From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #371 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 1 August 1995 Volume 05 : Number 371 In this issue: Re- Stealth UAV? Re: Re- Stealth UAV? Re: Re- Stealth UAV? NASA's Blackbirds on TV 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: "Matt Velazquez" Date: 31 Jul 1995 08:11:39 U Subject: Re- Stealth UAV? Re: Stealth UAV? >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 Be careful, though, not to overestimate the usefulness or financial soundness of unmanned/autonomous aircraft. The primary reasons to go unmanned are (a) the extended duration afforded by not having a pilot on board, and (b) expendability. The problem with the first issue is component reliability. In order to make a system that can operate for periods in excess of (say) five days, you have to do a lot of up-front development. That costs money. If you've been reading AvLeak, you've seen that the costs for TIER II+ development and prototyping are running near $100 million. If the airplane proves itself during extended operations, it will have paid for itself, but it's a big if. Which brings me to the problem with the second point. If the airplane costs more than several million dollars per copy, it stops being financially worthwhile to expose the airframe to hostile environments (and I don't mean snow) for a long time. Even without a pilot, the loss of a stealth aircraft can be a big technological and financial bummer. At some point (likely in the preliminary design/evaluation stage), an obvious question to ask might be something like "How does this compare to a high-speed overflight, that costs more but has less exposure time to enemy fire, and is harder to hit when it is fired upon?" Not to say that the UAV option isn't attractive, but a smart guy would definitely ask that question before proceeding with FSD production of a dedicated autonomous reconnaisance platform. T Velazquez Aurora Flight Sciences (no, not that Aurora) ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 12:37:46 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Re- Stealth UAV? > do a lot of up-front development. That costs money. If you've been reading > AvLeak, you've seen that the costs for TIER II+ development and prototyping are > running near $100 million. If the airplane proves itself during extended > operations, > it will have paid for itself, but it's a big if. > > T Velazquez > Aurora Flight Sciences > (no, not that Aurora) > Are you sure it was that expensive? I heard that one TIER II+ UAV cost 3 millions per unit and the Lockhead Skunk Works TIER III- is 10 millions per unit. Live Long and Prosper Su Wei-Jen wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: Tim Ottinger Date: Mon, 31 Jul 95 13:10:29 CDT Subject: Re: Re- Stealth UAV? : Are you sure it was that expensive? I heard that one TIER II+ UAV :cost 3 millions per unit and the Lockhead Skunk Works TIER III- is 10 :millions per unit. A friend of mine offered an interesting recommendation: Make the drone cheaper than the missle the other guys will have to use to shoot it down. This way, you win whether or not it returns! It seems especially apt for a slow-moving drone! - -- Tim - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | You aren't an expert until you've done the work. | - ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | Tim Ottinger tottinge@csci.csc.com (217)351-8508x2420 | | CSC CIS Champaign, IL - The Silicon Prairie " -7420(fax) | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ From: russellk@BIX.com Date: Mon, 31 Jul 1995 23:35:44 -0400 (EDT) Subject: NASA's Blackbirds on TV On Beyond 2000 this evening (the half-hour version), the Discovery Channel had a 6-minute or so segment on NASA's SR-71 fleet, with some nice footage of the birds with the NASA markings on the tails, extra nose sections, etc. They showed a local school group (junior high?) touring Dryden and kids sitting in the cockpit and having the stick explained. They talked about some of the research projects they had planned, including volcanic emissions (they wanted to have a pallet with the right sensor equipment ready and waiting for the next eruption, wherever it was. Some nice shots of the SR-71B trainer 'bird, too, both on the ground and in flight. Of course, all this was presumably filmed before the Air Force took the planes back, as there was no mention of this whatsoever. But they blew it all by not interviewing Mary! 8-) ==================================================== Russell Kay, Technical Editor, BYTE Magazine 1 Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458 603-924-2591; fax 603-924-2550 russellk@bix.com ==================================================== ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #371 ********************************* 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).