From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #305 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Friday, 16 June 1995 Volume 05 : Number 305 In this issue: Not just Lockheed Future tech Rockwell?? Thanks for your suggestions and comments more comments on Mr. Zuyev Re: A suggested UFO "filter" Re: future targeting devices Re: Not just Lockheed Re: future targeting devices Rockwell?? Receipt: Skunk Works Digest V5 #304 Targets & SR-71 Intercepts Re: sorta skunky (fwd) Re: Sorta Skunky ...no subject... Miscellaneuos 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: kuryakin@arn.net (Illya Kuryakin) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 02:31:53 -0500 Subject: Not just Lockheed Lockheed has the Skunk Works Northrop has the Pico Rivera Division Boeing has the Advanced Development Center and Oxbow Lockheed-Georgia has the JetStar building Lockheed-GD had something, too (anybody have a name?) But what about Rockwell? They have been very quiet for the last 20 years... Illya ------------------------------ From: seb@tadpole.co.uk (Steven Barber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 10:42:44 +0100 Subject: Future tech Okay, the question was raised: what's the direction future technology will be taking. Let's put mind in free-wheel mode for a moment: I agree that the pace of change/advance will probably slow. I also expect to see things moving to low emission, low detectability. Airplanes running with only passive detection systems, relying on information from remote sensors coming in via satellite link. More "smart" technology and an increasing reluctance to risk personnel (although the Air Forces will tend to resist this, to an extent, as flying fighters is what it's all about as far as the brass is concerned - witness the fate of the A10 in the USAF. A great 'plane, fulfills its role brilliantly and being phased out without a successor), so more use of UAVs. Look at what's possible with the X31 and you may have more ideas on how fighters will perform. Further out - wings/flight surfaces that reconfigure with electric or magnetic fields. I'd be surprised to see top speeds increasing. Longer-range target identification and engagement of multiple targets (like the F14 role), so that your expensive fighters don't get swamped by swarms of cheaper models flown by a smaller or lower tech antagonist. Probably improved munitions for runway denial - the price paid in terms of a/c lost in this role during the Gulf War was high and will be higher than anyone will want to pay in future (also, the targets may be better defended). So it will probably be a case of munitions advancing more than aircraft performance over the next couple of decades (after that bold statement, it's bound to be the other way around just to prove me wrong!). My two cents worth! Have fun tearing that to pieces (and not a UFO in sight!). Steve Barber ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 03:54:06 PDT Subject: Rockwell?? Rockwell is not doingto well these days. They have produced the two biggest "white elephants" flying today. 1) B1 bomber- Does not deliver what it was supposed to. Redesigned as B1-B (almost a totally different A/C at this point) it does what a good A6 did 20 years ago only for a lot higher price. Note that the A/C the B1 was to replace 20 years ago was still dropping bombs in Gulf War! 2) Space Shuttle - Lets see, build an airplane, strap big rockets on the side....... Didn`t Wiley Coyote show us this is a lousy system? The shuttle has all but killed NASA, has killed pilots, and Rockwell no longer has its logo on the side of it. What does that tell you? It never came close to delivering on its design requirements. The shuttle is a neat spacecraft, and does have serious value as a research vehicle. In defense of it, it was probably the best that Rockwell could have done at the time. It`s too bad that it was sold as something it wasn`t. Chuck Smith "Aerospace Engineer to the Stars" ------------------------------ From: albert.dobyns@mwbbs.com (ALBERT DOBYNS) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 95 00:06:00 -0500 Subject: Thanks for your suggestions and comments JK> Message-Id: JK> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 95 13:23 CDT JK> From: kelleher@consilium.com (John Kelleher) JK> Subject: Mr. A. Zuev John -- JK> There are agencies within the military that do keep contact with JK> folks such as Mr. Zuev, but they tend to be rather unaccommodating JK> when outside folks just want to chat. I think you'll realize that's JK> a pretty wise precaution to take. Yes, precautions are necessary to make sure something undesirable doesn't happen to people like Viktor Belenko and Alexander Zuyev (is Zuyev the American form whereas Zuev is the Russion form?). I do not know how long a country holds a grudge for those who leave and take a significant amount of secret info with them. I sometimes wonder if a Secret Service or FBI agent is assigned to be their personal bodyguard. I was very surprised by Mr. Zuyev's friendliness toward me! He made a great impression on me! JK> Most of the Soviet defectors/emigres who've decided to take a more JK> public role have also signed on with speaking agents. In about 1987 JK> I worked to get Victor Balenko to speak at the Intel center at JK> Goodfellow AFB. At the time he was exclusively represented by a JK> civilian agent and that's who we went through. Now that is very interesting to know!! It makes sense too. JK> The fact that Mr. Zuev spoke at an aviation symposium gives you a JK> perfect method to track down the identity of his civilian agent. JK> Call the symposium organizers and see how they were able to sign him JK> on as a speaker! Excellent idea!! I just hope they are cooperative. I can't fly small aircraft anymore and have dropped my subscription to the Illinois Dept. of Transportation's aviation branch. So I don't get their newsletters anymore. I will try to get the info even though I'm not an active member. JK> I wish you luck. Some of these folks are pretty busy on the JK> speaking circuit. But the fact that he took time to drop you a JK> thank you note is an indication that perhaps he is a bit friendlier JK> than some others I've encountered. Since I also have an email JK> penpal in Russia whose last name is Zuev, I'm even more optimstic JK> on your behalf! Would you be willing to ask your penpal if he might be related to the former MiG-29 pilot? Also if he is interested in having a new penpal you can give him my Internet address. JK> Good luck. JK> John Kelleher Thanks for the info. I think it will help. I still have the phone number of the person who handled registration for the conference. - --- þ SLMR 2.1a þ So many things to remember; so few brain cells left! ------------------------------ From: albert.dobyns@mwbbs.com (ALBERT DOBYNS) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 95 00:03:00 -0500 Subject: more comments on Mr. Zuyev MS> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 14:02:44 -0400 (EDT) MS> From: Mary Shafer MS> Subject: Re: it's in the mail! MS> Message-Id: MS> Thank you--I got it and I really loved it. I'll share it with the MS> pilots and backseaters, too. I know they'll enjoy it. Great! I really didn't know what to expect your reaction would be. I'm glad it's a positive one. I hope you know someone who is fluent in Russian so they can translate portions into English. The thing I'm most anxious to find out is if there was speculation on top speed/altitude and any other unusual statements. The Russian author's viewpoint may have been very different from ours so who knows might be in the book?! MS> I've talked with Belenko, the MiG 25 pilot who defected--he was here MS> for a briefing years ago. long after the CIA or whoever it was MS> briefed us on the aircraft. I also chatted with him at an SETP MS> Symposium. I should have purchased a copy of this book when it came out. Our local library had a copy but it has disappeared. It might have been tossed into the bargain books for sale. It's nice to know someone who has talked with Belenko. From what I remember in his book, he spent a lot of time in simulators that had different Russian fighters' parameters that could be loaded into the simulator. He seemed to be very surprised how close our simulators could simulate Soviet aircraft! MS> It would be my guess that Zuyev didn't get a ride--I asked around MS> about it and the consensus in no-go. Maybe an F-15 or -16, but not MS> the SR. They just didn't do that sort of thing, according to my MS> buddies in the community Thanks for the info. A. Zuyev said something to me about getting to sit in the cockpit. I'll bet that was a pleasant event. I had wondered if he ever got to try out the simulator. Perhaps he got to see the simulator but not to try it out. The short note he wrote to me said that the Blackbird was never intercepted (I probably mentioned that already). What I wonder is if he ever had an opportunity to attempt an intercept. I don't know where he was stationed other than his last one was in Armavir which is on the eastern side of the Black Sea. It's not that far from Turkey. Would any SR-71 missions be flown in that area? Darn if I know. I suppose if we needed info on Iran or Iraq, an SR-71 might have been somewhere near the southern-most portion of Russia. All guesswork on my part, of course. I doubt if Paul Crickmore's last book revealed all that many SR-71 missions! :) MS> Regards, MS> Mary Regards from me also!! If I come across a copy of the SR-71 pilot's manual printed in Russian, would you like for me to tell you?? :) I said that initialy as a joke of some sort, but I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the Russians haven't translated it already. A Russian copy is probably not on the open market if it exists, but you never know...! - --- þ SLMR 2.1a þ Unknown Error on Unknown Device for Unexplainable Reason. ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 04:53:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: A suggested UFO "filter" > This sounds like a reasonable idea as long as when you say terrestrial > you mean that the technology was developed completely independent of > aliens, psychics, inner worlders, out worlders, psychic lobsters or > any other fringe belief. I am always wary of the acronym UFO because > of all the, ahem, people that come out of the woodwork. There is at least one use you need not be wary of: the "UFO" better known as the UHF Follow-On satellite, which has been replacing the Navy's FLEETSATCOM series of geostationary communications satellites. :) ------------------------------ From: "Thomas A. Gauldin" Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 08:40:14 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: future targeting devices Having initiated the discussion about Doppler radar possible noticing the vortices of passing stealth aircraft, another subject comes to mind. A former neighbor was an engineer who worked on the original targeting system for Sidwinder missles, or their predecessors. He told me about all of the "suffering" he and his buddies went through in creating the model of how to guide the missile to the target. The problem was finally "solved" when a former Navy pilot told them that all student pilots were taught to hold their heads still and note whether another craft "moved" with regard to the windscreen of the pilot's craft. If the other craft's image "moved," then there was not a collision danger. However, if the image merely grew in size, the two planes were on an intercept course. From there, the IR imaging system merely was designed to steer the missile to prevent apparent movement withing the IR imaging system. Hence, it would intercept the plane. I suspect that with IR emissions being reduced so significantly on modern helicopters and planes, that the next generation of missiles will be guided by image as much, if not more, than by IR imaging. Heck, many cameras today focus by using a chip developed by Kodak years ago that optically images what is in the viewfinder, and adjusts the lens to sharpen the edges of the image. Why not adapt a great-great grandson of that optical chip to hold an image of whatever it "sees" in the center of its field of vision. Couple that to an image intensifier and any clue of a stealth fighter/bomber/helicopter can result in a missile having something to chase. Go one step further. Even today, optical imaging is in the infancey of recognizing what it "sees." Why not refine it, shrink it and let it guide A-A missiles to targets. That way, a passing cloud, the ground, a bird or even a friendly fighter might not confuse the missile. Missiles guided by optical means could be the ultimate beam-riders of the next decade. Tom Thomas A. Gauldin Here's to the land of the longleaf pine, Raleigh, NC The summerland where the sun doth shine, BSRB45A on Prodigy Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, FAX (919) 676-1404 Here's to Downhome, the Old North State. ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 05:47:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Not just Lockheed > Lockheed has the Skunk Works > Northrop has the Pico Rivera Division > Boeing has the Advanced Development Center and Oxbow > Lockheed-Georgia has the JetStar building McDonnell Douglas has the skunky-sounding "Phantom Works". > Lockheed-GD had something, too (anybody have a name?) Can't think of one. The plant became the Lockheed Ft. Worth Company after the takeover though... > But what about Rockwell? They have been very quiet for the last 20 years... They have been doing a lot of propulsion, space, and avionics work. I think the North American plant in Palmdale has mainly been doing B-1 maintenance work lately. ------------------------------ From: MiGEater1@aol.com Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 09:09:03 -0400 Subject: Re: future targeting devices From scoundrl@cybernetics.net >...using a chip developed by Kodak years ago that optically images what is in the viewfinder, and adjusts the lens to sharpen the edges of the image. Why not adapt a great-great grandson of that optical chip to hold an image of whatever it "sees" in the center of its field of vision. Couple that to an image intensifier and any clue of a stealth fighter/bomber/helicopter can result in a missile having something to chase. You just described how the optical guidance system works in the AGM-65 Maverick missle as well as the GBU-15 Optically Guided Glide Bomb! John ------------------------------ From: "Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund" Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 15:14:18 +0200 Subject: Rockwell?? >>>>> "Charles" == Charles E Smith wbst200 writes: Charles> Rockwell is not doingto well these days. They have produced Charles> the two biggest Charles> "white elephants" flying today. Charles> 1) B1 bomber- Does not deliver what it was supposed to. Redesigned as Charles> B1-B (almost Charles> a totally different A/C at this point) it does what a good A6 did Charles> 20 years ago only for Charles> a lot higher price. Note that the A/C the B1 was to replace 20 years Charles> ago was still Charles> dropping bombs in Gulf War! The B1 was intended to replace the B-52. A B1 can carry a lot more of bombs than a A-6 (which is a navy attack plane.) Charles> 2) Space Shuttle - Lets see, build an airplane, strap big rockets on Charles> the side....... Charles> Didn`t Wiley Coyote show us this The space shuttle can be seen as a losing project with hind-sight. The mgmt fuck-ups and problem misunderstatement didn't help either. If NASA instead went for rockets they would have gotten a lot of flak from persons who by one reason or another wants NASA to use re-usable transports instead. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan 'Stetson' Skoglund I | sp2stes1@ida.his.se I | I _____/0\_____ I ____________O(.)O___________ H\"ogskolan i Sk\"ovde, Sverige I I-+-I O I-+-I I I Viggen with two Rb04 - --------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: anonymous NFS user 15-Jun-1995 0956 <"bword::nobody"@xanadu.enet.dec.com> Date: Thu, 15 Jun 95 09:55:11 EDT Subject: Receipt: Skunk Works Digest V5 #304 This is a receipt notification for a message you submitted previously. The message <9506150828.AA00875@bword.zko.dec.com> was delivered to . The message was read and acknowledged by the recipient at Thu Jun 15 09:56:44 1995 Supplementary information: Subj: Skunk Works Digest V5 #304. ------------------------------ From: seb@tadpole.co.uk (Steven Barber) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 16:05:34 +0100 Subject: Targets & SR-71 Intercepts Targeting using optics, like the Maverick and the optically guided glide bomb - didn't someone (an A10 pilot?) use the latter during the Gulf War to down a helicopter? I think it was in sci.military a few years ago that the only know intercept of an SR-71 was described. Apparently, SR-71s from Mildenhall cruised up the Baltic and back at frequent intervals. A couple of Swedish pilots (probably in Draken's rather than Viggens) decided to have a bit of fun. So the next time an SR-71 went by, they scrambled with drop-tanks fitted. One went north to act as the spotter, the other stooged around further south. When the SR-71 came within radar range of the northern fighter, he radioed the southern one. That one dropped the external tanks (breaking peace-time regulations in the process!), turned on full afterburner and stood the 'plane on its tail. As he reached maximum altitude, he turned on his radar in targeting mode. He just managed to achieve lock-on before the SR-71 ECM lit up and totally scrambled his radar picture. The two pilots then turned for home, where the southern one just managed to land before running out of fuel. They were apparently subsequently sent a trophy from the SR-71 detachment, as an award for being the only people ever to have intercepted an SR-71. Or so the story goes. ------------------------------ From: jackg@holobyte.com (Jack Gibbons) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 09:48:57 -0700 Subject: Re: sorta skunky (fwd) It's hard to say what the new hot weapons system will be in 15 years because we don't know what is being worked on in all of those high security labs. I do feel though that smart weapons, mostly standoff weapons, will continue to be the main offensive weapon used. I think that we will continue to see improvements in the weapon's 'smart' capabilities such as GPS, real time intel data links, longer range guided munitions, etc. I don't feel that there will be any radical technology advances in defense technology in the next 15 years because of defense cutbacks and lack of defined threats. Also, 15 years isn't very long in Pentagon years considering it usually takes 5 - 10 years to evaluate, approve and purchase a single aircraft design. As far as civilian technology is concerned, I think some of your figures are way off. The civilian technology for crypto is definitely not 50 years behind the government's. _IF_ the civilian market is at all behind, it is only by a very small margin. There are commercially available crypto algorithms that the government can't be break in under a year, at least not theoretically, and the only reason they can crack complex codes at all is because they throw a crap load of money at it. Not necessarily because of technology that they posses. And as far as computers, the civilian market is WAY ahead of government development. In fact, the larger government systems are purchased from civilian companies. It is to the economical benefit of the government to let private industry pay all of the R&D costs for computer systems because everyone needs big computing power. Not to mention, most military weapons systems use relatively low end processors because they only have to do very specific functions unlike big number crunchers that have to carry out a variety of tasks. I hope this doesn't come across as a flame because I didn't intend it to be that way at all. My point in all of this is that you can look to where the advancements are in the civilian market as well as the military R&D establishment to get an idea as to what the next hot weapon system will be. Lumber >:-[ - "I've done it over and over.. You see, I kill breeders." - "God is dead." -Nietzche Here thar be monsters! - "Nietzche is dead." -God "Hey ho! Let's go!" ******************************************************************** * E-mail: lumber@zoom.com | lumber@dnai.com | jackg@holobyte.com * ******************************************************************** ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: sorta skunky (fwd) Author: BaDge at Internet Date: 06/14/95 18:15 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: kuryakin@arn.net (Illya Kuryakin) Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 13:36:02 -0500 Subject: Re: Sorta Skunky I don't think you have to look any farther than modern Science Fiction from the last 20 years... Take David Drake's _Hammer's Slammers_... He describes a Fire Control system that's as simple as putting the cursor on the screen map on the location where you want the shots to land... that's linked to the artillery and short of the actual command to fire, everything's automatic. How about backpack particle beam accelerators? Elsewhere, helmets that display IR, visual light, UV, and map locations of soldiers onto map projections.... all linked to weapons that have the ability to slave off this targeting information, stabilize themselves, and correct the flight path to bring the rounds on target... All this is nothing new, at least conceptually. I expect that we'll see lots more improvements where not only does the military take new leads in technology, but where the military makes use of commercial technology. (IE the military leads in targeting computers but it doesn't lead in, say, web server or desktop publishing technology). The biggest single thing, however, to hold back gains is the procurement system and the manner in which the military purchases its equipment... and the Congress which oversees it. Illya ps I really liked the anecdote about the Viggins. Reminds me of the one where at Red Flag two F-15's were ambushed and taken out by two RAF Jaguars when the 15's went after the two other RAF Jaguars sent to bomb the target. ------------------------------ From: rwmcdermed@facso.navfac.navy.mil Date: Thu, 15 Jun 95 14:11:12 PDT Subject: ...no subject... help ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Thu, 15 Jun 1995 18:26:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Miscellaneuos US designations for Foreign Equipment: Thanks to all the people who have responded, especially to Robin J. Lee (amraam@netcom.com) and Allen Thomson (thomsona@netcom.com). The expanded and corrected version is now on my www page. NATO designations: I am working on changing my NATO Reporting Name file to HTML, and will make it available on my www page as soon as possible. UFOs and Skunk Works: I knew I was poking in a wasp-nest -- but I NEVER said UFOs are alien or extra-terrestrial, just unknown, and I want to hear about them here on the Skunk Works list. We had more traffic about "we don't want alien technology UFO stuff here on the list" than there was ever sent about them. B-1 designation: I would like to know, why so many people write the designation of the poor Rockwell B-1A and B-1B Lancer permanently on purposefully wrong as 'B1' or even worse 'B1-B'. It is not such a bad plane, that it deserves such harsh treatment! Image recognizing technology: A few years ago, at the Paris Airshow or at Farnborough, I visited a display of the German company 'Bodensee Geraetetechnik' (which builds for example AIM-9 Sidewinders). They had a prototype parallel computer on display, especially developed for real-time target recognition, to be introduced in their missiles. They were running a demo, showing dogfights from the video 'Top Gun', and the computer digitized, outlined, and (as they claimed) recognized the aircraft on the screen (mainly A-4, F-14 and F-5). They also had a fairly impressive demo, where you could zoom into a 'Mandelbroot' fractal, relatively fast, if not real-time, to show the speed of the computer. The whole thing was fairly big, but this was about 4 or 5 years ago, and it was only a development system. I wouldn't be surprised, if in the very near future, we have 'image recognition' capability for all sorts of weapons. - -- 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/ - --- --- ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #305 ********************************* 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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