From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #500 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 7 November 1995 Volume 05 : Number 500 In this issue: Re: "no synonyms for aircraft." synonyms re: Which is it ? Synonyms for aircraft Re[2]: "no synonyms for aircraft." Re: "no synonyms for aircraft." Re: Which is it ? Sound whatever.... "aluminum overcast" Toroidial Propulsion Whoosh in the night - 10/24/95 near WPAFB? Re M-12/D-21 ASPJ further info 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: Mike Beede Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 14:09:06 -0600 Subject: Re: "no synonyms for aircraft." > You can use: > >[...] > * there are also more romantic euphemisms like: ``Bus'' and ``ship'' seem to have been common at least at one time in England. Mike ------------------------------ From: "I am the NRA." Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 12:41:03 PST Subject: synonyms I have heard kite and crate and not just for "String & fabric" designs. I'd have thought that "weapons platform" included everything from jungle boots up to the Nimitz, not just a/c.... regards dwp ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 13:38:03 ÿÿÿ Subject: re: Which is it ? Aa far as anything I've seen, the modified A-12s were desginated M-12. I have also seen the M-21 desgination, but not from Blackbird sources. For example, the M-12/D-21 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle is displayed as a "M-21". They call it that on their T-shirts as well. Art Hanley "My employer has nothing to do with this" (keeps the lawyers happy) ------------------------------ From: Gschaffe@michp7.redstone.army.mil Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 15:42:17 CST Subject: Synonyms for aircraft The story goes that Army Air Defenders have another generic synonym for aircraft. The word is ... Target. As in, "If it flies, it dies" and "Shoot 'em down, sort 'em out on the ground". Not an "official" term, of course. :-) Glenn Schaffer "The Secretary will disavow ... etc, etc." ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Mon, 06 Nov 95 15:48:39 EST Subject: Re[2]: "no synonyms for aircraft." Forwarded message follows: ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re[2]: "no synonyms for aircraft." Author: Bill Riddle at FHU2 Date: 6/11/1995 3:43 PM Yes, but Andreas, you left out one very significant appelation: Taildragger. "Anyone can fly a trike, it takes an aviator to fly a taildragger." Bill Riddle (O-1, U-6, C-47, Cub, Wigeon, and other lesser aircraft with the tail wheel on the wrong end) <> Andreas [having too much fun] ------------------------------ From: darph900@ccmail.ca.boeing.com Date: Mon, 06 Nov 95 14:28:08 dst Subject: Re: "no synonyms for aircraft." How about "Aluminum overcast" for a 747. ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 18:12:03 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Which is it ? Art wrote: >Aa far as anything I've seen, the modified A-12s were desginated M-12. I have >also seen the M-21 desgination, but not from Blackbird sources. For example, >the M-12/D-21 at the Museum of Flight in Seattle is displayed as a "M-21". >They call it that on their T-shirts as well. I don't know what 'Blackbird sources' are, and neither Kelly Johnson nor Ben Rich mention the M-21 (or M-12) in their autobiographies by name, but Jay Miller's official Skunk Works history states: "By October, the Q-12's overall configuration had been finalized and the equally difficult tasks of defining the A-12 launch system and its configuration were nearing an end. By now, the somewhat unusual M-21 designation had been assigned the A-12 carrier. "M" stood simply for "Mother". Concurrent with this, it was decided to rename the Q-12, D-21 -- thus making it the "Daughter" aircraft. The numerals "1" and "2" of A-12, Q-12, etc., were simply reversed so as not to confuse the "mother/daughter" combination with other "-12" variants." And James Goodall writes in his Blackbird book: "From the birth of the D-21 program, it had been decided that a modified A-12 (now called the M-21) aircraft would be the mother aircraft." Paul F. Crickmore wrote in the original Blackbird book A-12 (not M-21 nor M-12) and in the Secret Missions book he writes M-12. As far as I am concerned, the M-21/D-21 (or MD-21) combination seems the most logical, besides, it is the 'official' version, endorsed by Lockheed's Skunk Works. - -- 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: "I am the NRA." Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 15:45:57 PST Subject: Sound whatever.... >My favorite is the British film "Breaking the Sound Barrier" where the >heroic pilot discovers that the secret to breaking the sound barr... I >mean the trans-whatever regime - is to "reverse the controls". OK. I may be about to ASS most grievously, but...., My distinct impression was the "compressibility" effects due to operating near/thru the "sound *****" were a very real problem. Until understood, they kiiled a lot of pilots. And they did, effectively, revertse the controls, at least for some axes of control. Barriers (subject to correction: Spike in drag for shapes nto designed for transonic. Compressibility/control issues for ditto. Need for new power plant: eg trans-sonic prop is a no-no. Buffeting on control surfaces (izzat same as point 2?). OK, not a barrier, not a can't get thru, like (say) Speed of Light. But the elements leading to a knowledgable, easy to fly design were NOT obvious & a bunch came together _there_. I think.... regards dwp ------------------------------ From: "Ralph S. Hoefelmeyer" Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 17:02:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: "aluminum overcast" Hi, Someone attached "aluminum overcast" to the 747. I beleive the B-36 was refered to as the "aluminum overcast", not the 747. Ralph 70436.511@compuserve.com ------------------------------ From: "Andrew Sokolowski" Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 16:58:54 -0800 Subject: Toroidial Propulsion HI, Could someone explain how toroidial propulsion works?? I've heard this might be used in advanced aircraft. I sort of understand the concept but a more technical insight would be greatly appreciated. L8R andy@reboot.com ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 15:51:26 -0800 Subject: Whoosh in the night - 10/24/95 near WPAFB? Those of you who are in the Dayton Ohio area, did any of you catch any news pro/con about the following? Is this real or bogus? Location: WPAFB - Dayton Ohio and areas to the east. When: October 24, 1995 Time: approx. 8 PM Description: Unusual sounding aircraft takeoff out of WPAFB escorted by 2 F-16's (planforms allegedly seen in the night sky). Flight path of the trio after takeoff was east. The incident allegedly generated 80 police reports as reported on local TV station. Sound was of rushing air through a tube. Three minutes behind the party a large helicopter was heard to pass over. Any follow-up info, pro or con? ------------------------------ From: The Cleaner Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 21:28:48 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re M-12/D-21 I was looking at the Seattle Museum of Flight's M-12 with it's drone and I noticed that the upper surfaces were bare aluminum. I was wondering if this was done during restoration or was it done so during test fligts the drone could be seen better? It seems to me that removing the black paint would have adverse effects on the airframe at speed. ___________ Marc Studer ___________________________________________ | " . . . The ground wins 100% | "In a Marc vs Twinkie engagement, of the time." - F-111 Pilot | the Marc wins 100% of the time." | ______________________________________ mstuder@spu.edu ___________ ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 21:37:31 +0700 Subject: ASPJ further info A couple of weeks or so ago there was some discussion about the ASPJ, and it failing tests, some of which were impossible to pass. I did some digging, and for those who are interested here's some data more precise than what I was able to quote from memory. I'm not posting this to start an arguement, but rather to give further detail and provide some hopefully interesting insight on what various development programs have to go through. It was the FY93 Defense Appropriations Bill that contained the Congressional language forbidding production of the ASPJ if it didn't pass all operational tests. In the flight test portion of the evaluation, the ASPJ reportedly was confronteed with almost 300 radar-simulating emitters. The ASPJ (which didn't have full capability yet) detected 98% of them. All the detected radars were correctly identified and in each case the proper jamming or deceptive signal was transmitted. However, the ASPJ was terminated because it didn't show the mandated "Measure of Operational Effectiveness" (MOE) in the simulation studies. The big MOE requirement was that an ASPJ-equipped aircraft had to show at least a 30% increase in survivability over a"naked" (with no jamming equipment). In one of the scenarios, "naked" aircraft came in at very low altitude. However, the simulation also assumed that standoff-jamming aircraft (like the EA-6B) had already been able to negate All enemy early warning radars, not a very realistic assumption. In this case, "naked" aircraft had a 90% survival ratio. In order to meet the requirements of the MOE, the ASPJ equipped aircraft would have had to show a 30% increase in survivability. In other words, 117% would have had to survive in order to meet the MOE. One of the original reasons for developing ASPJ was to provide a degree of self-protection against many different radar types, including coherent pulse-Doppler and Continuous Wave radars, when dedicated- jamming or SEAD aircraft were unavailable. However another one of the simulations assumed that jamming aircraft were available at all times, and that they and SEAD aircraft had countered or destroyed all the advanced radars, including the pulse-Dopplers and CWs. If you assume that all the advanced radars that older jammers can't handle but the ASPJ was designed to counter aren't there, it's hard for the ASPJ to show that it is more effective in countering them than older jammers. Therefore, the ASPJ "failed" this test as well. For what it's worth Art ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #500 ********************************* 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. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to either "skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "prm@mail.orst.edu A non-digest (direct mail) version of this list is also available; to subscribe to that instead, replace all instances of "skunk-works-digest" in the commands above with "skunk-works". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from mail.orst.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).