From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #447 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 5 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 447 In this issue: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA triple sonic boom Re: CIA control over Internet? (fwd) Re: ATFs (YF120) Re: Mach 3 Phantom -thanks Re: ATFs (YF120) I PROMISE not to do it again... Re: triple sonic boom 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: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 03:41:02 PDT Subject: Re: Double Sonic Booms in LA I haven`t been following this thread, since D`lamberts equations are a little off charter. Has anyone brought up the fact that two sonic booms could be indicative of two aircraft? Chuck ------------------------------ From: Schulk Schulke Date: Wed, 4 Oct 95 08:53:13 PDT Subject: triple sonic boom I was in Biloxi, MS on 27Feb83, in the late morning, when three ground waves (like surface seismic S-waves) shook the ground for 10 secs each, with a gap of about 5 secs between them. The ground wave was followed almost a minute later by three faint "sonic booms." The newspapers reported a 4.1 earthquake centered near Biloxi had done $400,000 damage, and that the Air Force denied any of their aircraft were responsible for the sonic booms. Does anyone know of an aircraft or vehicle that has a triple-sonic boom signature? In 1992, the Atlanta Journal & Constitution reported that an underground nuclear testing facility in central Mississippi had closed in the late 80's, so that might have been what it was. Does anyone know about whether an underground test occurred that day? Thanks for your support! - ------------------------------------- Name: Schulk Schulke E-mail: schulk@gelac.lasc.lockheed.com (Schulk Schulke) Date: 06/29/95 Time: 08:39:33 This message was sent by Chameleon - ------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: "JOHN F. REGUS" Date: Wed, 4 Oct 1995 08:32:56 -0600 Subject: Re: CIA control over Internet? (fwd) Aside from this being off-topic: The assertion that the CIA controls the internet is ABSOLUTELY, TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY FALSE. ------------------------------ From: erebenti@MIT.EDU (Eric S. Rebentisch) Date: Wed, 04 Oct 95 09:49:08 EDT Subject: Re: ATFs (YF120) The YF120 was the better engine for demonstrating aircraft performance between the two. But the YF119 was a pretty straightforward incremental development of the existing technology, and was less complicated mechanically than the YF120. The Air Force at that time was very concerned about maintenance costs and choose the YF119 as a lower risk item (all this has been said already, though). It is ironic that the YF120 was also a derivative engine, based on the F101 design (from the B-1B). The YF119 that was flown in the ATF competition was acknowledged at the time by Pratt as a subscale version of the eventual production model (if they eventually won the contract), so there was some additional development risk involved with increasing the performance to full specifications. On the other hand, the YF120 was pretty much ready to go into full scale engineering and development as it was. Recently, Pratt has had problems with the development version of the F119 engine. As far as the YF-22/YF-23 debate goes, it is hard to say which one was better. I have my own opinion, which is of course biased, but it is not that clear-cut to me either. The YF-23 seems to have been a more refined design (we had heard reports at the time that Northrop had frozen its design much more quickly than we had and had then spent a lot of time refining it). We ended up doing a lot of trade-off studies that slowed progress (one of the alternative designs we examined ironically looked a lot like the YF-23!). A few things about the YF-23 design stand out to me as risky: 1) the weapons bay configuration may have given the Air Force concerns about weapons interference during launch (especially at high rates of fire), and may not have been as versatile for carriage of all the other types of weapons that will have to be stuffed into this bird to justify its existence; 2) the YF-23 tail configuration would probably lose controllability more rapidly than the YF-22 at high angles of attack. You have to remember that fighter-types are the ones buying this plane, and even though conceptually its strength is in BVR engagements, it has to maneuver better than existing planes or it's hard to justify the development of a whole new type. Finally, weapon system development is a political process as much as a technical process, and you can't seperate the two. In the end, the YF-22 was the better weapons system package, based on a variety of political and technical measures that we will probably never know completely. Eric ------------------------------ From: John Burtenshaw Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 16:36:12 -0100 Subject: Re: Mach 3 Phantom -thanks Hi A big thank you to all those who answered my query on the RF-4X John =========================================================================== John Burtenshaw Systems Administrator, The Computer Centre, Bournemouth University - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Postal Address: Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, POOLE, Dorset, BH12 5BB U.K. Internet: jburtens@bournemouth.ac.uk Phone: 01202 595089 Fax: 01202 513293 AX.25: g1hok@gb7bnm.#45.gbr.eu. AMPRnet: g1hok.ampr.org. (44.131.17.82) CompuServe: 100336.3113@compuserve.com =========================================================================== ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Wed, 4 Oct 95 9:08:43 ÿÿÿ Subject: Re: ATFs (YF120) I had also read that explanation about lower risk. What always made me curious was that the only "variable" part of the engine was a valve that changed where intake air flowed depending on whether the aircraft was in the low speed or cruise environment as opposed to the high power or high speed environment. The fact that they had engines flying indicated that that portion of the risk was behind them. Ah well, another mystery of life... Art Hanley Not only do my employers not endorse the views above, they aren't even aware of them. ------------------------------ From: "I am the NRA." Date: Wed, 4 Oct 95 14:57:57 PDT Subject: I PROMISE not to do it again... A series of cbd. newsgroups just showed up. Any One Want to by an Airplane??? >From: news@counterpoint.com (CBD News Robot) >Newsgroups: cbd.surplus >Subject: RECYCLABLE SALE >Date: Tue, 26 Sep 95 19:12:29 GMT >Approved: news@counterpoint.com >Organization: Counterpoint Publishing >Lines: 19 >Issue_Date[ 09-27-95 ] >< Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Reutilization and Marketing >Service, International Sales Office, 2163 Airways Boulevard, >Memphis, Tennessee 38114-5211, Attn: DRMS-MISR, PHONE: >1-800-222-DRMS >< RECYCLABLE SALE Consisting of demilitarized B-52 aircraft, >residue. Type Sale: Sealed Bid. IFB No. 31-5780. Inspection >Beginning: 22 Sep 95. Bid Opening: 29 Sep 95. Property Locations: >AZ. (268) >----------------------------------------------------------------- > This information is provided as a service of > Counterpoint Publishing, Inc. of Cambridge, MA. > Redistribution without written permission is prohibited. >----------------------------------------------------------------- regards dwp thanks dave pierson |the facts, as accurately as i can manage, Digital Equipment Corporation |the opinions, my own. 200 Forest St |I am the NRA. Marlboro, Mass 01752 USA pierson@msd26.enet.dec.com "He has read everything, and, to his credit, written nothing." A J Raffles ------------------------------ From: sschaper@pobox.com (Steve Schaper) Date: Thu, 5 Oct 1995 00:48:25 -0500 Subject: Re: triple sonic boom At 8:53 AM 10/4/95, Schulk Schulke wrote: >I was in Biloxi, MS on 27Feb83, in the late morning, when three ground >waves (like surface seismic S-waves) shook the ground for 10 secs each, >with a gap of about 5 secs between them. The ground wave was followed >almost a minute later by three faint "sonic booms." The newspapers >reported a 4.1 earthquake centered near Biloxi had done $400,000 damage, >and that the Air Force denied any of their aircraft were responsible for >the sonic booms. How far is that from the Kewanee rift zone? Earthquakes have been known to produce booms. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #447 ********************************* 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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