From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #370 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Monday, 31 July 1995 Volume 05 : Number 370 In this issue: Stealth UAV? X-15 Pulsed Detonation Engines 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: "Terry Colvin" Date: Sun, 30 Jul 95 14:49:48 EST Subject: Stealth UAV? Forwarded by: Terry W. Colvin Date: 28 Jul 1995 18:49:12 GMT From: John McKernan Subject: Supersonic airliners (was Re: FESTIP v. X-33 ?) Gary S. James (gsjames@ix.netcom.com) wrote: : Does anyone : actually think that the CIA/USAF would retire all SR-71 without a : satisfactory replacement? Satellites have significant limitations for : strategic recon and need to be augmented by aircraft (manned or : unmanned) The replacement for the SR-71 is pretty clear, and it's not some Popular Science mach 6 whiz-bang super plane. Overfly a country in a mach 6 aircraft and everybody knows exactly who you are and what you are doing. The replacement for the SR-71 is very small, very stealthy, and very slow. It's got to be a little unmanned stealth aircraft that can loiter unseen over the target as long as you want. John L. McKernan. jmck@sun.com - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's hopeless Captain, we can't stop them... ..*unless* we can trick them into attempting a floating point divide!" ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Sun, 30 Jul 95 14:51:55 EST Subject: X-15 For Ted [no lathered horse] Dunning, forwarded by Terry W. Colvin Date: 28 Jul 1995 13:00:08 GMT From: Rick DeNatale Subject: Supersonic Airliners (Re:) In article <9506268068.AA806803329@CC.IMS.DISA.MIL>, "Terry Colvin" wrote: > Rick DeNatale writes: > > The X-15 bested Mach 6 on several flights. > > What sort of propulsion system did this aircraft have? It's hard to believe that a reader of sci.space.tech hadn't heard of the X-15, one of the if not the most famous of the X-plane series. I must be getting old! ;-( Propulsion was an XLR-99 rocket engine. Early flights used a pair of XLR-11s (the same engine used in the X-1 and a variety of other early X-Planes). > Because the designation had an 'X', does this mean it was purely > experimental? Yes, the X-15 came about as the result of a NACA (National Advisory Council on Aeronautics - which later became NASA) commitee report on maned hypersonic flight. The mission was to explore the problems of both atmospheric and space flight at very high velocities and altitudes (the X-15 also holds a certified FAI altitude record of 314,750 feet). Major research areas were control and stability, materials and structures research and thermodynamic aspects of hypersonic flight and reentry. > Has anything ever become of this plane? (meaning, something out of > a prototype stage) > Lots of research, a lot of which was useful to the space program. The X-15 pilots wore spacesuits very similar to those worn by the Mercury astronauts. Later flights in the X-15A-2 used an ablative coating. The Q-ball sensor used by the Apollo abort system came from a similar sensor on the X-15. > And the most important question: > If the technology for a mach 6 aircraft was available 30+ years ago, > why aren't there more today? Why aren't we still flying to the Moon? > Maybe there are, huh? :) Maybe, but the X-15 mission has very specialized. It didn't have very much range (at least horizontally). It was air launched (dropped from a wing pylon on a B-52). Three X-15's were built. The first now hangs in the "Milestones of Flight" gallery in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. The second was modified after an accident to become the X-15A-2 and now is in the Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The third X-15 was destroyed in an accident. - -- Rick DeNatale Still trying to come up with a really cool Signature ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Sun, 30 Jul 95 14:50:26 EST Subject: Pulsed Detonation Engines Forwarded by: Terry W. Colvin Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 11:06:37 -0700 From: Bogdan Udrea Subject: Pulsed Detonation Engines was: Supersonic airliners (was Re: FESTIP v. X-33 ?) Hi there, I'm interested in pulsed detonation engines. Bogdan Udrea Ph# (206) 685-1182 - office (206) 545-8481 - home ______________________________________________________ Kool quote of the week: Eat, sleep, play. What else is there? Source: Some vid game ad > The "mythical" Aurora was a line item in the Lockheed/Burbank funding > bill several years ago. About 1983, I think. The item was questioned > by many and mysteriously disappeared from the "white world" funding. > Several years later, photographs were taken over ABQ and the North Sea > and published in Aviation Week of a very unusual contrail which was > described as "donuts on a string". This contrail is supposedly a > signature of a type of engine known as a "pulse-detonation" engine (not > pulse-jet!) and might be capable of powering a VERY high speed ^^^^ I've read some CFD studies on air-breathing PDEs. They are envisioned for use on both subsonic and supersonic vehicles. I believe that at high supersonic velocities the air inlet becomes too complex and thus prohibitive. Do you think a rocket PDE is feasible (inject both fuel and oxidizer in the chamber)? Without an air intake such an engine might propel violent manouevering vehicles like air-to-air missiles. Let's discuss this. > aircraft. According to the saga, Aurora is a Mach 5+ replacement for > the SR-71 but has not been admitted to by any government/military > officials (and they wouldn't lie to us, now would they...) Does anyone > actually think that the CIA/USAF would retire all SR-71 without a > satisfactory replacement? Satellites have significant limitations for > strategic recon and need to be augmented by aircraft (manned or > unmanned) > > -- > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Gary S. James 70264.2530@CompuServe.com > Curved Air Technologies GSJames@ix.netcom.com > PO Box 1474 > Weatherford, TX. 76086-1474 tel: (817) 596-3278 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #370 ********************************* 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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