From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #509 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: bulk Skunk Works Digest Monday, 13 November 1995 Volume 05 : Number 509 In this issue: Re: SR-71 paint Re: SR-71 paint World Air Power Journal Re: SR-71 paint Bill Sweetman on 'Dark Eagles' 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: Greg Fieser Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 10:58:25 -0600 Subject: Re: SR-71 paint > Isn't it a requirement of international law that all millitary aircraft > display their national insignia? This requirement has recently been evaded > by the painting of the American insignia (circle bars and star) in > faded-looking low contrast colors that are virtually invisible. It was my understanding that the "de-coloring" of USN aircraft had more to do with the visibility of the aircraft to enemey weapon sensors. Optically guided weapons often need an optically discernable edge or point to lock on to, and different colored surfaces (i.e. black squadron tail markings on a light gray background) can have different emissivities - just what an IR seeker needs to lock on to (as if the jet exhaust wasn't enough). USAF has not followed this lead, and still displays contrasting tail codes on most aircraft... Greg Fieser ------------------------------ From: fmarkus@pipeline.com (Frank Markus) Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 08:51:51 -0500 Subject: Re: SR-71 paint On Nov 09, 1995 10:58:25, 'Greg Fieser ' wrote: > >> Isn't it a requirement of international law that all millitary aircraft >> display their national insignia? This requirement has recently been evaded >> by the painting of the American insignia (circle bars and star) in >> faded-looking low contrast colors that are virtually invisible. > >It was my understanding that the "de-coloring" of USN aircraft had more to do >with the visibility of the aircraft to enemey weapon sensors. Optically >guided weapons often need an optically discernable edge or point to lock on >to, >and different colored surfaces (i.e. black squadron tail markings on a light >gray background) can have different emissivities - just what an IR seeker >needs >to lock on to (as if the jet exhaust wasn't enough). USAF has not followed >this >lead, and still displays contrasting tail codes on most aircraft... > > Greg Fieser > I did not mean to say (or imply) that the United States was trying to deny or disguise the nationality of its aircraft by the use of low contrast "faded-looking" national insignia. Rather, I was suggesting that there was a reasonable basis for the general who ordered the expensive development of paints that would permit the Blackbird to carry a full color national insignia. I suggested and still believe that he understood international law to require that millitary aircraft carry the national insignia in full color as was the norm in the 1960s. And that he may have been correct in his belief. The fact that there is a good reason for aircraft not having full color (and hard-edged) national insignia probably esplains the recent trend of using faded-looking soft-edged insignia. To say that it is necessary that modern aircraft no longer have traditional insignia is not to say that the modern insignia are in full compliance with international law. I would call it a compromise based on necessity. As has been pointed out, there is nothing in the sky (that I know of anyway) that looks remotely like a Blackbird -- and it is only flow by one country. For the past fifty or more years, potentially hostile aircraft have mainly been identified by their IFF and other electronic and physical charactaristics rather than by the paint on their sides and wings. But, even so, one is entitled to wonder whether the friendly-fire incident over Iraq might have been averted if the targeted helicopter had been sporting a full color American livery. ------------------------------ From: Greg Fieser Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 13:50:55 -0600 Subject: World Air Power Journal Just returned from the bookstore (lunch) and saw that World Air Power Journal has released a special issue on the F-117. LOTS of color photos and drawings throughout, as is their style, but most of the stuff I have seen before in their other publications, esp. Gulf Air War Debrief and their regular quarterly publication. Includes color photos and drawings of Have Blue, FSD aircraft in "desert" camoflage, partial airframes on the assembly line, lots of Desert Storm stuff, and two good color shots of the main instrument panel (side consoles not clearly shown). Lots of the photography looks like Randy Jolly's work. Again, not anything I haven't seen in one form or another before, but a decent collection of photos and text, although I haven't had time to go through it and find out how accurate the information is. Robert F. Dorr is shown as the author, although the inside cover credits James Ragsdale and Denny Lombard of LACD PR, Major Earl Shellner and Robert Pepper of 49th FW PAO, Marty Isham and (of course) Jay Miller. Cover price was US$9.95, and an order number on the back cover was 1-800-359-3003. But it's probably quicker and cheaper at your local bookstore... Greg Fieser (since I am self-employed, the opinions expressed ARE those of my employer...) ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 14:41:50 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SR-71 paint I have not studied law, so the following is in layman terms. There are no international laws on how to paint or mark your aircraft, no matter if it is a military, government-owned, private or commercial aircraft. There are some conventions, though, which most countries around the world like to comply with. For once, most countries expect their citizens to register their planes, and mark those airplanes with the given registration (if they allow them to own and operate an aircraft in the first place). Most of these countries comply with the rules set by the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization), which includes safety regulations, as well as internationally recognized registration markings. If civilian (private, commercial, etc.) planes want to fly to another country, they have to comply to those standards, which are enforced by their own country, which does that to satisfy the international community. Most countries also mark their military aircraft with a national insignia of some sort, as well as individual airframe markings. Those are only for the purpose of identifying the aircraft in hostile situations, and to ease diplomatic relations between countries, by 'not hiding anything'. If the President of the USA wants to fly to another country in his fancy VC-25A, he has to have a national insignia and serial on his plane, or a civilian style registration (N-number). National markings usually have some historical basis (national colors or symbols from flags, etc.), but frequently change in their appearance over time. As with other international conventions and rules, they are only observed when they fit the agenda. During the Vietnam war, many USAF aircraft flew with very small national insignias or totally without them. Cloak and dagger aircraft, such as U-2s, still fly normally without any national insignia, as did many SRs, even when operating from other countries like the UK. The use of 'low visibility' markings started, by the way, as early as during World War I, while the first use of US national insignia on military aircraft can be traced back to the 1916 Mexican border incidents. I am not sure, though, if colorful vs. low-viz markings have any measurable effect on IR seekers, or if this is a pure "visible light Eyeball Mk. 1 countermeasure". The SR-71s (or actually the A-12s, M-21s and YF-12s) used national insignia and other markings probably for diplomatic reasons, but most likely only because it was a USAF regulation or tradition, nothing more serious. :) - -- 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, 12 Nov 1995 15:02:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Bill Sweetman on 'Dark Eagles' I thought that this would be interesting to the list, so I forwarded the following post from usenet. Posted by John Pike on the following Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy.area51, sci.space.policy, rec.aviation.military, under the Subject: Re: New book on black aircraft, on 11 Nov 1995, 13:06:57 GMT: Bill Sweetman has written the following and faxed it out to a bunch of folks, and I thought that folks on these newsgroups might want to get a look at it. I have not yet read the Peebles book, so I don't know what I think [disclaimer: my scanner is my co-author] .... [I did some orthographical corrections, though -- Andreas] From: Bill Sweetman To: Fellow Seekers of the Truth November 2 1995 This review is released for general posting and copying. It should be posted in full, however. Length as written is 1324 words. Dark Eagles, a book purportedly written by "historian" Curtis Peebles, is billed as "a history of top-secret US aircraft programs". In fact, it deals with a few such programs: the first US jet, the Bell XP-59; the Lockheed U-2; the A-12/SR-71/D-21 family; the Teledyne Ryan reconnaissance drones; the Have Blue/F-117; and, to some extent, the testing of MiG-21s and MiG-23s. Those familiar with the literature will find very little here that is new. Miller, Wagner and Sloan, Crickmore, Giangreco, Goodall and myself have covered these areas and are heavily cited in Peebles' references - in fact, the Wagner/ Sloan books on the Teledyne Ryan drones are almost the only references in those chapters. It is a wonder that Peebles does not list his scanner as a co-author. Peebles oversteps the limits of his talents, however, when he can no longer crib from a single authoritative source. This happens when he turns his attention to black projects which have not yet been acknowledged. Peebles states, as fact, that all reports of high-speed classified aircraft are myths, springing from the same sources as UFO stories. "Aurora Does Not Exist, Elvis is Dead Accept It" is a sample sub-heading. The trouble is, Peebles commits practically every logical error in the book in his floundering attempts to support such a conclusion. To begin with, the "Aurora myth" is Peebles' own invention. By re-telling every high speed aircraft report published between the mid-1970s and the present day, he tries to give the impression that these stories are all in some way, linked to a common source. Peebles also invents a corps of "believers" in Aurora, a term which he uses repeatedly. But there are no believers, no faith, no doctrine and no One True Church, just a bunch of individuals who keep investigating and asking questions. As in any open investigation, the answers which crop up are sometimes conflicting. But Peebles assumes that any difference between any two reports invalidates them all. According to this logic: "Mr. Smith says sheep are white; Mr. Jones says sheep are green; therefore sheep do not exist." "Argumentum ad hominem" was a known fallacy long before it was translated from Greek into Latin, but that idea never found its way into Peebles' education. UFO sources Bob Lazar and John Lear have both talked about Aurora, says Peebles. He does not even quote what Lear says about Aurora: in fact, Lear was one of the first outsiders to find his way to the gates of Groom Lake, and took a photograph of the base. But since they are UFO believers, he says, the Aurora story must be false. "Mr. Jones says sheep are white. Mr. Jones cheats on his wife. Therefore, there are no sheep." What Peebles is trying to do is to build a case that Aurora and UFO reports are essentially the same. In the process, he topples into absurdity. Quote: "On October 16, 1992, the Fox program Sightings had a segment on Aurora - it had been preceded by a report on UFO abductions." What does that prove, except that Sightings has a wide ranging taste for mysteries? Nothing at all, is the answer. Of course, Peebles' own sources are pure gold, as typified by the "private source" cited in the footnotes, who told Peebles that "the whole Aurora story has been pushed by a tight circle of Black airplane buffs, aerospace writers, and believers in various far-out UFO conspiracy theories". This statement is in itself a conspiracy theory, implying that some secret cabal dictates the content of both Popular Science and Aviation Week. Logic again: "Bill Clinton belongs to the Trilateral Commission. So does George Bush. Therefore, the Trilateral Commission controls the USA." We should also look at Peebles' source. Some of the comments that Peebles attributes to this "private source" are almost word-for-word echoes of from an anonymous letter received by Popular Science after the publication of my March 1993 Aurora story. I heard almost identical comments from Phil Klass, AvWeek contributing editor and UFO debunker, in a face-to-face meeting in October 1993. I don't think Phil Klass is an anonymous letter writer (heck, he's made so many enemies that one or two more wouldn't matter) but it seems that he is probably Peebles' "private source". Now, let's examine the identity of the gutless weasel who sent that letter to PopSci. Strangely enough, both the gutless weasel and Peebles explain away the August 1992 "XB-70" reports in exactly the same way: mis-identification of an F-14, based on personal experience. When you can't attack evidence ad hominem, there are always other creative ways around it. Peebles' view of the North Sea sighting - in which an aircraft with a pure isosceles shape was seen apparently refueling from a KC-135, escorted by two F-111s was that the aircraft was "in all probability.... simply a third F-111 with its wings swept back". It's such a simple explanation that it hardly occurs to you to wonder why Peebles, who did not see the aircraft and has just admitted that he nearly mistook an F-14 at close quarters for a B-70-sized aircraft, thinks he knows better than the trained and experienced witness. This points up the difference between a skeptic, who questions everything, and a debunker, who starts from the a priori position that some things exist and others don't. In the mind of a debunker, any evidence can be invalidated simply by inventing an alternative hypothesis to explain it, whether the hypothesis is tested or not. Did Peebles bother to pick up the phone and talk to the original witness? Of course not. Ignoring evidence works, too. Anyone who opens this book hoping to find any discussion of the expanded black budgets of the 1980s, and what they might have purchased, will be disappointed. Peebles makes no reference to the abundant evidence of burgeoning spending, he does not reference Tim Weiner's Pulitzer-winning investigations in this area, and he buries deep inside a chapter the simple and very significant fact that Groom Lake was massively expanded and modernized long after the last major program that he talks about (the F-117) had moved on. As for analyzing evidence, one really wonders whether Peebles should attempt it. Take this, from his footnotes: "The claim that a sonic boom cannot be heard at long range is incorrect. On several occasions in 1985 the author heard the double sonic boom of the space shuttle over Edwards AFB from Long Beach, California." There are two errors in this short statement. First, no investigator has said that some booms can't be heard at long range - just that the notorious California mystery booms weren't that kind of boom. Second, the shuttle never boomed over Edwards; Peebles heard it because it was flying over his head, so his evidence says nothing about boom footprints. Pebbles is at his most offensive, windy and pompous when he talks about "historical research" versus the "Aurora myth". "In historical research," he intones, "the separate bits of information are assembled into a complete picture. It is much like the pieces of a puzzle." Well, pardon the hell outta me, Curtis, but that is exactly what reporters and investigators were doing with the F-117 and SR-71 long before you arrived on the scene. And believe me, it was not tidy. There were just as many shadows and uncertainties to Stealth as there are to the high-speed reports. But we sorted it out as best we could, and that's why half the material in your own F-117, A-12 and D-21 chapters has been borrowed from the people that you dismiss as fantasists. I think Johnson said it best: "Your work is both good and original. Unfortunately, those parts that are original are not good; and those parts that are good are not original." Or to put it another way: If minds, like parachutes, work only when they are open, Curtis has just made a squishy mess on the airfield. ENDS - -- 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/ - --- --- ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #509 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@mail.orst.edu". 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