From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #621 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Wednesday, 14 February 1996 Volume 05 : Number 621 In this issue: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Re: SW/NASA? Re: SW/NASA? Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #619 Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. aerodynamics of explosions "The Movies" Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Operation ARGUS film. Re: Operation ARGUS film. Broken Arrow - Readdressal Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Ben Rich's book out in paper Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #619 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: megazone@world.std.com (MegaZone) Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 20:01:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Once upon a time Arif, Rahan shaped the electrons to say... > Has anyone seen the movie "Broken Arrow" yet? Any thoughts on the > unusual crash of the B-2 stealth? Yes, a *classic* John Woo action film - gotta love slow-mo. Don't see it for accuracy. For one, it wasn't a B-2, it was a B-3 - a fictional craft. It was obviously a smaller ship, looked like a medium bomber. Twin engined instead of 4. They did a pretty good job on the design, believable enough for a film. There really isn't anything skunky about the film, just a decent action movie as far as action films go. - -MZ - -- megazone@world.std.com 510-527-0944 MegaZone's Waste Of Time Moderator: anime fanfic archive, ftp.std.com /archives/anime-fan-works; rec.arts.anime.stories - Maintainer: Ani Difranco Mailing List - Mail to majordomo@world.std.com with 'subscribe ani-difranco' in the body. ------------------------------ From: chosa@chosa.win.net (Byron Weber) Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 18:47:26 Subject: Re: SW/NASA? >On Fri, 9 Feb 1996, Byron Weber wrote: >> >> Roaming a bookstore I came across a title something like, "One Of A >> Kind;" all about experimental planes. The majority seem to have >> been built for NASA. Question: Has the Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works >> done any projects for NASA? >> >> Byron >> >The Linear Aerospike Reuseable Launch Vehicle proposed by Lockmart >is a Skunk Works design. Starfighters have been used as chase planes, and >there are SR-71s being used which you can ask our esteemed Ms Shafer >about. >--Brett > Thank you The definitive answer came from the esteemed Mr. Miller, "...none dedicated.." The operative word being "dedicated." The referenced projects are adapted from other dedicated projects. Byron ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 23:52:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: SW/NASA? I don't quite understand your last sentence there, but many of the aircraft mentioned in that book were not dedicated aircraft. Rather, they were testbed aircraft, used for a variety of experiments. For example, we've used the SR-71 937 (sometimes called a YF-12C) for studying low(ish)-L/D approaches, engine-inlet interaction, stability and contro, high-supersonic heating, and a number of other experiments. This is ot exactly what I'd call a dedicated aircraft. For what it's worth, I mentioned this book before Christmas, as 937 and the F-104s made it list-relevant. Ditto, I think, the Jetstar, which I believe came out of the Skunk Works. As I mentioned then, the authors are not entirely au courant with the Blackbird, but it's an extremely good book (of course, I have to tell you that they quoted quite a lot of one of my papers in it, so I'm a little biased). 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.... On Mon, 12 Feb 1996, Byron Weber wrote: > > >On Fri, 9 Feb 1996, Byron Weber wrote: > >> > >> Roaming a bookstore I came across a title something like, "One Of A > >> Kind;" all about experimental planes. The majority seem to have > >> been built for NASA. Question: Has the Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works > >> done any projects for NASA? > >> > >> Byron > >> > >The Linear Aerospike Reuseable Launch Vehicle proposed by Lockmart > >is a Skunk Works design. Starfighters have been used as chase planes, and > >there are SR-71s being used which you can ask our esteemed Ms Shafer > >about. > >--Brett > > > Thank you > > The definitive answer came from the esteemed Mr. Miller, "...none > dedicated.." The operative word being "dedicated." The > referenced projects are adapted from other dedicated projects. > > Byron > > > > ------------------------------ From: Wyatt Earp Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 21:58:53 -0800 Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #619 At 04:25 PM 2/12/96 -0800, mcnuttrt@MIT.EDU (Ross T. McNutt) wrote: >UAV Operations Thread > As for destroying the satellites that is unnessecary and rather >impractical for most (all) countries. First, they would have to have an >active anti-satellite program that could reach geostationary orbit (no >such system exists today). Second, in order to be effective they must >be able to take out all the possible satellites that would be used. For >military and commercial communication systems this is a significant >number. During the Gulf War I believe we had on the order of 6 to10 >satellites servicing the area, including DSCS, Intelsat, Inmarsat, and >skynet systems, all of which could be used to command UAV systems. Today >we have even more satellites. You think taking out 10-20 satellites would be difficult? If we don't have the much-talked about directed-energy weapons, (which we don't...) we could just equip the space shuttle with some laser guided missiles. Or we could grab a few with the robot arm and take prisoners. If the pilots are feeling a bit energetic, they could chase a few down and try to 'swat' them into a lower orbit with the arm! This assumes you have handy access to an orbiter... not everyone does. Wyatt ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 20:45:31 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" If you've seen the 'making of' the Sly Stallone mountain climbing movie that's been on HBO, then you probably heard them describe why the 'explosion' aspects of the special effects is not so easy to cause to resemble the 'real' look of a crash-induced explosion. They're all done using scale models, some large and some small, and they have a formula with which they must pair the camera speed and the size of the model to get a final cut that seems 'realistic'. Also what's realistic on screen may bear little relationship to what a real explosion looks like in real life. What they're looking for is the correct 'impresson' or 'expectation' that the audience requires to believe the resultant effect. I hope this bears a slight resemblance to an answer for you. ;-) regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 20:59:46 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" On Tue, 13 Feb 1996, BaDge wrote: > Also what's realistic on screen may bear little relationship to what a real > explosion looks like in real life. What they're looking for is the correct > 'impresson' or 'expectation' that the audience requires to believe the > resultant effect. Do you notice that on the screen, small arms tend to produce the deep sound of heavy artillery instead of their real firecracker sound? - --Brett ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 00:13:15 +0700 Subject: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Jumping back into this: While it's true that Saddam no doubt didn't get to launch all the Scuds he wanted to, his Scud operations would have to be judged one oof his few successes in the war. Why? Because he succeeded in tying up an enormous amount of Coalition assets hunting them. What he forced us to expend on attempting to kill them was all out of proportion to their actual military threat, assuming he didn't use biologicals (and we know now that he didn't use them on Scuds for fear we would retaliate with nuclear weapons). He succeeded in diverting strike and recon assets from more worthwhile targets because of two fears. One, if he could succeed in getting Israel to take action against him, he might very well succeed in splitting the Coalition and forcing an end to the war on terms more favorable to him. Second, what if he "got lucky" and one or more of his Scuds came down in a heavy concentration of US troops or hit some ships in a harbor? He, like many people, believed that the US will not tolerate taking a significant amount of casualties. The impact of four or five hundred US dead or wounded in one stroke, he believed, may have dramatically lowered US will to stay the course, especially if those losses came not in battle, but in a rear area with people just doing non combat operations. He may have been right, he may have been wrong. The point is that while we probably limited where and how often he could fire, it doesn't seem likely there ever was a time when he couldn't launch at least some Scuds whenever he chose to. As mentioned by me and others, the problem wasn't killing mobile Scud launchers when we could find them, the problem was finding them in the first place, and then getting a strike package there in time to hit them before they could be moved far enough that the arriving attack aircraft couldn't locate them before having to turn back for fuel. There also was an identification problem, since some of what had been identified from the air as fresh mobile launchers turned out to be something else. The most successful locaters and designators apparently were SOF forces, some of which would enter a village and then hide under cover for days on end observing and locating launchers. They'd then feed the locations back to our forces and sometimes would actually designate the targets for our aircraft. In fact, the last action involved a massive air assault against multiple launchers. It was believed that Saddam was planning a "go for broke" launch in a final attempt to bring Israel into the war. From what I've been able to pick up, All the actual launchers that were attacked in that assault were located and designated by SOF forces. There is a direct relevance to this list. We often tend to think of stealth and/or very high speed in a strategic sense, but it can be a great tactical asset. If an airborne recon platform locates a launcher, but is itself observed, the recon platform becomes a target. The RA-5C during the Viewnam war suffered the highest rate of combat losses. That's because the N. Vietnamese knew they'd always be coming right after a strike and would put everything they had in the air against them. Similary, recon could expect to be a target if it appears to be on the verge of locating a launcher. This didn't happen in the Gulf War because of the destruction of a lot of the AA defense. However, if a launcher thought it had been located by a recon asset it saw, it could relocate before the strike package could arrive. If we had truly stealthy recon, be it UAV or manned, the mobile launcher would not know anything was in the area, let alone that it had been located, and would stay put. This was one of the big contributors to SOF success. The Iraqiis didn't know they had been seen. Alternatively, if the recon asset could detect from very high altitude and could move very fast, like the SR-71, there wouldn't be time for the launcher to get away, even if it realized it had been targeted. Also, if we could get the info back really fast, and/or cover a very large area, we could afford to have large strike packages in the air (I know we did that sometimes with AWACS searches, but AWACS could only see what happened after launch), ready to react. Now add in a stealth strike aircraft, and the launcher wouldn't even have warning that the strike was on the way... Art ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 03:46:28 PST Subject: Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. George, Yep, your right but those were contrived demonstrations ala Sgt. York. This is a real, producable mobile system that you can buy today if you have the dust. I think the mid-east countries are placing the first orders. Chuck ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 04:00:09 PST Subject: aerodynamics of explosions "The Movies" If you have a keen eye and a knowledge of turbulence you can always spot a fake. If you ever watch an explosion in slow-mo, you will notice rotation cells in the propogating flame. The size of the these cells will decrease as the energy cascades down and outward. You can really see this phenomina in a fresh, growing cumulus cloud. While not an explosion, the same mechanics are at work. With a model explosion, the gasses involved are still 12 inches to the foot scale, so they still behave normally. The result is that the flames will be "out of scale." The best place to see this is in the Godzilla movies, were everything blows up. When Godzilla uses the fire-breath on the tanks this is clearly evident. The flames are single cells about 30 feet long! Chuck ------------------------------ From: mangan@Kodak.COM (Paul Mangan) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 96 07:37:39 EST Subject: Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) Art says: > and/or cover a very large area, we could afford to have large strike > packages in the air (I know we did that sometimes with AWACS > searches, but AWACS could only see what happened after launch), > ready to react. According to written resources (and we know them not to be always accurate) the AWACS can see on the ground activity also. Vehicle and troop movement was tracked and when vehicle movement looked suspicious, it was investigated. -Paul > > Now add in a stealth strike aircraft, and the launcher wouldn't even > have warning that the strike was on the way... > > > > Art > ------------------------------ From: BROWN A <92913938@mmu.ac.uk> Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 13:37:47 GMT Subject: Operation ARGUS film. On Monday night, the BBC TV series "Horizon" had a programme about ionospheric research (mainly HAARP), which featured some GREAT footage of the operation ARGUS tests (covered by Andreas last June) as well as film of one of the Dominic 1 Starfish launch failiures (an on-the-pad explosion). I know this is off-charter, but seeing as we had a full programme summary from Andreas, I hope no-one will mind me bringing it up again. I don't know if you can get it in the States, but if you can, watch out for it, as its very good. The actual prog title is "Masters of the Ionosphere" ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 09:25:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Operation ARGUS film. On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, BROWN A wrote: > On Monday night, the BBC TV series "Horizon" had a programme > about ionospheric research (mainly HAARP), which featured some GREAT Sounds really interesting. Will it be on again? > States, but if you can, watch out for it, as its very good. The > actual prog title is "Masters of the Ionosphere" Hah, that's a laugh. Who the heck thinks they are Masters of the Ionosphere. Not those semi-furry bipeds that think they run the planet, eh? ;-) regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Wed, 14 Feb 96 08:30:58 EST Subject: Broken Arrow - Readdressal ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Now with the John "Revolta" in the movie release of *Broken Arrow*, the information below may be of some interest. Terry ______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Bill, this came over the net on 29 August 1995 thru Skunk Works: Dean W. Smeaton wrote: >We all probably know what the code words 'Broken Arrow' mean- a nuke >'incident'. If Uncle Sam has code words for a nuke incident, do they have >words to describe the magnitude of the incident? If anyone knows these >designations, or can suggest where to conduct research, I'd appreciate it. I don't know about the equivalent code words for incidents and accidents involving biological and/or chemical weapons/materials, but here is a description of the 4 categories/classes of incidents/accidents concerning nuclear weapons/materials/facilities (or components of such): 'Dull Sword' - ------------ Incident that (could) lead to uncontrolled reactions of nuclear material with danger for life, health or materials. 'Faded Giant' - ------------- Uncontrolled chain-reaction in nuclear-reactor with damage of reactor-core or contamination of atmosphere or environment. 'Bent Spear' - ------------ Incident with (component of) nuclear weapon leading to: * heavy damage of weapon, remanufacture, replacement or new (AEC/NRC/DNA) approving necessary; * immediate counter-action necessary for security reasons; * possibility of negative publicity or loss of secrecy; * possibility of (partial) activation of nuclear weapon; * possibility of accident, which [has] to be told to the IAEA; 'Broken Arrow' - -------------- Accident or incident with (component of) nuclear weapon like: * nuclear explosion; * conventional explosion or burning of weapon; * radiological contamination; * hijacking, thievery or loss of weapon or components; * real or possible danger for people; There have been at least 32 reported 'Broken Arrow' incidents over the past 50 years, and several others are probably still classified. I suspect that even more incidents, belonging to the other categories have also taken place. -- Andreas - --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Paul 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: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Wed, 14 Feb 96 8:49:58  Subject: Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) AWACS, like the E-2C, is designed to find and track airborne targets. As such it is optimized for that role, which it does quite well. One of the features built in, which gives it the ability to look down and pick things out of ground clutter, is that it normally will reject a return from anything moving slower than a certain speed. A stationary or slow moving vehicle is something it doesn't see very well, if at all. You can turn the moving target indicator off, but then you also get ground clutter and a stationary launcher probably won't be visible. This is one of the big reasons JSTARS was developed, sort of an AWACS for ground targets. That's also one of the reasons JSTARS was rushed to the Gulf even though it was in early development. You'll note how dramatically different the antenna configuration is. An AWACS might be able to theoretically find mobile launchers that haven't fired, but I wouldn't depend on it too much. On the other hand, as soon as a Scud is launched and accelerates above 60 knots or so, it's going to be visible to an AWACS, if there's one in range. Given the position and course of the missile, the AWACS should be able to determine the launch point. If strike assets are close by, they can be dispatched to the location and hopefully arrive before the launcher has time to move. The problem here remains, though, that to use this technique the launcher gets to fire at least once. Our results on finding launchers indicates that we had severe problems in the before launch phase. Keep in mind also, that the Scud and its launcher was fairly primitive by current standards. The Soviets, and no doubt others, has developed some very effective mobile launchers that would be much harder to locate than Scud launchers were. That's one of the reasons there's such a push on improved recon and identification technology now, preferably the kind that doesn't let the target know it's been found or allow it time to react. Art Hanley Despite what you might want to Believe, none of any of the above Even remotely has anything to do With my employer. ------------------------------ From: Gerald.Welch@Corp.Sun.COM (Gerald Welch) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 09:13:03 -0800 Subject: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" Sorry, I forgot to specifiy that I begin counting when I see someone grab a revolver. I too have a Glock (22) chambered in .40 S&W, 15 in the clip one in the pipe. - -J - ----- Begin Included Message ----- From dadams@netcom.com Wed Feb 14 01:24 PST 1996 From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Subject: Re: Broken Arrow "The Movie" To: Gerald.Welch@Corp (Gerald Welch) Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 01:20:17 -0800 (PST) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > - Guns don't run out of bullets unless it serves the plot > (This drives me nutts, as I am compelled to count every > shot up to 6 and then expect a re-load scene). 6?? Where have you been hiding? :) I have 19 and 30 round magazines for my Glock. Most decent handguns will hold at least 15 rounds. - ----- End Included Message ----- ------------------------------ From: russellk@BIX.com Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 15:22:28 -0500 (EST) Subject: Ben Rich's book out in paper For those who didn't know, Skunk Works, by Ben Rich and Leo Janos, is now out in a trade paperback edition at $12.95. If you haven't read this, here's your chance at a more reasonable price. I'm only partway through, but there's some really fascinating, wonderful stuff inside. ============================================ Russell Kay, Technical Editor, BYTE Magazine 1 Phoenix Mill Lane, Peterborough, NH 03458 603-924-2591; fax 603-924-2550 russellk@bix.com ============================================ ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 14:34:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) On Wed, 14 Feb 1996, Art Hanley wrote: > There is a direct relevance to this list. We often tend to think of > stealth and/or very high speed in a strategic sense, but it can be a > great tactical asset. If an airborne recon platform locates a > launcher, but is itself observed, the recon platform becomes a > target. The RA-5C during the Viewnam war suffered the highest rate > of combat losses. That's because the N. Vietnamese knew they'd > always be coming right after a strike and would put everything they > had in the air against them. Similary, recon could expect to be a > target if it appears to be on the verge of locating a launcher. This > didn't happen in the Gulf War because of the destruction of a lot > of the AA defense. However, if a launcher thought it had been ^^ It is not because most fighter is flying at night? During vietnam, most of the fighter are flying day light mission. May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Wed, 14 Feb 1996 12:39:50 PST Subject: Re: Killing Scuds in the Gulf (mildly long) >It is not because most fighter is flying at night? During >Vietnam, most of the fighter are flying day light mission. > > May the Force be with you > Su Wei-Jen > E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu Agreed. Flying a 117 or a B2 over enemy territory in daylight would certaintly require nerves of steel. Once a B2 is located, its dead. Period. It can`t shoot back, it can`t evade, and it can`t outrun. Chuck PS, heard a new nickname for F16: "Bottle Rocket" It was explained to me that they go ssswwwwiiiishhhhhh.........Poof! ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Wed, 14 Feb 96 13:21:07  Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #619 RE: UAV thread... Actually, you don't need to knock down the sattelites, just jam the commo form the sattelites, then you get to play the came of ECM, ECCM, CECCM, Son of ECM, The Return of ECM, ECM-5: The Final Chapter, The Search for ECM, etc... Also it's funny that using the Shuttle's mobile arm to snag sattelites in LEO. When the Shuttle first started flying, the Soviet propaganda machine cranked up saying that it was really just an anti-sattelite weapon. As "proof", they cited the manipulator arm which they said was obviously designed to grab the simple peace-loving unmanned orbital scientific research stations heroically lofted into the cosmos by the Worker's Paradise. Obviously, they were right... Art Hanley Don't even think, not for a second, That what I said above has anything To do with my employer's position. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #621 ********************************* 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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