From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #41 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 22 March 1994 Volume 05 : Number 041 In this issue: Yikes!! I made a mistake on MERIDIAN! Story on Groom Lake Base Re: UFO lights in Grand Rapids Re: nitpicks Re: nitpicks 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: Mon, 21 Mar 94 00:01:36 PST Subject: Yikes!! I made a mistake on MERIDIAN! In previous postings, I misidentified the purpose of a secret U.S. Air Force program code-named MERIDIAN as the next generation of ballistic missile re-entry vehicles. This was due to my writing down a Program Element number (PE) wrong when I was trying to figure out where the Air Force was spending money in secret. I confused MERIDIAN (PE 0603111F) with PE 0603311F (Ballistic Missile Technology). I've found that the latter PE was funded for about 31 million dollars in 1994, while the Air Force asked for 59 million dollars. So, I still don't know what MERIDIAN is, but the question still comes up: Why is the U.S. spending money for a new & improved MIRV? Does someone in the Pentagon think it might come in handy, say for attacking North Korea? In my research on secret military spending, I've come to the conclusion that the U.S. military doesn't feel that I or any other U.S. taxpayer has a right to know where billions of our tax dollars are going. As Robert O'Connor said at the hearing a few weeks ago on the Air Force's attempt to seize the land overlooking Groom Lake: "I think it's top secret because if you did know what was going, you'd stop it!" So, just to annoy our paranoid military types, I will disclose the code name of a real secret program. (I'm going to do this because Americans have a a right to know where their money is going). Although it doesn't appear in budget documents, the U.S. has a new spy satellite up its sleeve code-named CLASSIC OUTBOARD. I'm trying to find out more details, but astute readers will remember that the U.S. Navy lost several CLASSIC WIZARD surveillance satellites during a Titan missile launch failure last year. Paul McGinnis / TRADER@cup.portal.com "Just another irate taxpayer..." ------------------------------ From: ab107@dayton.wright.edu (Timothy R. Gaffney) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 06:08:40 -0500 Subject: Story on Groom Lake Base Dear Skunkers: I'm a reporter for the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News. A photographer and I spent the first week of March in Nevada for a project on the secret base at Groom Lake. Our feature package was published in Sunday's (3/20/94) editions. The package includes a color photo of the base that runs across two pages. It's a composite made from 11 individual frames, stitched together with Adobe Photoshop. Sorry, folks, no Aurora. Just 737s. But what a base! - -- Timothy R. Gaffney ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 16:07:00 MET Subject: Re: UFO lights in Grand Rapids (From the SKEPTIC list) J. Pharabod ._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._. Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 08:25:21 EST From: DIANE ALEXANDER Subject: UFO Michigan X-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group To: Multiple recipients of list SKEPTIC There was a tape (audio & video) of the conversation between the Ottawa Co. Sheriff's Department and the Muskegon office of the National Weather Service on the local news (Grand Rapids, MI) last night. You could see them on radar. It was really interesting. Here's a transcript (mine) from the report: Radar Operator (O): "Right there. OK, let's see what that is. It looks like a big blob." Dispatch (D): "Yeah. That's the way is was explained to us." O: "I'm getting it now at, um, 12,000 feet." D: "A lot of people who've called that I talked to said it looked like a lot of cylinderical objects..." O: "Well, OH MY GOD! What *is* this? (the operator sounded excited.) D: "...And they were going together and coming apart..." O: "Yeah, there it's, there's 3--they're lengthwise and now I'm getting 3 of them. These are huge returns! I've never seen anything like this, not even during storms. There, um, these aren't storms. Now that one near South Haven (MI) has moved. It's moving further out into Lake Michigan. Now I'm getting 4..." That's where the transcript on the news stopped. They then had several witnesses explain what they saw. They also said that in addition to HARD COPY, crews from A CURRENT AFFAIR and CBS 48 HOURS were in the area. I don't know what's going on , but it sure is a hot topic of conversation in Grand Rapids! Diane Alexander alexandd@gvsu.edu ------------------------------ From: rschnapp@metaflow.com (Russ Schnapp) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 94 08:39:51 PST Subject: Re: nitpicks Rick Pavek wrote: Another thing I caught was that they used the KC-10. DOH. I didn't know they had any configured for the SR. I recall that the SR-71 reference manual (a.k.a. "DASH-1") describes in-flight refueling procedures for both the KC-135Q AND the KC-10. Mary might be able to tell us whether the -10s where ever used operationally. I suspect they were. ...Russ ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 13:58:12 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: nitpicks There is a bit of confusion here--there was nothing special about the SR-71 that required that the tanker be configured for it. Any tanker will work perfectly well--we use regular old KC-135s here. The KC-135Q was modified so that it could burn JP-7, but this had nothing to do with anything special about the SR except that it was the reason for wanting a tanker to carry JP-7, if you see what I mean. Yes, the SR-71 has refuelled from regular KC-135s, KC-135Qs, and KC-10s. The SR-71 just requires a tanker with a boom. Regards, 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.... On Mon, 21 Mar 1994, Russ Schnapp wrote: > > Rick Pavek wrote: > Another thing I caught was that they used the KC-10. DOH. I didn't know > they had any configured for the SR. > > I recall that the SR-71 reference manual (a.k.a. "DASH-1") describes in-flight > refueling procedures for both the KC-135Q AND the KC-10. Mary might be able to > tell us whether the -10s where ever used operationally. I suspect they were. > > ...Russ ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #41 ******************************** 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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