From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #86 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 17 May 1994 Volume 05 : Number 086 In this issue: Re(2): D-21 at Dover AFB 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: RB3@aol.com Date: Mon, 16 May 94 23:16:40 EDT Subject: Re(2): D-21 at Dover AFB Sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I had more dead-end job interviews to attend to, and they prevented me from the important things in life - like super/hyper-sonic aircraft. I picked up my photos from the lab in the meantime, so my memory is now assisted by my photos. Larry writes: > >Off the top of my head I would expect it to be longer than both the T-6 >and the Jenny. Was it? > Can't be positive, since they wrapped around a corner, but I'm going to take a look in some books - just a moment. The AT-6A Texan, according to a WWII aircraft ref guide I have handy, is 29 feet long and 42 feet wide, with a top speed of 208 mph (600hp Wasp). Since all of my ref guides are of jets ( ;-> ), I can't seem to find any Jenny data. Perhaps another aerophile could help out? And finally, according to the Dover placard under the D, it is 43' long by 19' wide, top speed M4+. >Did the bird you see have an engine? > Yes it did. And I did get a kick out of seeing it. Have a good picture of it too that came out better than I was expecting it to. >No. these things are in museums now. The ramjet engines themselves, >seperately, are also going to be on display eventually as well, and as I said >it's known that airbreathers were doing Mach 4 in the late 50's. So no >new disclosures there. While I realise that this technology is old and well understood, I still am under the impression that a lot of it is classified. After all, if I am not mistaken, the SR-71's top speed is still a black fact, is it not? I just thought that the AF would say M3.5+ instead of M4+ to be more in keeping with their general security conscious behavior. FWIW, I thought Skunk Works might be interested at the wording that appeared on the placard: D - 2 1 D r o n e ********************************************************************** Manufacturer: Lockheed Aircraft Company Type: Strategic Recon Drone Crew: None Engine: Marquardt RJ43-MA-11 Ramjet Wing Span: 19' Length: 43' Max Speed: Mach 4 plus Range: 1,200 miles Max Weight: 20,000 lbs Max Altitude: 100,000' plus Remote piloted vehicle designed to penetrate hostile airspace and photograph strategic areas. Upon return, it would eject a capsule with the film exposed. The Drone would then explode. Note: No data confirmed; compiled from best available sources. On loan from the USAFM pending transfer to NASM. _More_ questions - was it really remotely piloted or was it preprogrammed? If an RPV, what was the datalink? Was range really that low? And was it a C-130 that retrieved the film? Thanks for all the help. >Sorry for the long answer. It was much appreciated, Larry, sorry for the delay in following up. Regards, Ran ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #86 ******************************** 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).