From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #446 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 4 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 446 In this issue: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA Re: Mach 3 Phantom Re: ATFs Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA Re: SR-71 and F-177 pics... Returned mail: Service unavailable Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA Re: ATFs (YF120) 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: thad@hammerhead.com (Thaddeus J. Beier) Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 11:11:46 -0700 Subject: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA > Not mentioned in the article, but by implication: 20,000-40,000 feet over LA > is VERY busy airspace. There are lots of air traffic controllers concerned > with this area. Since they have not complained about military planes flying > through their airspace without notice, it must not show up on their radars. > (Although it might be interesting to re-examine the tapes once you know when > and where to look.) I believe that ATC tapes are not available to the general public, and are classified, for exactly this reason. There is a lot of stuff that ATC sees that they cannot report. The obvious ones are "How high does a U2 fly, anyway?" While this is no longer a particularly interesting question, it must have been known to controllers long before it was known to the general public. There was a guy a while back who had put a receiver in his airplane to pick up the composite radar view of the area, so he could see all the traffic in his plane! It was just terrific, it gave him a great situational awareness. When the Feds heard about this, they were shocked, and immediately began encrypting the signals. Now, they'll probably begin encrypting seismograph readings... thad - -- Thaddeus Beier email: thad@hammerhead.com Technology Development vox: 408) 286-3376 Hammerhead Productions fax: 408) 292-8624 ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 14:40:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Mach 3 Phantom John Burtenshaw wrote: >I read (and saw a photo) some years ago that MDD had been given a contract >by a middle-east country (no prizes for guessing which one) to uprate one of >their airforce's F-4Es to Mach 3 capability. The photo showed a saddle tank >fitted and increased air-intake size. The designation for this bird was the >RF-4X and I guess it was going to be an answer to the Mig-25 recon planes >employed by Egypt at the time. The camo was typical Israeli Air Force with >Stars and Bars where the Star of David would be. Anyone know what happened >to this project and if there was any RAM added to it. The following is an excerpt from Joe Baugher's F-4 text, available on the internet via www at: http://www.vestnett.no/vulcan/aircraft/jfb/f004.html#RTFToC17 No mention of RAM, though: F-4X, F-4E(S) ============= Israel had long expressed an interest in acquiring the HIAC-1 high-altitude camera for use in keeping a close eye on its Arab neighbors. However, this camera was originally so large and bulky that it could only be carried aboard the Martin/General Dynamics RB-57F. In later years, slimmed-down variants of this camera became available which could be carried in pods small enough to fit underneath fighter aircraft such as the F-4 Phantom. Such pods had been developed for the USAF RF-4C, but they were still so large and bulky that they imposed an unacceptably severe performance penalty. In the interest of achieving an acceptably high performance in an aircraft carrying the HIAC-1, Israel had launched a project known as 'Peace Jack' in collaboration with General Dynamics and the USAF. At first, an extremely advanced aircraft known as the F-4X was envisaged, one which was to have special water injection propulsion system which had the potential of achieving a Mach 3+ performance. Israel loaned an IDF/AF F-4E (USAF serial 69-7576) to General Dynamics as a mockup for the project. However, this program eventually fell through because of the high cost and because of fears on the part of US State Department officials about the export of an aircraft with such an advanced performance. Following the collapse of the F-4X project, a less-ambitious project known as the F-4E(S) was undertaken. Three Israeli Air Force Block-44 F-4Es (among them 69-7576) were converted to a special high-speed reconnaissance configuration by replacing the F-4E radar and gun installation with a new nose containing the HIAC-1 66-inch focal length long range oblique photography camera. Behind the HIAC-1 camera was a vertical KS-87 camera. The three aircraft were also fitted with datalink, Elta IFF and UHF, and formation-keeping strip lights. In the interest of security, a false black radome was painted on the nose. USAF serials of the three aircraft were 69-7567, 7570, and 7576. The flight test program began on November 20, 1975 and was carried out in high secrecy. The three planes carried US civil registration numbers based on their military serials (N97576, N97570, and N97567). The modified aircraft were returned to the Israeli Air Force in 1976-77. Their subsequent history is largely unknown, although rumors suggest that [at] least one of them has been lost in action. - -- 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: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Tue, 3 Oct 95 12:36:12 ÿÿÿ Subject: Re: ATFs A Steve Schaper wrote, the YF-23 was faster and stealthier. The airframe supposedly was also much closer to its production configuration than the YF-22 was. The YF-23 was also much further along in construction and readiness for flight than the YF-22 was, until USAF slowed the program to allow the YF-22 team to catch up. The YF-23 MAY have also had a range advantage, and been somewhat easier to turn into a new aircraft for carrier operations. The YF-22 was more maneuverable at low speed and at high angles of attack. This was no doubt partly due to its use of vectored thrust. However, the maneuverability requirement was to be not less than the F-16s, which both aircraft more than met, whereas the announced emphasis was to be on supercruise speed and stealth. Some said that it was thought that the F-22 would be more "producible", although Northrop /MDD had already demonstrated their ability to build the large one-piece carry through that was a vital part of the F-23 design. The YF-22 demonstrated missile launch, which the YF-23 did not. What caused some heartburn, aside from the schedule change mentioned earlier, was that there wasn't a true flyoff as expected. It was reported that the crews were not allowed to fly both aircraft, comparisons of the two were not to be performed and in fact the test crews and evaluation team was not to make any recommendation to the Secretary. This may or may not have been to prevent any second guessing. It did cause, though, the selection to be looked at with more suspicion, which may or may not have been justifiable. The announced reason for selecting the YF-22 was that Lockheed and Co. had a better management plan. Steve has offered one explanation, which has popped up elsewhere. Here's another: At the time the selection was announced, MDD was part of the A-12 team which would be building strike aircraft for the Navy and possibly USAF for years to come. Northrop was going to be building B-2s for the rest of the decade. Lockheed, on the other hand, was looking like it was going to be out of the frontline tactical aircraft game for a while. If you had two excellent aircraft to pick from, both of whom met specifications, and from the vantage point of 1989-90, before all the subsequent cancellations, which one would you pick to keep a broad and diverse an industrial base intact in case you needed to expand later? One thing that hasn't been explained and never received much attention: GE and Pratt also competed for the engine contract. The GE YF120 engine reportedly produced more power and was somewhat more efficient due to its limited variable cycle design. Both contractors were free to use whichever plane and whichever engine for their testing. Both contractors, I believe, chose to fly more hours with their GE engined birds and when demonstrating their performance capabilities (such as supercruise and top speed), chose to use their YF-12 powered models. Yet, the YF119 was selected. I've never heard any real explanation. Art Hanley "My employer has nothing to do with this" (keeps the lawyers happy) ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 12:59:15 -0700 Subject: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA Lou Scheffer writes: >The double sonic booms in LA were not the usual leading/ trailing edge >sonic booms. There were two booms about a *minute* apart, indicating two >vehicles. Presumably each one, if you looked closely enough, would have the >classic double boom structure. The aircraft were known to be mach 2-3 since >the network of siesmometers could track the boom as it moved across LA, not >from the structure of the booms themselves. Here is something I wrote at the >time: >--------- >Here's an obscure reference to Aurora- > >The Caltech alumni newspaper had an article about the siesmologist that >tracks these things. ... I for one didn't find all the Caltech conclusions to be conclusive evidence. My impression at the time, given that I saw the actual sensor map for one of the incidents, and where they had readings, was that they needed more sensors. The suspicion was that one could have drawn many different types of shock waves oriented in different directions that could have given the same readings. In fact, some of the experts initially thought that a more likely explanation was that the supersonic aircraft was actually off the coast. There was to be study of all this by some aeroacoustics grad. students, but I don't think that ever happened, or at least I haven't seen/heard of the results. The only thing I took away from all this was that indeed they had detected a shock off of a supersonic aircraft, and that is all. Given the large number of aircraft that can produce shocks, I am not convinced by the existence of a sonic footprint. However, we know that the NASA SR flew missions to calibrate their sensor network and I never heard the result of these interesting missions either. So there is some followup that can be done I guess. So, until the scientific study of these incidents can be done/reported, I wouldn't take too much away from them. I am more intrigued by the unusual contrail photos/reports, the good ones that is. Those are still unexplained. Larry ------------------------------ From: kuryakin@arn.net (Rick Pavek) Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 15:48:20 -0500 Subject: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA +Now, they'll probably begin encrypting seismograph readings... Shhhhh!! Don't give them any ideas. :} Rick ------------------------------ From: kuryakin@arn.net (Rick Pavek) Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 16:16:56 -0500 Subject: Re: SR-71 and F-177 pics... + + +Forgive me if anyone feels this post to be inapproriate or *gasp* +off-charter, but I ran across a few ASCII pictures that I'm sure +everyone will appreciate. Look pretty skunky to me... :) Rick ------------------------------ From: Mail Delivery Subsystem Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:27:55 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Returned mail: Service unavailable The original message was received at Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:27:40 -0400 (EDT) from ncrgw1@localhost ----- The following addresses have delivery notifications ----- rpspo2.atlantaga.attgis.com!cfoster (unrecoverable error) ----- Transcript of session follows ----- ... while talking to rpspo2.atlantaga.attgis.com.: >>> DATA <<< 552 Error in local delivery 554 rpspo2.atlantaga.attgis.com!cfoster... Service unavailable ----- Message header follows ----- Return-Path: skunk-works-digest@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Received: from ncrgw1.UUCP (ncrgw1@localhost) by ncrhub4.attgis.com (8.7/8.7) with UUCP id RAA07155; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:27:40 -0400 (EDT) Received: by ncrgw1.ATTGIS.COM; 3 Oct 95 17:24:17 EDT Received: (from daemon@localhost) by gaia.ucs.orst.edu (8.6.10/8.6.6) id KAA09992 for skunk-works-digest-outgoing; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 10:52:21 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by gaia.ucs.orst.edu (8.6.10/8.6.6) id KAA09984 for skunk-works-digest-send@mail.orst.edu; Tue, 3 Oct 1995 10:52:20 -0700 Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 10:52:20 -0700 Message-Id: <199510031752.KAA09984@gaia.ucs.orst.edu> From: skunk-works-digest-owner@gaia.ucs.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #445 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Sender: skunk-works-digest-owner@gaia.ucs.orst.edu Precedence: bulk ----- Message body suppressed ----- ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:34:40 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA On Tue, 3 Oct 1995, Rick Pavek wrote: > +Now, they'll probably begin encrypting seismograph readings... > > Shhhhh!! Don't give them any ideas. :} > ^^^^ > Rick This is all so funny: that The Company would bother to monitor a bunch of giddy/slap-happy aviation buffs... regards, - -B ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Tue, 3 Oct 1995 17:43:51 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: ATFs (YF120) What I read was, that the reason for choosing the YF119 over the YF120 was that the more advanced 'variable cycle' YF120 was deemed to be more difficult to develop/build. So the lower-risk engine was chosen. This seems to be based on worries, that too much trouble, cost overruns, and delays with the ATF program could lead to its cancellation. - -- 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 #446 ********************************* 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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