From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #470 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Friday, 20 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 470 In this issue: Another Book. Re: Re(9): Shock-Waves as a Weapon Re: Shock-Waves as a Weapon Re: Cannons Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] Re: Cannons Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] Off charter [was Re: Cannons] SR-71 "Big Tail" Stuff that will blow you out of the sky (Was Cannons) 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: Stuart McMurtrie Date: Thu, 19 Oct 95 08:26:00 PDT Subject: Another Book. Hey ! I have just been lent a book. All about those lil' ol' U2s & Sr-71s. Not a bad read so far. Typical Quote: "The U2 men say that the difference between finding a dead skunk & a dead Sled driver on the freeway is that there are always skidmarks just before the Skunk !" Made me laugh anyway ! Oh the book ! Its: The Black Watch, by Ernest K. Gann (ISBN 0-394-57507-5). Published by Random House, New York. SJmc listening.... Out ! ------------------------------ From: hoar@agdis01.newark.af.mil ( Stephen Hoar) Date: Thu, 19 Oct 95 07:08:03 -0400 Subject: Re: Re(9): Shock-Waves as a Weapon In your message of 18 Oct 1995 at 1720 EDT, you write: > Forwarded from the SPACE TECH list: > > Date: 16 Oct 1995 14:06:44 GMT > >From: Rick Ballard > Subject: Shock-Waves as a weapon > > "Terry Colvin" wrote: > > >There was a very short article in Av Week about ten years ago, that > >mentioned a nuclear-powered airplane that was supposed to fly on > >the deck at Mach 3, and kill everything in its path with the > >shockwave. That's non-non-lethal. > It was "Project Pluto". It toasted everyone with its unshielded reactor and radioactive exhaust. The Smithsonian Mag Air and Space covered it a few years back. Steve ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Thu, 19 Oct 95 14:30:36 MET Subject: Re: Shock-Waves as a Weapon Forwarded from the SPACE TECH list by Terry Colvin, Wed, 18 Oct 95 12:56:57 EST: >Date: 16 Oct 1995 14:06:44 GMT >From: Rick Ballard >I believe that you're referring to the SLAM (Supersonic Low Altitude >Missile), which in my mind was one of the nastiest weapons I ever heard >of. It was basically a large unmanned cruise missile that would cruise at >about Mach 3 at tree-top level, kicking out nuclear bombs as it dashed >around the interior of Mother Russia. However, what made it particularly >nasty was that it was powered by an unshielded nuclear ramjet engine, >which would scoop up air, superheat it as it passed through the nuclear >core, and then eject the exhaust through an exit nozzle. The nuclear >engine was the brainchild of an engineer named Merkle, who developed a >ground test version of it with the DOE back in the late 1950's and early >1960's (called the Tory and Tory II engines). Being nuclear-powered, the >SLAM would have practically unlimited range. >Although the engine was tested, the SLAM never made it off the drawing >board. Had it flown, the engine would have glowed like a star moving at >Mach 3. The engine was so intensely radioactive that coming within a few >hundred feet of it would have been instantly lethal. They said that "if >the radiation didn't kill you, the shock wave would make sure of it." There was even a tactic advanced to supersonically cruise the SLAM around >the Soviet Union after it had expended its bombload, leaving a trail of >devastation in its wake. >A very unpleasant weapon, indeed. Had the human radiation experiments made in the USA around these years something to do with this project ? Also, wasn't the alleged UFO radiation damaging encounter known as "Cash/Landrum" (outside Houston, TX, 1979 (?)) some kind of experiment related to this project ? J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: "David \"Scre^2ch\" Prieto" Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 10:58:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Cannons Okay okay... I did take this a little too far too :) I'm sorry about all the posts that may have troubled everyone, but I like the nice discussion we had unlike other "yelling matches" I've seen. I'm not sure about those ASRAAMS and the AA-11 with the new 57 degree seeker head cone, so my point of view was based on the older missiles. I'll cherck that article out. :) FINIS :) ***************************************************************************** David "Scre^2ch" Prieto 14/3 dpriet01@barney.poly.edu screech@cnct.com TIP#814 ***************************************************************************** On Wed, 18 Oct 1995 ahanley@banyan.usace.mil wrote: > O.K., since I'm the lone missile defender I'll try one more stab. > > I wouldn't advocate stripping a gun out of an aircraft that already has one. > As Dave said, the performance gains would be minimal. also, you wouldn't be > able to add on the extra couple of missiles I would advocate carrying in its > place. However, if you had never put it in--that's another story. This would > be applicable To an aircraft early in its design like, say, a stealthy > supercruise fighter (see?, tied it to the list). Here the gains would be quite > big. I am not saying a gun is useless for air-to-air (again, that's the only > case this intellectual exercise is dealing with), just that given the resources > available to the designer and crew, they could be better spent on something > else. > > If you do close to a turning fight, a dogfight missile is still better than a > gun. Bullets don't turn and you've got to maneuver very dramatically against > another plane (who may have a dogfight missile) in order to get and hold that > gun on target. You don't have to do as much with a missile, 'cause they now > outturn any manned aircraft. You may be doing a 8g turn (and trying not to > pass out), but that's not much help against a close-in missile that does 40g > turns. We know that the AA-11 can be locked on (by looking at the target)and > fired in 1 second, and you'll be in firing position well before you can get a > gun on the other guy, even in a turning contest. The cover of this week's > Aviation Week shows a prototype US dogfight missile coming off the left side of > a F-16 and crossing in front of it to track a target 57 degrees off boresight > on the opposite side. The AA-11 and ASRAAM already do almost that well. > > I hope we're not taking up too much of people's time with this, although I hope > it's thought to be relevant. I guess I'll just close with my original > question: Would you rather go up and face another plane with a gun and say, > six missiles or no gun but better sensors and at least eight missiles (at least > tow of which would be dogfight types)? Again, just a thought exercise... > > Art Hanley > > In compliance with the Full Employment > For Lawyers Act, I must state that the > Above does not represent my employer's > Views, only mine > ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Thu, 19 Oct 95 08:39:46 EST Subject: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] Forwarded from the SPACE TECH list: Date: 17 Oct 1995 05:42:24 GMT From: Arie Kazachin Subject: Son of SR-71 In article 9510131746@hunter.shore.net, Pat.Mccormack@hunter.shore.net (Pat Mccormack) writes: > GDP> I've often wondered why it doesn't seem to have > GDP> occurred to the military to > GDP> use fighter shock-waves as (non-leathal) *weapons*? (Maybe because they > GDP> =can be= non-leathal???) > > There was a SciFi story along these lines I read once. Modern fighter gets > swept back to WWI. Pilot finds out his cannons and missiles aren't all that > effective against the wood & canvas planes of the time. So he starts buzzing > them at Mach speeds. Works ok, until he sucks up a load of debris into his > intake and stalls. > > Maybe the pilots don't like the idea of flying down real low against > potentially dangerous hidden threats, like Stingers? > -- > |Fidonet: Pat Mccormack 1:101/175 > |Internet: Pat.Mccormack@hunter.shore.net > | > | Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own. > Well, the transonic boom was used as a psycological weapon by Israel against Egipt somewhere about 1969-72. A formation of F4Es (4 or 6, don't remember) broke a sound barier 700m above Cairo, smashing windows in a large part of the city and causing cracks in the walls of the houses that were not made of concret and causing a general panic, few days after the Egiptial leaders declared thair missile ring as "unpenetratable". Later, during the Yom Kipur war in 1973, there was also the only known case in history of F4E downing a Mi6 helicopter by the jet stream of his afterburners: A pilot of F4E was hunting the Egiptiam Mi6 helicopters, which carried comando forces into Sinai. He downed 5 helicopters already and spotted the 6-th one. It was beginning to dark, the helicopter was manuvering at the "deck" level and usinh every crevice of the landscape to hide in. The F4E pilot decided, that his low fuel level and incoming darkness makes low and slow turns at almost zero altitude too dangerous. Instead, he lit the burners, made a pass few meters above the Mi6, while pulling up. The jet stream, directed downwards, hit the Mi6 and smashed it on the ground. With such a history, who needs a SciFi? :) Arie Kazachin. ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 14:12:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Cannons Remember that about 85 percent of all aircraft shot down didn't know they were under attack until they were hit. Read Bob Shaw on air combat--it'll answer a lot of the questions people are asking. Regards, Mary Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com URL http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end.... ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 09:26:52 PDT Subject: Re: Israeli Air Tactics [[was Son of SR-71]] PLEASE, can we keep the urban myths out of this? This makes no sense at all. Lets see, I`m bingo fuel, so I hit reheat on 2 J79`s!!! (At SEA LEVEL!!!) I don`t think soo. I could go about 40 feet. Also, the exhaust from a fast moving A/C ain`t all that bad. Remember you must subtract the velocity of the nozzle. (Thrust -> O as velocity gets big) Chuck Smith "Aerospace Engineer to the Stars" "If you wanna run cool, Yo got to run on heavy heavy fuel" -Dire Straits ------------------------------ From: Kean Stump Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 12:21:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Off charter [was Re: Cannons] Everyones favorite skunk-herder here. Lets take this to rec.aviation.military, folks. kean Kean Stump Information Services kean@ucs.orst.edu Oregon State University OSU doesn't pay me to have official opinions. (503)-737-4740 ------------------------------ From: Greg Fieser Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:28:58 -0500 Subject: SR-71 "Big Tail" I've followed SR-71 lore for as long as I can remember, and have tried to see all the retired birds that I can. I only got to see them in flight twice - once at Farnborough in '86, and the final time when #17972 flew into Dulles after setting the records in '90. I learned a lot through Jay Miller (a good friend) while he was writing the Skunk Works history last year. In the various lists of "current" SR-71 locations, apparently compiled from lists by Miller/Crickmore, I've never seen mention of the fact that #17959 at Eglin is in fact the legendary "Big Tail" bird. Is this just an oversight, or is the "Big Tail" really no "Big Deal"?? Greg Fieser Dallas TX Being self-employed, the opinions expressed herein DO reflect the opinions of my employer... ------------------------------ From: "JOHN F. REGUS" Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:21:40 -0600 Subject: Stuff that will blow you out of the sky (Was Cannons) Does anyone have any info on the Israeli project "Arrow" that was to be a long range version of the Patriot Missle system? This project was being jointly developed between various U.S. contractors and the Israelis. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #470 ********************************* 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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