From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #473 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Monday, 23 October 1995 Volume 05 : Number 473 In this issue: Son of ASPJ Re: ASPJ AFM, No. 91, October 1995 Penetrator-Replacement for the Blackbird New Book on Black Aircraft Re: Son of ASPJ Re: Penetrator-Replacement for the Blackbird Re: Son of ASPJ 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: "Art Hanley" Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 00:29:21 +0700 Subject: Son of ASPJ This may be somewhat off the subject of the list, but some might find the story interesting. Hey wait! I suggested they could put these things in the SR-71 if needed. That ties it in (OK, it's a stretch). The ASPJ is one of those cases that shows how important it is to have a constituency. It was terminated, but not by USAF. ASPJ was a joint Navy-Air Force managed program designed to provide a high degree of self-protection to a number of different aircraft. Some, like the F-14, would carry it internally. Some, like the F-16 and F/A-18 would carry it in pods. Because of the perceived threat and the desire to have a system that could be in service for a long time through upgrades, it was not a very low risk program (nowadays too many of our development program are more concerned with picking the lowest risk than doing the best or most efficient job). It did get behind schedule, but the technical problems weren't out of line for a system this advanced and had been mostly resolved in the major areas and were working out on most of the rest. Whether it would have achieved Everything hoped for it is not known, but then few programs do. Still, ASPJ was light years beyond anything else foreseeable. However, this being a Navy-managed program, USAF did what until fairly recently it did on most weapons programs it didn't control, it pulled out, which cut down on the program's support. The Navy elected to proceed on its own, because it was very concerned about the threat and the Navy has traditionally been more concerned about ECM and SEAD. The program also had made some enemies at the Congressional level and public positions were taken against the program, although I am not knowledgeable about the background of this. A critical series of tests were held, and further production and deployment of the ALQ-165 was made contingent on passing the entire series of tests. There were certain requirements written into the tests by Washington. The ASPJ was announced to have failed and, compliant with legislative mandate, production was stopped. Most of the tests and results were and are classified, and some are still controversial. Here's where it gets interesting. I find it kind of hard to believe myself, and I recommend that those that are interested research it themselves for verificaiton. One of the criteria that was disclosed involved the increase in survivability that ASPJ would have to demonstrate. I don't remember the exact percentages right off my head, I'm sorry, so the following numbers are only approximate, but the concept is correct. There was a requirement of the tests that the ASPJ provide at least a 30% increase in survivability in ALL scenarios. This sounds reasonable on the surface, but the situation isn't as simple as may have been thought when this mandate was written in by Washington. You see, there are some missions where it is expected that more than 77% of the aircraft will get through the defenses, even without Any ECM. One of these is low level night attack. The survivability increase becomes impossible to meet in those cases. For example, let's say that It is expected that on a mission like this, 80% of the aircraft normally complete their mission, no matter what. This means that if you launch a strike totalling twenty Five aircraft, twenty SIX must survive in order to meet the survivability increase requirements of the test (20 of the package will survive without ASPJ [or anything]. 30% more than that is 26)! Therefore, ASPJ didn't pass this portion of the test. This may not be what the framers of the authorization meant, but that's what the language said and so that's what had to be followed. Production was terminated and deployment was cancelled. Like Andreas said, there were around 100 completed when production ceased. They couldn't be deployed without Congressional permission, because that's what the authorization legislation said. With only a few systems, they couldn't be deployed fleetwide anyway. The Navy repeatedly asked permission to put the already completed systems in the world's best fighter, the F-14D, since they only had 57 of them and there were enough ASPJs to equip the entire fleet and spares. Authorization was denied, reportedly by the authors of the legislation. Ironically, although the legislation said you couldn't produce or deploy the ASPJ, it didn't say you couldn't Sell them. As a result, countries have been lining up to buy our "failure" as is, even though development was never fully completed. These have been smaller countries, because remember, we aren't allowed to produce any more. There had been requests previously for permission to send (deploy) some of the ASPJs to Bosnia, but these had been denied. This summer the requests were renewed because of Capt. O'Grady's shootdown, as Andreas related. The Navy feels this equipment is miles ahead of anything in service or even under active development. I don't know if temporary enabling legislation was forthcoming and whether any were actually sent, but if they were, this could pose a problem: What happens if they're successful? Art ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 12:17:59 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: ASPJ Thanks to Art for the background information on ASPJ. Does anyone know for a fact if they are deployed yet or not? - -- 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: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 12:27:28 -0400 (EDT) Subject: AFM, No. 91, October 1995 The latest AirForces Monthly issue available in the US has the following interesting information: "USAF activates first UAV Squadron", page 3, with a photo showing two General Atomics Tier 2 Predator UAVs displayed at Nellis AFB, during the activation ceremony of the 11th RS/57th Wing on July 29. They are painted white, display the US insignia, "WA" tail code and a black/yellow checkered fin band. "Stealth Bombing", page 4, with a photo of a Northrop B-2A Spirit dropping an inert Mk.84 bomb during trials, mentioning that B-2s from the 509th BW/ 393rd BS at Whiteman AFB recently simulated the dropping of 16 2,000 lb Mk.84 at the Vliehors range in the Netherlands. "The Merge", pages 16-21, which is a report on the first mock dogfights between USAF F-16Cs from the 510th FS based at Aviano AB, Italy, and German Luftwaffe MiG-29 from JG73. The flights took place at the ACMI (Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation) range at Decimomannu, Sardinia. The article includes 10 photos of MiG-29s, F-16Cs, F-4Fs and F-104S', but no MiG-23s, though. The Germans deployed 9 MiG-29s, 1 MiG-29UB, and 15 F-4Fs, all from JG73, based at Laage. "White Russia", pages 22-29, which is a report on the present state of the Republic of Belarus Air Force. The article includes this little interesting blurb: "No 201 IAP was declared operational at Minsk-Machulischi on May 1, 1951. Its initial equipment consisted of the MiG-15, Yak-14, P-39 and Po-2. From 1956 to 1961, the regiment operated an alternating mix of MiG-15 Fagot, MiG-17PF Fresco-D, MiG-19PM Farmer-E and MiG-19SV. In 1961 the Su-9 was added, and between 1971 and 1979 it was the sole type in operation. One incident features prominently in the regiments history. On May 1, 1961, an Su-9 was scrambled to intercept a Lockheed U-2 which had entered Soviet airspace. The unfortunate Fishpot pilot strayed into the defence zone of the PVO-missile batteries and was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. It was exactly one year earlier, that the pilot of a MiG-19 (Sergei Safronov) had been scrambled to intercept Gary Powers' U-2B in the vincinity of Sverdlovsk and suffered a similar fate. His aircraft was shot down by one of a number of V-750 Dvina (NATO SA-2 Guideline) surface- to-air missiles fired at Powers' aircraft. [...]" "U-2R crashes at Fairford", page 58, showing a photo of the aircraft with the usually prominent C-Span radom burnt away, exposing the remains of the satellite data-link antenna, on the crashed aircraft. - -- 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: "Terry Colvin" Date: Sun, 22 Oct 95 13:00:57 EST Subject: Penetrator-Replacement for the Blackbird Date: 20 Oct 1995 18:58:04 GMT From: kap2 Subject: Penetrator-Replacement for the Blackbird Does anyone have any information on the so called Penetrator, designed to replace the SR-71 Blackbird and to "piggyback" a hypersonic aircraft (Which has had more names than I care to mention,Aurora and Thunderdart being amongst them) into low Earth orbit? I'm not after information that's likely to get the NSA/CIA's knickers in a twist. I just want to know: whether it exists, if it's a drone/UAV and if I can have a fly in it in the near future; stuff like that. I know about the Tier II and Tier III, the penetrator is most likely a "black project" being built by skunkworks but there may be some info somewhere! Thanks. ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Sun, 22 Oct 95 13:06:03 EST Subject: New Book on Black Aircraft Author: Forum@focusufo.net at smtp-fhu Date: 20/10/1995 1:13 PM On Thu, 19 Oct 95 John Gilmer wrote: > With all of this discussion about 'black aircraft', I'm frankly > puzzled. Every airplane mentioned (with the exception of the Aurora, > which is still in the rumor stages, can be seen at the Wright Patterson > AFB Museum, which is quite open to the public... You are quite right John. I fail to see what all of this great interest in "Black Aircraft"is all about, but before I put my foot in my mouth perhaps someone could tell me why they associate these aircraft with so much mystery, and evil. Granted I have seen articles in Compuserve which associate B\A's with UFO's, and, or the occupants of these vehicles, but these accounts are rather vague. They have also been seen at the Waco tragedy. I say tragedy because of the lose of the children. Anyway, back to the subject at hand. I was an aircrewman in the USN for over 20 years flying in the P3 Orion models B/C/and update III versions. There are very good reasons for black aircraft. One good reason is to hide while you are doing something which could get you, and 12 others, (the crew), shot in the back side. I know this from personal experience. One reason that the SR-71 a.k.a "blackbird" is black is because when it has a full load of fuel on-board it leaks, "badly". This is by design not by mistake. The SR-71 gets to altitude, above flight level 800, and air friction, also radiant heat from the sun on the black surface close the seams in the titanium. Also it is black, because it flys in a region of black sky, (hiding). The F-117 was supposed to originally have a paint scheme of assorted pastel colors which are in fact more effective than black, but the USAF pilots said that that they did not want to fly something so unmanly looking, hence another black airplane. This was all on the Discovery channel. Having some experience with aerial photography has shown me that olive drab, and even haze gray can photograph in a way which appears to look black. These colors can even appear to be black to the naked eye. There is one story about "black aircraft" which I do know about. It is only a rumor though. In the early 70's Coors beer was not available on the east coast so certain people were rumored to have used these A/C to smuggle this product back to the east coast. OF COURSE I have no first hand knowledge of this. If some of you good people have something of interest on this subject please post it here. All that I know is that people who fly on these "Black Platforms" are doing a job, have families, and are blissfully unaware of ET'S. I am more interested in anomalies on the Moon, Mars, etc. I do not use my last mame on the "net", because I'm not sure where this will go. If you wish to write me personally that is fine, but for now, Regards, Mike - -> Send "Subscribe " to Service@focusufo.net FocusUFO information on the Web at http://www.interport.net/~misc/ ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 19:29:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Son of ASPJ On Sun, 22 Oct 1995, Art Hanley wrote: > F/A-18 would carry it in pods. Because of the perceived threat and > the desire to have a system that could be in service for a long time > through upgrades, it was not a very low risk program (nowadays too > many of our development program are more concerned with picking the > lowest risk than doing the best or most efficient job). > > It did get behind schedule, but the technical problems weren't out > of line for a system this advanced and had been mostly resolved in > the major areas and were working out on most of the rest. Whether it > would have achieved Everything hoped for it is not known, but then > few programs do. Still, ASPJ was light years beyond anything else This remind me what I read on time: The Russian engineers expect to have problems in their design during the test and then correct them... But American engineers expect their design to work perfectly during the test... therefore, we always leave a new design half way done if some problem come up... that's why we never finished a lot of our design. Take a example of the off-bore missile target technology that USA already tested in the 70's.... May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 18:45:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Penetrator-Replacement for the Blackbird > Does anyone have any information on the so called Penetrator, designed to > replace the SR-71 Blackbird and to "piggyback" a hypersonic aircraft > (Which has had more names than I care to mention,Aurora and Thunderdart > being amongst them) into low Earth orbit? Yes, it is a product of the Testors Model Co. Check your local toy/hobby stores. ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 23:50:44 +0700 Subject: Re: Son of ASPJ > This remind me what I read on time: The Russian engineers expect > to have problems in their design during the test and then correct them... > But American engineers expect their design to work perfectly during the > test... therefore, we always leave a new design half way done if some > problem come up... that's why we never finished a lot of our design. Take > a example of the off-bore missile target technology that USA already > tested in the 70's.... > > May the Force be with you > > Su Wei-Jen > wsu02@barney.poly.edu > Got to stick up for the engineers here; In most cases they know you don't always get it perfect the first time. However, those that control the purse strings often don't... 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