From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #616 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 8 February 1996 Volume 05 : Number 616 In this issue: Jan. Issue Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works Star "Gray Wolf" Air Force of 2025 UFO's Aplogies to Skunk Works dev Re: News about Groom Lake Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev Inverted Landings Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Re[2]: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Re: Inverted Landings verifying UFO's Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev Re: News about Groom Lake (Fwd) Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf 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: jstone@shivasys.com (John Stone) Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 04:42:27 -0800 (PST) Subject: Jan. Issue Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works Star In the January Issue of "Lockheed Martin skunk works Star" - -Aircraft Services named Blue Ribbon Contractor- For the sixth time Aircraft Services have been named a Blue Ribbon Contractor by the USAF Warner Robins Air Logistics Center. - -100% Goal Reached in Ethics Briefings- All Skunk Works employees in Palmdale and Ontario have participated in live ethics briefings. - -Aviation Week Picks F-117 photo- A photo of a F-117 taken by SMSgt. Michael Williams has won second place in the Military Category in the Aviation Week 1995 Photo contest. Also a photo taken by Norm Augustine,(President and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp.) of a Gulfstream 3 was used in the same issue of Av Week. - -U-2 Featured in upcoming PBS program- "Spy in the Sky" is the name of an upcoming episode of "American Experience" on PBS network. It will air on Monday Feb. 26. Please check your local lists for time and date in your area. - -Cress captures Employee of the Year Award- Kee Cress an electrician-lead in the World Wide Color TV (WWCTV) C-130 program, won the Employee of the Year Award for saving $800,000 and 5,000 hours in time budgeted for the project. Cress heads a team that wired the World Wide Color TV (WWCTV) "Commando Solo" aircraft for the 193rd Special Operations Group, Pennsylvania Natl. Guard, in Harrisburg. - -Retired Skunk Works President Sherm Mullin selected as AIAA Fellow for 1996. Also another Lockheed Martin employee, Robert Polutchko was also selected. - -The San Fernando Valley Branch of the NAACP awarded the Skunk Works with it's Corporate/Company of the Year Award. - -Buildings 90, 76 sold, which housed Skunk Works activities have been sold. Bldg. 90, which was home to the F-117 and F-22 and other programs, was sold to a developer to be turned into entertainment studios or office space. Bldg. 76 was formerly used as Material facilities, payroll and other departments, was sold to Fry's Electronics. - -And there still trying to get rid of Lockheed Cats (cats born at Burbank Lockheed facilities) Later, John Stone ******Please note NEW address******** jstone@shivasys.com SR & U-2 Web page is still at: wl.iglou.com/blackbird/ but will be moved soon, I will post new address for web page when available -Thanks ------------------------------ From: hlapa@Zeus.signalcorp.com Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 11:08:59 EST Subject: "Gray Wolf" All, Anyone know of an aircraft by this name that is supposedly being fielded now? Perhaps the source of this question is confusing it with Werewolf helo? Maybe some kinda UAV or sensor or who-knows-what. I have a guy here with a significant need to know. Please reply directly as soon as possible Thanks in advance, Hank ------------------------------ From: erebenti@MIT.EDU (Eric Rebentisch) Date: Wed, 07 Feb 96 12:19:14 Subject: Air Force of 2025 I just read the AW&ST 2/5/96 article on the "Future Air Force". What a hoot (that is, it seems over-optimistic to say the least)! While I haven't read the actual 2025 reports, it would seem that the authors are expecting to get a big "acquisition reform dividend" in order to make all these things possible. The same Air Force that wants to have hypersonic stealthy UAVs flying around the world to engage targets is also the Air Force that hopes to have an F-22 and JAST operational in 2025 (both are still questionable at this point, because of their high cost), let alone a new MRF. It is also the Air Force that will likely still be flying B-52s in 2025. This is also the Air Force that is facing a shrinking acquisition budget, skyrocketing O&M costs with each new generation of high-tech systems, and 20-year long development cycles. BTW, I thought the USAF had a mega-lifter in mind at one point. It was called NDAA, and the Air Force choose to cancel it so it could pay 50% more per copy for the C-17. I'm not entirely down on the Air Force, in case you're wondering. Don't get me wrong, all of those concepts are technically possible, given enough development funding, and would certainly represent revolutionary changes in warfare. The biggest threats these ideas face come not from potential adversaries, but from the lack of a credible threat (given that existing systems - not next generation like F-22, JAST, and JDAM - did quite well in the Gulf War), and the lower priority defense spending has when confronted with a deficit crisis. It just seems like a dose of reality would be refreshing in these studies. Humph! Eric ------------------------------ From: Robert Christiansen Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 12:06:19 -0700 (MST) Subject: UFO's From what I understand the letters UFO stand for Unidentified Flying Object. If some one on the ground sees a commercial airliner above them at an altitude such that the shape is undistinguishible, to them this is a UFO. If someone tests a new shape for their model RC, this is a UFO. If the Skunk Works is testing new wing and fuselage shape ideas, to anyone who sees the test planes, these are UFO's. If someone has been in a cave for years and sees a Blackbird for the first time, to them this is a UFO. UFO's are seen every day. That does not mean we have been visited by alien lifeforms or that the government is secretly hiding unusual corpses in the middle of the desert. ------------------------------ From: "Alun Whittaker" Date: 7 Feb 1996 11:46:27 -0800 Subject: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev Subject: Time:10:58 OFFICE MEMO Aplogies to Skunk Works devotees.... Date:2/7/96 Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com wrote: > I believe you mean hybris, the Greek term. Indeed "hybris" is an antique greek concept meaning courting disaster by speaking insolently of the gods but, according to my dictionaries, "hubris" is the preferred english (and american english) spelling for the word which means "excessive pride or self-confidence". This seems to be a suitable word to apply to the attitude that speculation is pointless because our present day state of knowledge says its "just t'ain't possible". I would be very surprised if, in the history of the Skunk Works, no conversation ever started: "Well I know its not supposed to work this way, but what if....". > I apologize to the 99.9% good people on the list, but these nut cases > really get to me. You can`t hide from them, they find you. Maybe so, but don't you think that when UFO sitings cease to describe silver disks and start to mention black triangles, the Skunk Works List might be a very relevant place for those reports to be discussed. If that also means that we have to tolerate a few (additional) nut cases and accept a little unscientific speculation, so be it. > the future`s desk-sized thinking machine its time to jump into my > gyrocopter and head to my automated house.(Per Pop-Sci `s I read as a > kid) Perhaps they didn't get it right because they listened to too many hubristic experts explaining that "pocket-sized computers, global communications and information superhighways" were uneducated speculations easily disproven by anyone who'd stayed up nights studying physics and engineering. ALUN WHITTAKER ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 16:23:32 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: Re: News about Groom Lake On Tue, 6 Feb 1996, Indiana Joe wrote: > > [Many very interesting (and some fantastic) proposals deleted.] > > Anybody care to speculate which ones are real, and which are red > herrings? :-) It was a report on two presumably real aircraft and a futurological study- which was ALL (informed) speculation - as was stated in the text. What's with this "red herring" insinuation? Does _everything_ have to be a conspiracy? :-I - --Brett (tired and irritable) ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 16:55:25 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev On 7 Feb 1996, Alun Whittaker wrote: > "hubris" is the preferred english (and american english) spelling > for the word which means "excessive pride or self-confidence". > > This seems to be a suitable word to apply to the attitude that > speculation is pointless because our present day state of knowledge > says its "just t'ain't possible". I would be very surprised if, in the > history of the Skunk Works, no conversation ever started: "Well I > know its not supposed to work this way, but what if....". A quick note on scientific method (even though this is not a scientific forum): The simplest explanation is to be preferred- this is the so-called "Occam's Razor." It has been observed that nature is economical and not prone to elaborate causitive practical jokes. One can choose to speculate on the production of millions of hamburgers on the far side of the moon, and because this is not happening (OK... for the sake of arguement it is not happening) there is no evidence for or against the production of these hamburgers. Faced with the choice of whether or not there are millions of etc... then one is compelled to conclude that there are no secret hamburger factories in space. Now, this is not a purely scientific forum, but we are speculating on the products of engineering- which is bound by physical law and economics and so on, and we must pay some heed to them. I suggest that it is hubris to believe that one can deduce the nature of reality by uninformed speculation without referal to reliable evidence. > > I apologize to the 99.9% good people on the list, but these nut cases > > really get to me. You can`t hide from them, they find you. They get my goat too. If you want to get REALLY annoyed, see sci.astro and look at "Archimedes Plutonium" and "Nancy at Netcom" who channels "Zetas"... > Maybe so, but don't you think that when UFO sitings cease to describe > silver disks and start to mention black triangles, the Skunk Works > List might be a very relevant place for those reports to be discussed. Unfortunately, when the USAF was experimenting with disc-shaped vehicles such as the Avrocar, there were a LOT of flying saucer sightings, and to put it as politely as I can, the signal-to-noise ratio is so low as to be insignificant. Also, the UFO magazines do not have a good enough journalistic reputation for any of their contents to be credible. Maybe someone sees a triangular-shaped object, and there are most likely a lot of triangular aircraft around- but without some sort of investigation and verification, the report is worthless and distracting. > If that also means that we have to tolerate a few (additional) nut cases > and accept a little unscientific speculation, so be it. Sci.astro has been inundated with them. They are like mildew: if they appear, you can NEVER eradicate them and they just get worse. > > the future`s desk-sized thinking machine its time to jump into my > > gyrocopter and head to my automated house.(Per Pop-Sci `s I read as a > > kid) > > Perhaps they didn't get it right because they listened to too many hubristic > experts explaining that "pocket-sized computers, global communications and > information superhighways" were uneducated speculations easily disproven > by anyone who'd stayed up nights studying physics and engineering. > > ALUN WHITTAKER I have to say again that it is the epitome of hubris to think that somehow ones speculations are more valuable BECAUSE one has not devoted time and effort and intelligence to study. What you call hubris is prudent conservatism and modesty- that does lead to flawed predictions, but it is indicative of a mind that knows its own limits - and I think therefore, rather fewer flawed predictions than mere wishful thinking. Sorry, I'm not usually this grumpy... actually I am...its just that the three-letter U-word really gets to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to my home on the planet Zarquon. - --Brett ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Wed, 7 Feb 1996 22:14:52 +0700 Subject: Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf JSTARS was indeed there. However, finding camouflaged, mobile launchers wasn't really what it was designed to do. Also, the JSTARS aircraft there were in the middle of their development program and the operation was an ongoing learning process as the system still wasn't considered operational. As one of the program people told me after the war they were going over the data they had developed in light of what they now knew to see, "If what we actually saw was what we thought we saw". Regarding the F-15E, it's a versatile aircraft, but it's not designed for tactical recon the way the RF-4 or F-14/TARPS is. The crew can use the old Mk 1 eyeball, but that wasn't too effective at the speeds and altitudes the Strike Eagle travels. Also, when a Strike Eagle was loaded up for a strike, it really didn't have the endurance needed for a systematic search. It pretty much had to have someone else find and designate the target for it. When the Scuds were found and precisely located, it was quite effective against them (so was the F-111). It was heavily used. The problem was we didn't find them as often as we thought we were going to, and when we did find them we couldn't get the info back, interpreted and a strike mission planned, launched and back to the area before the launchers had moved and you had to start the whole process over again. It's been coming out over the past couple of years that the most effective Scud spotters and designators were Special Ops people (US and British) that we placed in country. Art ------------------------------ From: tcrobi@most.fw.hac.com (Tom Robison) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 07:51:24 +0500 Subject: Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev >Sorry, I'm not usually this grumpy... actually I am...its just that the >three-letter U-word really gets to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have >to go back to my home on the planet Zarquon. > >--Brett Pick us up some hamburgers on your way back, ok? Tom in Indiana tcrobi@most.fw.hac.com or TCRobi0648@aol.com ' (oo) - -------oOOO-()-OOOo-------- ------------------------------ From: BROWN A <92913938@mmu.ac.uk> Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 12:50:33 GMT Subject: Inverted Landings Andreas, Manned inverted landings are possible, there's a guy on the airshow circuit who has a Pitts with two sets of wheels, one normal and one on the upper wing for inverted landings. I think he even did an inverted landing on a moving truck once, but I'm not sure about that. So inverted landings are possible for manned aircraft. (it just makes getting in and out a bit more difficult, and rules out zero- zero ejection - unless of course you're in an early F-104!) Adrian Brown (92913938@mmu.ac.uk) ------------------------------ From: mangan@Kodak.COM (Paul Mangan) Date: Thu, 8 Feb 96 07:49:01 EST Subject: Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf I must have missed the beginning of this thread. My son was a CAPS officer on an AWACS. His duties included SCUD hunting and Aircraft hunting. He had 4 F15E's assigned to him. They were staggered overlap for refueling. 2 would refuel while 2 were on patrol. 4 would be on patrol during a portion of the time. When SCUDS were spotted they would go for a kill immediately. The F15E's were out of Rome, NY. Yes, they did have success. Yes, they were fully prepared for air to air and air to ground attacks. I won't repeat the full story that I have given before on this group but I am sure many of you read about him in AV Leak. Briefly while 2 F15E's were being refueled my son spotted 7 aircraft taking off from a base north of Bagdad and sent our 2 remaining F15E's after them. They engaged and confirmed 4 kills, 2 aparent crashes inside Iran and 1 probable crash landing at an Iranian air base. Most of the details were either on TV or in the Av Leak write up. The SCUD details were not given by my son other than to say "yes but I can't talk about it." I have been able to pick them up from WINGS and a video tape I purchased. Paul M. Art says. > From skunk-works-owner@mail.orst.edu Thu Feb 8 02:21:40 1996 > > JSTARS was indeed there. However, finding camouflaged, mobile launchers > wasn't really what it was designed to do. Also, the JSTARS aircraft > there were in the middle of their development program and the > operation was an ongoing learning process as the system still wasn't > considered operational. As one of the program > people told me after the war they were going over the data they had > developed in light of what they now knew to see, "If what we actually > saw was what we thought we saw". > > Regarding the F-15E, it's a versatile aircraft, but it's not > designed for tactical recon the way the RF-4 or F-14/TARPS is. The > crew can use the old Mk 1 eyeball, but that wasn't too effective at > the speeds and altitudes the Strike Eagle travels. Also, when a > Strike Eagle was loaded up for a strike, it really didn't have the > endurance needed for a systematic search. It pretty much had to have > someone else find and designate the target for it. When the Scuds were > found and precisely located, it was quite effective against them (so > was the F-111). It was heavily used. The problem was we didn't > find them as often as we thought we were going to, and when we did > find them we couldn't get the info back, interpreted and a strike > mission planned, launched and back to the area before the launchers > had moved and you had to start the whole process over again. It's > been coming out over the past couple of years that the most effective > Scud spotters and designators were Special Ops people (US and > British) that we placed in country. > > Art > ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Thu, 08 Feb 96 08:34:28 EST Subject: Re[2]: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Forwarded message: ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re[2]: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Author: Bill Riddle at FHU2 Date: 8/02/1996 0803 Ah yes. Good to see facts recognized. Nothing is as effective as a soldier on the ground. On a related issue: Earlier this week I visited the Predator ramp at Libby Army Air Field, here at Fort Huachuca. They are training detachments for deployment to the Balkans. While I was talking with our guide I asked about procurement of the Predator. I asked if they were an interim buy, awaiting the Tier II and III UAVs. (A few months ago we had a discussion about that on this list.) I was told that money which had been allocated for the development of recon pods for the AF was being diverted to buy Predators. He said that they were a permanent addition to the 11th Recon Squadron. Bill Riddle ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Author: Terry Colvin at FHU2 Date: 2/8/96 6:42 AM FYI ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Author: "Art Hanley" at smtp-fhu Date: 8/02/1996 0240 > snip > It's been coming out over the past couple of years that the most effective Scud spotters and designators were Special Ops people (US and British) that we placed in country. ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 14:22:54 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Inverted Landings On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, BROWN A wrote: > Andreas, > > Manned inverted landings are possible, there's a guy on the > airshow circuit who has a Pitts with two sets of wheels, one normal > and one on the upper wing for inverted landings. I think he even did I =saw= this during the ESPN rebroadcast of the Paris Air show, I think! It was dizzying, and disorienting just to =watch=. Of course I was watching that part partly upside down. ;-) BTW, guys, the new Smithsonian Air and Space is well out on the newstand, and is a look back at a bunch of planes that are famous for their longevity and durability, and I think this issue is the 10 year anniversary for the Mag. Cool cover. Also, again belatedly, the WINGS epi tonight Thursday (2/8): HE-111, the Heinkel "Secret Bomber" is showcased, 1800 est. regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: jaz5@ix.netcom.com Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 17:12:40 -0800 Subject: verifying UFO's The problem with verifying the existance of UFO's is that their observability is of such a short duration that it is almost impossible to aquire any data that can be analysed. Observers are also not ready to document what they see. But this also occurs with situations that are perfectly normal. When President Clinton came here last summer I saw his heliocopters doing practise landings in the distance. I grabbed my camera and jumped into my car and five minutes later got two pictures by sticking my arm out the window of the car and snapping the shutter. What I got were two tiny blurred images on a negative, no lettering visible, no identification or markings, just two tiny blurred images. If these had been "UFO's" I would have had the classic blurry image. This was broad daylight, sunny, autofocus camera, in an area I know well, and that was all I could get. For a more classical UFO example: Several years ago I was driving down a congested street at night when I saw a large orange glowing object sudenly appear some distance to the left. Then it "vanished" right before my eyes, then it came back and then it was gone. I was able to track it down. It was a guy in a vacant lot firing up a gas fired hot air balloon and taking his girlfriend for a ride. The balloon was tethered to the ground. When the gas jet was fired, the balloon would look like an orange ball,and when the gas was shut off, it would "vanish". To someone unable to locate the object they would claim to have seen a UFO. So here are two situations, both explainable but there are similarity's to UFO reports. In the first case I only have a blurred photograph, and in the second I only have personal observances, no photos, no written reports, only what I remmber. Yet both situations were real. I think this may explain why UFO's aren't more thouroghly documented, if they really exist. Another example is various secret projects that are sometimes observed. People see them, you read reports in the papers, but there are no photos, no documentation, no verifitcation, until several years pass and the craft are "announced" by the Pentagon. jaz ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Fri, 9 Feb 1996 15:53:35 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: Re: Aplogies to Skunk Works dev On Thu, 8 Feb 1996, Tom Robison wrote: > >Sorry, I'm not usually this grumpy... actually I am...its just that the > >three-letter U-word really gets to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have > >to go back to my home on the planet Zarquon. > > > >--Brett > > Pick us up some hamburgers on your way back, ok? For human or Grey metabolism and with or without the mayo? - --Brett ------------------------------ From: Sal@panix.com (Sal Denaro) Date: Thu, 08 Feb 1996 00:01:47 -0500 Subject: Re: News about Groom Lake In article , you wrote: >* Use of unmanned aircraft to do more than the spy missions they perform now; > Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV) and Uninhabited Reconnaissance > Aerial Vehicles (URAV), able to out-maneuver missiles at 15-20 g, flying at > speeds of Mach 12-15 and operating at altitudes of 85,000-125,000 ft. I wonder what effect jamming the control system would have on a UCAV, or worse yet- mounting a system to broadcast "slow down" messages to a URAV onto a cheap third world SAM. - -- Salvatore Denaro sal@panix.com Spinning dreams with angel wings Yes, I use PGP torn blue jeans/a foolish grin ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 21:33:52 +0700 Subject: (Fwd) Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Forwarded message: From: Self To: mangan@kodak.com (Paul Mangan) Subject: Re: JSTARS, F-15Es and the Gulf Cc: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Thu, 8 Feb 1996 21:31:02 Hey, don't get me wrong, now. We did have success against Scuds. We did find a bunch of them, and when we found them, we killed them. We had notable success in determining Scud launch sites soon after launch and when we had assets in range, we reduced them to their component parts. What has been coming out since the war is that we had a very tough time locating the mobile launcers (as opposed to missile storage sites) before we saw them launch or getting there in time if we didn't already had assets airborne and in range. A lot of them remained operational throughout the conflict despite the enormous amount of resources committed agains them. Even USAF now acknowledges this which is why they're working so hard to improve our tactical recon capability with UAVs and the like. One nice thing about stealthy recon is that if the target doesn't know it's been located it, usually won't move before we get there. As for air-to-air, the record speaks for itself. We dominated the air battle killing a lot of them, and as far as I know the Iraqis only got 1 confirmed kill on us (with a second possible). Art ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #616 ********************************* 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". 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