From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #462 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Sunday, 15 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 462 In this issue: Re: Rocket torpedo SR71 circa 1982 Re: Yeager, Stealth ships Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #461 Roadrunner Reunion 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: Wei-Jen Su Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 03:13:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Rocket torpedo Sorry if this is off-topic. But, talking about submarine... about six months ago, I read from news that Republic Popular of China launched a new type of submarine with a "new type of technology (????)" than make it real "Stealth". Anyone know about what type of submarine and technology is it??? About "Stealth carrier". I heard one time that the Nuclear Carrier Theodoro Roosevelt was testing shoot down almost all the electric system in the carrier making it invisible in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean for three days... Anyone knows about it??? May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Sat, 14 Oct 95 6:53:31 EDT Subject: SR71 circa 1982 I heard a story not too long ago about an SR71 traveling across country leaving a trail of sonic booms in it's wake. I was told that this plane was heading towards the Atlantic to search for a missing (or disabled?) ship. The speculator I was speaking to said it was probably a sub. Can anyone enlighten me on this? - -- Douglas J. Tiffany dougt@u011.oh.vp.com My employer doesn't......Oh, the Hell with it, I'm never heard anyway. ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 04:41:38 PDT Subject: Re: Yeager, Stealth ships Yeager, for all of his alleged shortcomings, had one ace in the hole. He was smart enough to team up and become best friends with Ridley. Ridley was, in my opinion, one of the greatest engineers involved in aviation during the "fabulous fifteys". It was Ridley that figured out that supersonic aircraft needed all flying tails to make it through the transonic regime. (Of course, the `104 violated this rule by some real sneaky aerodynamics! I think Johnson did it just to show the world he could.) Taking the worlds most advanced aircraft, and putting tractor parts in the tail took some gumption. Stealth ships.... Visit the Lockheed Martin Missles and Space homepage. There is an image gallery with a picture of the Sea Shadow stealth boat. Looks like the Merimac gone horribly wrong. An intersting aside.... Several of my friends were scooped up by G.E. Electric Boat division. Seems that the fluid dynamics of subs is closely relate to that of airships. The displacement of the surrounding fluid is of suffucient magnitude that it can become the primary consideration in stability. In aircraft stability and control, the apparent mass is usually neglected. It only becomes an issue in very light (ultra-ultra?) airframes. This term caused havoc with the Gossomer Condor. No-one understood why it wouldn`t turn. When it rolled around the longitudinal axis, the mass of air the wings had to push out of the way had a much greater effect then the polar moment for the airplane. We examined this and found the same effect explains the goofy root-locus for the Wright Flyer. The apparent mass effects of the air may explain why the Wrights were able to fly such an inherently unstable aircraft. Chuck Smith "Aerospace Engineer to the Stars" "Cherish worldly thoughts and keep a tight grip on your booze.." - Grateful Dead ------------------------------ From: Andrew See Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 21:58:24 +1000 Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #461 >Here's the real question on cannons on fighters, to my mind: > >Assuming you'd never be in a situation that you'd have to strafe someone (A big >and probably false assumption I'll grant you), which would you rather have for >air-to-air: > >A cannon > >or: > >A better radar and/or passive sensors plus at least an additional two of >whatever dogfight missile you carry? > >'cause that's about the tradeoff in weight, internal structure, vibration >dissapation, shell and gas disposal, etc. If we are talking F-22 here, why not some sort of compact unguided Kinetic energy missile system. No warhead, just pure kinetic energy. Impacting projectile would be about the size of a large bannana. _--_|\ Andrew See asee@magna.com.au / \ \_.--._/<-Sydney, Australia-It doesn't get any better than this. v "doh" -Homer Simpson "it won't happen overnight, but it will happen." -Rachel Hunter. ------------------------------ From: jdonoghue@cclink.draper.com Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 14:58:00 EDT Subject: Roadrunner Reunion <<<<<< Attached TEXT file follows >>>>>> File item: rr14.txt 10/14/95 2:01P Roadrunners International is an organization of participants in the A-12 OXCART project and the CIA portion of the U-2 project. Membership is open to those who served in either program at "the ranch", the "test site", at overseas or domestic detachments, or at Headquarters or the plant. I guess those who supported the programs from Warner-Robbins are also eligible to join. The following is a brief report for Members of the Skunk-Works list on my experiences at the 14th Roadrunner Reunion which was held in Las Vegas on Oct 9-12 of this year. RR 14 was a great Blackbird event. All 5 of the surviving project pilots, (Collins, Layton, Murray, Sullivan, and Vojvodich) were present in the same place for the first time since they were in Richard Helms' office in 1968. Also present were Bob Gilliland (First flight pilot of SR-71), Jim Eastham (First flight pilot of YF-12), and Tom Pugh(Director of Flight Test at the Skunk-Works, former combat SR-71 driver and former Commander of the 9th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing). Tom Pugh gave a talk on the SR-71 reactivation and Mel Vojvodich spoke about the early A-12 program and the first mission over North Vietnam (which was flown by him, of course). The best part, for me , was kibbutzung on the conversations of the pilots in what Frank Murray calls the hospital room. (Hospitality Suite) Frank Murray and Tom Pugh discussing their respective missions over Hanoi. Min Pen (Minimum Penetration altitude) for the heavy SR-71 was some 5000 feet lower than for the A-12. Jim Eastham discussing his salary arrangements while he was on both the Honeywell and Lockheed payrolls at the same time. (He alternated flying the B-58 for Honeywell and the YF-12 for LAC.) Frank Murray giving an eyewitness account of Mel Vojvodich's miraculous ejection from an A-12 in which the pitch and yaw controls got swapped. Keith Beswick on his filming of the breakup of the M-12 mothership. (The nose broke off ahead of the leading edge and the rear end of the aircraft continued to fly stably(sp?) till he lost the view as his pilot banked to avoid the debris) I suppose tape recorders might have inhibited the conversations but I wish tapes had been running to capture all the tales. Jim Goodall was there and I'm glad I brought my copy of his latest Blackbird book for autographing. Jim had copies for sale too. Doug Nelson, curator of the Edwards AFB Museum and Blackbird Airpark was there to sell T-shirts, etc. and listen to the yarns from Blackbird and U-2 people. Doug retired as a Chief MSgt in 88 (I think) to take the job as curator out there. Very likeable guy. I had thought he was the former SR wing commander but they differ by middle initials among other characteristics. From U-2s, Hank Meierdierck, age 75, was there. He helped train the first Agency U-2 drivers. Bill (Dad) MacMurray, who flew U-2s for the Agency, was there for the banquet only and I missed him. There was a good photo on display of 12 U-2 pilots in Turkey circa 1956. (Powers is among them) "Lucky" Lewis, an old friend and early tech. rep. at Taoyuan was there with an E6B (Not an airplane) slide rule thingy which had belonged to Jack Chang (shot down 10 Jan 65 and now living in Taiwan) I need urgently to get an address and phone number for Jack (Chang Li Yi) before I leave for Taipei on Oct 21 because I propose to deliver this artifact to Jack while I'm there. The case it comes in has Jack's surname (in English) just the way Lucky found it in the PE section when Jack failed to return from his mission to Paotow. It had been expected that there would be film from the old TAGBOARD D-21 program at the reunion, but a problem in getting authority to release the footage developed. Maybe next time. Next Roadrunners Reunion will take place in October 1997 and I expect to post more about this on the Skunk-Works list. We have about 500 on our roster now but a lot of eligible parties, especially from the U-2 project may not have heard of us. In the meantime, if you think you belong or know someone who might, you can email or snailmail me. jdonoghue@draper.com Joe Donoghue 4 Collins Rd. Wakefield, Mass 01880-2513 ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #462 ********************************* 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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