tell you it was right over Edwards >in the show). Russ wrote: >> The tape just showed >>it moving parallel to the horizon, and leaving bits of incandescent >>material in its wake. A classic bolide. Larry responded: >On the tape, it does look like it might be a bolide. Remember I said MIGHT. Unlike some skeptics who interpret "MIGHT BE" as "IS A", I interpret "MIGHT BE" as "MIGHT BE". In other words, I am seeking expert counsel on this. Good science demands the proper attitude. If all the research ends and we're still a MIGHT BE, then there it shall sit, in my opinion. In other words, MAYBE NOT a meteor. Perhaps a probability will help interpret this. J. Pharabod responds: >Just curious... what is the probablily for a bolide to fly right over >Edwards AFB just when an AW&ST film crew is there ? You raise some important issues. If it was a local object (over Edwards) then your question applies. Also that fixes the object at a very low altitude as bolides go and also possibly a very uncharacteristic endoatmospheric flight time - much longer than normal for a bolide. If it was a classic bolide, then it was very high and distant, and therefore not really over Edwards. Usually such distant and high bolides are observed by hundreds to thousands to millions of people. That was not the case here. We phoned radio, TV, and newspaper media in the LA area soon after the passage of the object (we had a phone available in the truck we were using). No reports were received. We didn't detect any media coverage the following day either. This is one bit of evidence against a classic bolide. Stay tuned. I just received an excellent lead on some experts to analyse this video. So we will get additional information. If it is a meteor, the video should be of immediate interest to meteor science. Larry ------------------------------ From: al680@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (C. W. Clark) Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 04:01:32 GMT Subject: Video Bolides The Nature for February 17, 1994 contains an analysis of the Peekskill meteorite (October 9, 1992). I've seen several of the video's of that event (it happened on a football Friday night) recently and whatever is on the AW&ST tape *closely* resembles the Peekskill videos. See for yourselves. CWC. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #31 ******************************** 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". 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