From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #39 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Saturday, 19 March 1994 Volume 05 : Number 039 In this issue: [none] [none] Re: U2/SR-71 U2/SR71/video Re: Object over Southwest Michigan - TV Alert (West Coast) Re: video SR-71 Video tonight 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: skunk-works-owner Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 02:24:56 -0800 Subject: [none] ------------------------------ From: skunk-works-owner Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 05:35:55 -0800 Subject: [none] ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 11:23:02 -0800 Subject: Re: U2/SR-71 Phil V. writes: >A question I've always wanted to know, if Eisenhower was the one who >misnamed the RS-71 the SR-71, or whatever, No, Eisenhower gave the approval for the Land Panel studies in 1957 that begot the competition between Convair and Lockheed that begot the Lockheed OXCART (A-11 then A-12). President Johnson announced the A-11 Interceptor on 24 February, 1964 (really the YF-12A). President Johnson announced the SR-71 version later in 1964. > then we should have had >71s flying during the Cuban Missile crisis. Therefore we shouldn't >have lost the one we did, > or after we lost the one we did then we >shouldn't have risked any more. Or am I wrong about SR-71 service >dates.... > Wrong about the dates, and the airplane. The A-12 version was the earliest version. The SR-71 came later. The first OXCART (A-12 #121) flew on 30 April, 1962, approx. one year later than originally planned. The Agency U-2 was shot down by a SAM over Cuba on 27 October, 1962. After that first flight of #121 in April 1962, a long process of working the aircraft up to operational performance was begun that didn't culminate in the OXCART becoming operational for another 3 years and 7 months (Novenber 1965). And as I said, the SR-71 was even further behind the A-12. The A-12's first mission (code named BLACK SHIELD) was over North Vietnam on 31 May 1967 which was a satisfactory mission and seemed to go completely undetected by both the Chinese and North Vietnamese (no radar signals detected). Cruise on that flight was Mach 3.1 at 80,000 ft. The first SR-71 began to arrive at Kadena to take over from OXCART in March 1968 . The last OXCART mission was on 8 May 1968 over North Korea. The above was from the previously posted OXCART Story. Larry ------------------------------ From: I am the NRA Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 11:40:55 PST Subject: U2/SR71/video If this gets thru in time, DSC (cable) has an SR71 video scheduled for 10PM, EST, 18 Mar. rerun scheduled for 3 hours later. =========================================================== Phil Verdieck writes, in part: >A question I've always wanted to know, if Eisenhower was the one who >misnamed the RS-71 the SR-71, or whatever, It was LBJ. After he was president. >then we should have had 71s flying during the Cuban Missile crisis. JFK was president. A12/YF11s may have been testing, probably not operational,. >Therefore we shouldn't have lost the one [U2] >we did, or after we lost the one we did then we shouldn't have risked any >more. Or given them better jammers. 8)>> >Or am I wrong about SR-71 service dates.... I fear so, regards dwp ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 15:00:40 -0800 Subject: Re: Object over Southwest Michigan - TV Alert (West Coast) Douglas J. Tiffany writes: >I was listening to a local radio station (Ft Wayne, IN) and on their >news break they said that there have been numerous reportings of UFO's >in the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. Witnesses said that they lights >resembled jet aircraft, but it made a very strange "whirling" sound. >Witnesses also said that it was at tree top level moving very slow, >but the National Weather Service radar put it at about 10,000 feet. Well, ... Ah ..., ... Hmmm. Besides the Net, I have heard nothing about this until last Sunday when a friend of mine from Michigan (I grew up there + my family still lives there) called and informed me of what was happening. I've been waiting for some kind of hard info. on this before I posted anything because the rumors are flying hot and heavy. People are talking Aurora and UFOs and little hard data is mentioned. Well I now have some data coming in the mail that MIGHT help a little. My contact in Michigan read sections of it over the phone to me just this afternoon. It is a log of civilian, police and 2 weather radar operators talking together over the 911 (public emergency) radio facilities. It was published in one of the local newspapers back there. According to what I'm told over the phone (haven't gotten it yet) we have a case of an object that multiple people from different locations have their eyeballs on as well as 2 weather radars. At one point the radars track the object at 10mi in 10 secs, or roughly 3600 mph (Mach 5+). Evidently, according to the newspaper accounts back there, there are government and military people on site as well. Anyway, since I haven't seen/heard any reliable data on this yet I'm sticking my neck out posting this. The main reason for this post is to inform people that HARD COPY (why can't it be a network?) one of the TV Tabloid news shows, is going to have some coverage of this story tonight, and maybe some of us on the west coast will still have some time to catch it if I post this. Larry ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 22:56:46 -0800 Subject: Re: video pierson@cimcad.enet.dec.com says... >If this gets thru in time, DSC (cable) has an SR71 video scheduled >for 10PM, EST, 18 Mar. rerun scheduled for 3 hours later. Yes, that is a good show... but its not a new one. The Discovery series is called "Flight Command", which first aired around a year or so ago. This particular episode however is from an 1988/89 AW&ST video called "SR-71 Blackbird: The Secret Vigil". ------------------------------ From: Rick Pavek Date: Fri, 18 Mar 1994 23:12:51 -0800 Subject: SR-71 Video tonight I saw the fighter command video. Nice stuff. Comments: I liked the insider's terminology. IE Cosmic Clock. Rocket Ride. Major nitpick: The simulation of the COBE satellite when they talked about the spy satellites. ;) Another thing I caught was that they used the KC-10. DOH. I didn't know they had any configured for the SR. I especially enjoyed the commentary. Like where they were more than happy to tell 'how' the flew the missions, but not 'where' they flew the missions. How coy. ;) All told, a nice story. Rick SR-75/XR-7 _|_*O*_|_ | Rick Pavek \ __|__ / | HA!! \_______/_(O)_\_______/ | Ruby - kuryakin@hebron.connected.com \___/---\___/ | Galactic Gumshoe ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #39 ******************************** 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).