From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #304 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 15 June 1995 Volume 05 : Number 304 In this issue: Re: Somebody post something skunky sorta skunky X-31 Re: Doppler RADAR to detect stealth aircraft sorta skunky (fwd) Re: sorta skunky Re: UFO's, Call for a vote ? OTH-B, Stealth Re: A UFO "filter"... 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: paul andrew mikkelson Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 11:53:19 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Somebody post something skunky On Tue, 13 Jun 1995, Neil Galarneau wrote: > I was at the Hanscom AFB air show on Saturday. > > There, I spoke with a senior officer from an MC-130, which, he said, is used to > deliver SF types and resupply them (using terrain following radar and FLIR). > > I wish I had asked him: > > "So when are you guys going to get Senior Citizen?" > > just to see his reaction. :-) > He would have laughed. This is funny. I work on these things for a living in the AF. They are a great platform for what they do, insertion and extraction of SF behind bad guy lines. The computers and electronics on these things (MC130) beat anything we do on the (HC130). Paul. ------------------------------ From: "I am the NRA." Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 11:56:53 PDT Subject: sorta skunky >While wingtip vortices are obviously not related to laminar flow, I >wondered if Doppler radar could be used to "see" stealth aircraft >eventually by detecting anomalous winds that mark their passage. This is exactly what the Australis say the did with their OTH-B at Jindalee. They were not necessarily "Seeing" the a/c, but claimed they could see the _air_motion_ around it. The folks at the US Woodpecker did not say _specifically_, but they did say they did doppler on the returns. & yes, if doable, reliably, it does pose "Challenges" for radar stealth. Compare to the comments that the "stealth ship" (more like a stealth launch...) was radar stealthy _itself_, but that its WAKE was detectable. And the Russian assertions that they could track submerged subs by the "bulge" in the ocean from their passage. (OK. Maybe hype. but not totally implausible....). >I would think that it would be impossible for any craft- stealth or otherwise- >to move through the air without creating vortices that could be detected by >Doppler radar. Slowly. And no-one has tried, yet, that we know of, For sure. =================== Resolution: 4-5 meters needed. Sort of. If its wing tip to wing tip, that can be many meters. And, I suspect, the vortexes spread, acquiring an arbitraily large size. Fading in intensity, too, but getting larger. ========================= UFOs: "ignore posts" is proposed. But, silence can be taken for ASSENT. "vote" Fine. But We Already Have A charter. I move for gentle reproof & NOT huge quantities of discussion... regards dwp ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 12:37:25 EST Subject: X-31 industry) X-31 AIRCRAFT FLIES AT PARIS AIR SHOW In another aviation first, the unique maneuvering capabilities of the X-31 high-performance experimental fighter aircraft were demonstrated Saturday to the international aerospace community in a performance at the 1995 Paris Air Show. The X-31's performance is the first international air show flight demonstration by an X-plane. The X-31's demonstration included a series of unique maneuvers in which the aircraft dramatically exceeded the aerodynamic stall angle, a condition in which ordinary aircraft lose control. The X-31 is able to exploit this high angle-of- attack "post stall" capability to turn and maneuver more quickly and over shorter distances than can conventional aircraft. The specific maneuver set demonstrated during the air show included a post-stall loop after takeoff, followed immediately by a rapid, so-called "helicopter turn" in the opposite direction; a low-altitude, horizontal, post-stall break turn termed the "mongoose"; a slow-speed, high angle-of-attack turn in the opposite direction called the "Herbst turn"; and, finally, a climbing, high-speed entry into a post-stall loop, followed by rapid, sequential repointing of the aircraft in opposite directions. In preparation for the low-altitude air show demonstration, the X-31 had conducted 34 flights in less than a month. This represents a record for X-aircraft, bettering the previous achievement of 22 flights during one month; the previous record was also held by the X-31. Two X-31 experimental aircraft were built and flew during a four-year exploration and test program to demonstrate the feasibility of thrust vectoring control in the post-stall flight regime. The X-31 used maneuvers similar to those in its air show repertoire in mock, close-in air combat engagements against a variety of front-line fighter aircraft, dramatically dominating many of these "adversaries." - -MORE- The X-31's maneuvering achievements have also been complemented by another significant aviation first when the aircraft demonstrated that flight without a tail is possible at supersonic as well as subsonic speeds. Designing aircraft without tails offers the potential for reduced weight and increased performance, efficiency and stealth. The X-31 demonstrated flight without a tail through a novel supersonic in-flight experiment in which the flight control system was fooled into reacting as though the aircraft had no tail. The thrust vectoring capability was then used to provide necessary aircraft stability, trim and control. One aircraft crashed during a test flight in January 1995, after a departure from controlled flight not attributed to any of the aircraft's unique systems or maneuvering capabilities. The remaining X-31 aircraft was brought back to flight status in April. The X-31 aircraft was developed jointly by Rockwell International's North American Aircraft Division and Daimler-Benz Aerospace (formerly Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm), under sponsorship by the U.S. Department of Defense and the German Federal Ministry of Defense. The program has been operating under the auspices of the X-31 International Test Organization (ITO) from the NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif. The ITO is comprised of participants from the DoD's Advanced Research Projects Agency, NASA, the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, the German Government, German Air Force, and the two prime contractors, Rockwell International and Daimler-Benz. - -END- Note: Video footage of the X-31 performing maneuvers similar to those performed at the air show is available from Ken Carter, Room 2E765, Pentagon, at (703) 697-6161. Stock photos of the X-31 are available on-line at the World Wide Web site maintained by NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center at the following URL: http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/PhotoServer/photoServer.html ------------------------------ From: king@reasoning.com Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 13:56:12 BST Subject: Re: Doppler RADAR to detect stealth aircraft >> >> From: kuryakin@arn.net (Illya Kuryakin) >> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 11:18:25 -0500 >> Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #301 >> >> I think the problem is that Doppler radar doesn't have the resolution yet. >> >> Weather dopplers have about a 7-15 meter resolution. You'd have to get >> it down to 2-3 feet for that to be effective. Not to say it can't be >> done... :) >> >> Illya >> >> +As I was reading the A&S magazine last night, I was also watching the >> +weather on TV. The article I was reading concerned laminar flow control >> +on wings, and the TV weather was showing particularly nasty winds on >> +Doppler radar. >> + >> +While wingtip vortices are obviously not related to laminar flow, I >> +wondered if Doppler radar could be used to "see" stealth aircraft >> +eventually by detecting anomalous winds that mark their passage. It's worse than that. Air reflects little or no radar. Doppler radar needs raindrops to detect air motion. Fortunately the kinds of wind problem they're designed for are accompnied by rainfall. - -dk ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 18:15:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: sorta skunky (fwd) On Wed, 14 Jun 1995, I am the NRA. wrote: > >wondered if Doppler radar could be used to "see" stealth aircraft > >eventually by detecting anomalous winds that mark their passage. > This is exactly what the Australis say the did with their OTH-B at > Jindalee. They were not necessarily "Seeing" the a/c, but claimed As NRA was saying, it's not that stealth is invisible...it's just that: - - by the time you 'see' them, it's to late to scramble a response - - by the time you scramble planes in the area, you may not be able to localize the return to be able to engage - - if you do engage, you may end up directing your attack to the wrong location (spurious images - - if you spend all your resources on a single (uh-oh decoy) return, you may not be able to respond to other stealthy and non-stealthy threats ...and on and on. All it takes is a tiny 'edge' on the battlefield of the future (now) and you can exploit the bejesus outta it. Lots of our other capabilities become more useful when you have the dual team of 'smart' weaponry, and target denial, both in the form of surprise stealthy pre-softening of the radar shield, and the 'enemy' can't even get their stuff in the air. Funny, but we wouldn't have the unique perspective w/o : Gulf War: the movie, heh. I fully believe we have stealth defeating technology, and more. The military would never have let the stealth stuff out to such a degree, had they not a couple more Aces. So now a question for the SWers. If you had to extend your insight and jump ahead, what aspects of future warfare are gonna be the cutting edge in 15 years? (about the length of time civilian technology lags behind the military in certain key areas. Of course with crypto, think 50 years, with ELINT, probably 20 years in surveillance, -5 in computers in the field). [I hate to be posting such a boring and well known list, above but there still seems to be basic questions being raised, so I guess it won't hurt.] regards, BaDge ------------------------------ From: keller@eos.ncsu.edu Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 18:17:57 EDT Subject: Re: sorta skunky D. Pierson shaped the electrons to say (in part)... >>While wingtip vortices are obviously not related to laminar flow, I >>wondered if Doppler radar could be used to "see" stealth aircraft >>eventually by detecting anomalous winds that mark their passage. > This is exactly what the Australis say the did with their OTH-B at > Jindalee. They were not necessarily "Seeing" the a/c, but claimed > they could see the _air_motion_ around it. The folks at the US > Woodpecker did not say _specifically_, but they did say they did > doppler on the returns. & yes, if doable, reliably, it does pose > "Challenges" for radar stealth. One thing that I've (almost) always seen left out the business of OTH-B radars being able to detect stealth aircraft is the accuracy of the position fix which those radars provide. It is highly uncertain, (relatively) because the distance the signals have travelled from transmitter to target to receiver is highly uncertain. This is because you don't know exactly how high in the ionosphere the radio waves were reflected. The one time I have seen this mentioned in connection with detecting stealth aircraft (several years ago, sorry, don't recall the source), the situation was described as "You know something's out there, but you don't know exactly where." In an interesting article which appeared a few years ago in AvWeek on the US OTH-B, the writer asked about the accuracy of the position fixes, and was told that that was confidential... > Compare to the comments that the "stealth ship" (more like a stealth > launch...) was radar stealthy _itself_, but that its WAKE was > detectable. And the Russian assertions that they could track submerged > subs by the "bulge" in the ocean from their passage. (OK. Maybe hype. > but not totally implausible....). That a submerged submarine does leave a detectable wake on the surface is an established fact. So far, at least, this little factoid has proven to be of no military value. It takes an orbiting radar set to detect the wake, and several hours to downlink and process the data which would lead to the conclusion that you've detected a submarine wake. By this time, you only know a submarine *was* at that location at sometime in the past, how long ago will depend on how fast the sub was moving, which you don't know either. This has been written about in _Science_ on a number of occasions over the past few years. OBTW: I would just as soon that the UFO stuff be toned down as well. Although I can (and largely do) trash the stuff, it clutters my e-mail box to the extent I might miss something interesting as a result of excessive trashing. Paul Keller keller@eos.ncsu.edu ------------------------------ From: megazone@world.std.com (MegaZone) Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 19:32:23 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: UFO's, Call for a vote ? Once upon a time Andy Cobley shaped the electrons to say... >Do people want a vote on this subject ? I would be willing to organise it >and count the votes that come in. There will be a period of discussion follwe My opinion is that if you want to start a list speculating about aliens, go and do it, but alien speculation does *not* belong on this list at all. If the list starts discussing alien tech, I'm gone. - -- megazone@world.std.com (508) 752-2164 MegaZone's Waste Of Time Moderator: anime fanfic archive, ftp.std.com /archives/anime-fan-works; rec.arts.anime.stories - Maintainer: Ani Difranco Mailing List - Mail to majordomo@world.std.com with 'subscribe ani-difranco' in the body. ------------------------------ From: "I am the NRA." Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 17:09:13 PDT Subject: OTH-B, Stealth >> >wondered if Doppler radar could be used to "see" stealth aircraft >> >eventually by detecting anomalous winds that mark their passage. >> This is exactly what the Australians say the did with their OTH-B at >> Jindalee. They were not necessarily "Seeing" the a/c, but claimed >As NRA was saying, it's not that stealth is invisible...it's just that: >- by the time you 'see' them, it's to late to scramble a response But if OTH-B see's em, they see 'em a LONG way away. OTH-B is blind in close. & Stealth can be spotted better IF oneknows where to look. (The American Woodpecker was specificaaly tasked with spotting Bears (?) launching cruise missles....) >- by the time you scramble planes in the area, you may not be able to > localize the return to be able to engage Better odds if the OTH-B has 'em in the air already. >- if you do engage, you may end up directing your attack to the wrong > location (spurious images yep. >- if you spend all your resources on a single (uh-oh decoy) return, you > may not be able to respond to other stealthy and non-stealthy threats OTH-B (IF effective) would give good wide area situational coverage. >...and on and on. All it takes is a tiny 'edge' on the battlefield of >the future (now) and you can exploit the bejesus outta it. Like OTH-B at the top of the chain.... >So now a question for the SWers. If you had to extend your insight and >jump ahead, what aspects of future warfare are gonna be the cutting edge >in 15 years? With the (at least for now) collapse of the driving hightech rivalry, i see thing slowing. With Stealth a recognized princiapl, i could see a very different battlefield, with very few electronic emissions, because ant emitter gets targetted, hard. ================================================================== >One thing that I've (almost) always seen left out the business of >OTH-B radars being able to detect stealth aircraft is the accuracy of >the position fix which those radars provide. It is highly uncertain, >(relatively) because the distance the signals have travelled from >transmitter to target to receiver is highly uncertain. This is >because you don't know exactly how high in the ionosphere the radio >waves were reflected. Differnt environment. The targets are 1000 miles away. LOTSA time to refine a fix. And, typically, and OTH-B site has a sounding transmitter/receiver pair, which does nothing BUT look at the ionosphere. This serves to find the next usable patch (they come and go...) and to refine use of the existing patch. Plus reading the backscatter from the search/track beam. >The one time I have seen this mentioned in connection with detecting stealth >aircraft (several years ago, sorry, don't recall the source), the situation was >described as "You know something's out there, but you don't know exactly >where." Yep. But see above. for non stealth targets an airborne or space borne asset can refine the fix. Use of one radar for searcha nd one for track/targettting is quite common. >In an interesting article which appeared a few years ago in AvWeek on the US >OTH-B, the writer asked about the accuracy of the position fixes, and was told >that that was confidential... Which might mean it was "bad" and might mean it was good. (in fact, the US OTH-B, while sucessful, was somewhat of an experiment. They found that the ionosphere WAS too variable to give the coverage needed 1005 of the time. This contributed to the unit never going full operational...) =================================== >That a submerged submarine does leave a detectable wake on the surface >is an established fact. So far, at least, this little factoid has >proven to be of no military value. It takes an orbiting radar set to >detect the wake, and several hours to downlink and process the data >which would lead to the conclusion that you've detected a submarine >wake. By this time, you only know a submarine *was* at that location >at sometime in the past, Yep, however, By the wake I know direction, i should think... >how long ago will depend on how fast the sub was moving, which you don't know >either. I suspect I do. If i can see a wake, i can see how fast the wake is moving. I assume (for subsonic submarines...) the target is making the same speed. Probably not enuf for a targeting solution, but certainly the bulls eye is a LOT smaller... regards dwp ------------------------------ From: Lambright Christian P Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 19:59:46 -0500 (CDT) Subject: Re: A UFO "filter"... Well, I was hoping this debate would just go away and sure didn't/don't want to to keep it going..but for the sake of having at least said my 2 cents worth... I was have researched/studied/whatever UFO's for quite a few years and was a card carrying investigator for the Center for UFO Studies prior to the death of J. Allen Hynek. That's just to say that I am seriously interested and aware of the phenomenon and feel it deserves far more credibility and respect than it often gets from the general population. But I don't want this group to turn into an open forum for general discussion of UFOs, although I thought that it was open to far more than simply what was built at the Skunk Works. I've seen, as I'm sure many of you have, what the general usenet group(s) on UFO's have gotten to be and I don't very often even look at them. They aren't productive and are almost totally garbage. I wish it were otherwise. I think the charter for this group defines its parameters well enough and to 'vote' on the inclusion or exclusion of UFOs is totally unwarranted, if only because in the posts I've seen so far it's clear that the UFO topic is as confused as ever. Even I can tell when a post is way off subject (i.e. Cornet, etc.) and have no confusion about it. I've seen a few non-UFO posts that I thought had no business being here either..but a misguided individual just needs direction and shouldn't so easily cause the whole group to argue about what direction this list should be heading. This is all the posting I'll do on this subject, back to the bench... - -Chris -=>*<=-=->*<=-=>*<=-=>*< chrisl@jove.acs.unt.edu >*<=-=>*<=-=>*<=-=>*<=- Compuserve 71712,472 _________________________ -=-=> *<>* <=-=- ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #304 ********************************* 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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