From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #271 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 16 May 1995 Volume 05 : Number 271 In this issue: Ping pong ball sounds Re: Ping pong ball sounds AW&ST May, 15, 1995 -- F-117 to Aurora Re: AW&ST May, 15, 1995 -- F-117 to 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: "Clarence Dent" Date: 15 May 1995 07:54:59 -0700 Subject: Ping pong ball sounds Subject:Ping pong ball sounds On Fri, 12 May 95 09:54:25 EDT, Mark A Buda wrote: > There is an old military explosives storage area in MA that had > multiple uses. Tested explosives, stored them, burn tested clothing > and the like and many other strange and sundry things. Roughly 3000+ > acres in size. The place has been dormant except for a radar station > on its edge and FEMA on the other side. > Someone mentioned to me that every now and then they would here a ping > pong like noise (one that is dropped onto a table where it makes a > noise faster) that emanates what seems like every where. It happens > every couple minutes (maybe sooner). I wondered if it was something to > do with the radar station. It is strange in that it comes from > everywhere and is very hard to locate the source. As one person said, > it makes your hair stand on end. Is this anything to do low frequency > transmissions? > Another thing that is interesting, the area seems to have sprung to > life. They just put brand new fencing around the whole area and > increase in traffic. I cannot help but wonder if this has something to > do with new radar being installed. Seems strange to have nearly > nothing happen for many years and suddenly it springs to life. > - mark Mark, Ever hear of a public address system and a bored night watch guard?... It's amazing what the combination of the two can come up with... ------------------------------ From: "Clarence Dent" Date: 15 May 1995 09:59:16 -0700 Subject: Re: Ping pong ball sounds Subject:RE>>Ping pong ball sounds Hi Mark, I could get real _spooky_ and say it was psyops designed to keep curious onlookers away. Perhaps also, it could be a sound effect to keep wildlife out of the area-deer perhaps. I work out on a large range in the middle of the desert, and you might be surprised at the sounds that come from the PA system here. Some of our installations are many miles apart, and with certain wind conditions, you can hear announcements for miles. During off hours, you can occasionally hear music being played by some of the people who live out here 24 hours a day! Pretty strange things happen here in the desert. Hence my initial thoughts and response regarding your discovery. - -Clarence - -------------------------------------- Date: 05/15/95 09:37 To: Clarence Dent From: Mark A Buda DTN 381-1969 15-M > Ever hear of a public address system and a bored night watch guard?... > It's amazing what the combination of the two can come up with... In this case, I donot believe this to be the case. It has been heard during multiple times of the day and by multiple different people. Any other guesses? - mark ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 20:02:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: AW&ST May, 15, 1995 -- F-117 to Aurora The last AW&ST includes the latest information about the F-117 crash in "NEWS BREAKS": "A U.S. Air Force F-117A Nighthawk crashed south of Zuni, N.M., around 10:30 p.m. on May 10, killing the pilot, Capt. Kenneth W. Levens. The aircraft was on a routine night training mission from Holloman AFB, N.M. It was the second 49th Fighter Wing F-117A mishap in two months and the fifth lost since the Air Force's first stealth aircraft was fielded in the early 1980s. On Apr. 5, another F-117A burned on the Holloman runway after making a night emergency landing. The pilot escaped without injury, but the aircraft suffered major damage." and the following Skunk Works related articles: USAF URGES FAST TRACK FOR TSSAM FOLLOW-ON, on pages 31-32, talks about the USAF's wish to field a less stealthy TSSAM replacement dubbed JASSM (Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile) around 1998/99. Together with other precision munitions -- like JDAM, JSOW, and SFW -- JASSM and the F-22 (and JAST) delivery systems are very much preferred by the USAF over any new B-2 procurement. VISEO MODELS EVALUATE AIRCRAFT DETECTABILITY, on page 46, describes a new software tool, designed at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), with which visual and IR signatures of aircraft can be tested for the level of detectability by humans. The software can be used to minimize the visual and IR signature, and to adjust a design for the best visual/IR LO of a specific object in a specific environment. 'AIR SPIKE' COULD EASE HYPERSONIC FLIGHT PROBLEMS, page 66-67, describes the usage of a directed energy 'air spike' to reduce the drag and heat transfer problems of hypersonic flight. With the air spike technology to actively control the aero- and thermodynamics of a TAV, it is possible to design ultra-light, blunt, 'saucer-shaped' SSTO vehicles, instead of long, sharp-nosed, aerodynamicly-shaped airframes. Calculations show that a vehicle flying Mach 25 (orbital velocity) would be subjected to only a Mach 3 environment. Leik Myrabo and other Russian researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, propose air spikes generated by microwaves, rather than lasers or on-board chemicals. Myrabo worked also on SDIO, USAF, and NASA studies for pulse detonation wave engines powered by ground based lasers. For speeds below Mach 1 the postulated single-passenger, 10-meter-diameter, saucer-shaped SSTO spacecraft, would rely on PDWE powered by an external microwave source, rather than laseres. For speeds above Mach 1, the vehicle would use a magnetohydrodynamic fan engine, accelerating ionized air through two superconducting magnet rings. This would also eliminate sonic booms by eliminating pressure discontinuities. This design of a relatively small, silent, but (when hypersonic) brightly glowing vehicle, could ultimately reach speeds up to Mach 50. A small proof-of-concept test vehicle could theoretically be launched in about five years, even though the technology to produce the ultimate launch vehicle lies far in the future. On the other hand, USAF and NASA are very much interested in the reduction of drag, sonic boom, and heat- transfer through the use of an 'air spike' concept in the near future. Now... are those bright, sometimes silent, very fast flying objects, sighted all the time, 'air spike' vehicles tested by the USAF (or whomever)? Starting another Aurora thread... - -- Andreas - --- --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@raptor.csc.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~schnars/ - --- --- ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 18:05:36 -0700 Subject: Re: AW&ST May, 15, 1995 -- F-117 to Aurora >'AIR SPIKE' COULD EASE HYPERSONIC FLIGHT PROBLEMS, page 66-67 >... >This design of a relatively >small, silent, but (when hypersonic) brightly glowing vehicle, could >ultimately reach speeds up to Mach 50. >... >Now... are those bright, sometimes silent, very fast flying objects, >sighted all the time, 'air spike' vehicles tested by the USAF (or whomever)? There is a wonderful book that talks about this kind of technology named "Future Flight" (I think that's right) by Leik Myrabo and Dean Ing (that's right the skunk-works-fiction writer). Many people don't know that Dean Ing used to work at Lockheed on classified stuff. That's why his books have a definite Skunk Works flavor to them. In fact, there are characters in his books that have been modelled after past Skunk Works leaders. Unfortunately, "Future Flight" is out of print. If I recall correctly, it came out around 1980. It predicted that several U.S. Labs were interested in test flying drone versions of some of these designs. The latest AW&ST article is about newer stuff however, that really didn't show up in "Future Flight", but "Future Flight" is a good foundation for the layman. The technology that SDI was testing was right up the alley for these kinds of vehicles, so who knows, maybe somebody test flew a sub-scale model. But, this kind of technology is too revolutionary for our normally conservative aerospace companies and government organizations. So to answer Andreas question, I vote for (or whomever). Larry ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #271 ********************************* 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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