From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #623 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Friday, 16 February 1996 Volume 05 : Number 623 In this issue: Re[2]: BROKEN ARROW definitions 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft (re:) Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft Electromagnetic drag reduction broken arrows. Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. Re: 1) Air spikes. Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps B2 $ Sounds... B2 $ Message to Ted Cormaney Re: Electromagnetic drag reduction Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adaptative aircraft Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps 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: "Terry Colvin" Date: Thu, 15 Feb 96 09:27:25 EST Subject: Re[2]: BROKEN ARROW definitions PINNACLE BROKEN ARROW - Provides the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and appropriate commanders with notification of an accident, incident, or event involving nuclear weapons or nuclear components which does not create a risk of outbreak of nuclear war, but which involves nuclear detonation, nonnuclear detonation or burning of a nuclear weapon; radioactive contamination, the jettisoning of a nuclear weapon or nuclear component, or public hazard, actual or implied. ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: BROKEN ARROW definitions Author: BaDge at smtp-fhu Date: 15/02/1996 1030 Boy, they come outta the woodwork from time to time, eh? Great post. One thing I was wondering about... Where did I get the impression that Faded Giant was called where there was merely an airspace incursion? Fawcett/Clear Intent? I wouldn't be surprised if he was reaching, because that was the first place I heard that term and Peter's glossary looks pretty firm. regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 96 13:32:57 EST Subject: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft (re:) J. Pharabod writes: > The article concludes: 'Even with these developments, full-sized aircraft > that change shape in mid-air are unlikely to fly this century. Do they realize the "next century" is only four years away? - -- A hundred years from now, it will not matter what kind of house I live in, how much is in my bank account, or what kind of car I drive, but the world may be a different place because I was important in the life of a child. Douglas J. Tiffany dougt@u011.oh.vp.com Varco-Pruden Buildings Van Wert, Ohio ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:29:32 PST Subject: Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft Sure seems flakey. The effect of a shock wave is to compress the air in a very short distance. What they claim as a propulsive method would, if I understand, increase the pressure in front of the aircraft. Seems like you`d end up going backwards! Also, can you imagine a power source to make it work? They`re talking gigwatts. Seems like the ultimate power to weight ratio would be insignificant. The only "Aerospike" I`m familiar with is a variable-area rocket nozzle. This would allow a rocket motor to work well at all altitudes, and would be very beneficial. It also allows the use of regenerative manifolds to "lift" the vapor back into the tanks after powering the pump turbines. (The REAL cool technology in rockets is the pumps that must supply the propellant mass flow to the high pressure combustion chamber-think about it!) Clue #2: Magnetohydrodynamics is a liquid technology. It has nothing to do with shock waves. Mitsubishi Heavy Industies built a superconducting MHD boat. It sailed Tokyo harbor at a whopping 3 Kts. I can see MHD in a sub but not in an A/C. Chuck ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:35:40 PST Subject: Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adapative aircraft Sure seems flakey. The effect of a shock wave is to compress the air in a very short distance. What they claim as a propulsive method would, if I understand, increase the pressure in front of the aircraft. Seems like you`d end up going backwards! Also, can you imagine a power source to make it work? They`re talking gigwatts. Seems like the ultimate power to weight ratio would be insignificant. The only "Aerospike" I`m familiar with is a variable-area rocket nozzle. This would allow a rocket motor to work well at all altitudes, and would be very beneficial. It also allows the use of regenerative manifolds to "lift" the vapor back into the tanks after powering the pump turbines. (The REAL cool technology in rockets is the pumps that must supply the propellant mass flow to the high pressure combustion chamber-think about it!) Clue #2: Magnetohydrodynamics is a liquid technology. It has nothing to do with shock waves. Mitsubishi Heavy Industies built a superconducting MHD boat. It sailed Tokyo harbor at a whopping 3 Kts. I can see MHD in a sub but not in an A/C. Chuck ------------------------------ From: George Allegrezza 15-Feb-1996 1654 Date: Thu, 15 Feb 96 17:06:06 EST Subject: Electromagnetic drag reduction Chuck writes, re electromagnetic drag reduction: >Also, can you imagine a power source to make it work? They`re talking >gigwatts. Seems like the ultimate power to weight ratio would >be insignificant. Yes. The logical power source would be a nuclear reactor. That would go a long way towards explaining a lot of UFO stuff, too: 1) OF COURSE people who get exposed to the vehicle get radiation poisioning 2) OF COURSE the national labs are involved 3) OF COURSE they run it out of the Nevada Test Site 4) and OF COURSE it's secret like a bastard. Can you imagine the shitstorm that would erupt if someone like Mike Wallace found out that "they" were flying NOO-CLEAR REACTORS RIGHT OVER OUR HOUSES?!! I'm not saying this is the case, it's just a plausible explanation. We know that Northrop basically proved the concept back in the 1960s, aimed at reentry vehicle manuverability and drag reduction. A compact airborne nuclear reactor is certainly achievable with current technology. Safety and operational effectiveness, not to mention the support/flight hours ratio, would be huge question marks. Again, it could be part of the Grand Unified Theory of UFOs, or it could be just more grassy knoll bullshit. George George Allegrezza | Digital Equipment Corporation | "Focus, Pinky, focus!!" Connectivity Software Business | Littleton MA USA | -- the Brain allegrezza@ljsrv2.enet.dec.com | ------------------------------ From: mjm@wru.org (Michael Masterson) Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 14:42:23 -0600 (CST) Subject: broken arrows. Thanks to the two folks that have posted the definitions of broken arrows, and such, I'm glad to have that again, but what I was thinking about was the list of incidents that was posted here about the same time, could someone repost that? (I've also got a couple of people emailing me saying "when you get it could you send me a copy", so a repost to the group wouldn't be too outta line. (Grins)) - -- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Michael Masterson mjm@wru.org ------------------------------ From: Side Show Marc Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:05:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. Just wondering, the Katyusha rockets, aren't they the same rockets used by the (former) Soviets to bombard Berlin at the closing day of WWII? (And is Katyusha Russian for "little Kate?") I could see how an energy weapon would work against the son of scuds that Saddam had, but against a volly weapon I don't think you would be able to take enough of them out to avoid destruction of the target. Still, one might argue that any incoming that didn't make it to you was a good thing. ___________ Marc Studer ___________________________________________ "Life is a fair approximation of reality." - Jacques Portman ______________________________________ mstuder@spu.edu ___________ On Thu, 15 Feb 1996 Jay.Waller@analog.com wrote: > >From the report in Flight International that Andreas posted: > > >>Israeli newspapers said the technology would be effective against Katyusha > rockets, a favored weapon of guerrillas fighting Israel in south Lebanon. > > Benayahu refused to give details of the test. Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth daily > newspaper said in the test the laser system succeeded in hitting an unarmed > Katyusha missile. > > Aren't the Katyushas relatively small and fired in volleys from a mobile > platform (truck) ? Looks to me like you would need a battery of these systems > to defend against such a threat and have to rapidly cycle between targets. > I know its just in the design phase, but I wonder how difficult its going to be > to go from a single kill to a whole barrage of rockets. > Just wondering. > > Regards, > Jay > > > ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 17:35:42 -0800 Subject: Re: 1) Air spikes. >Sure seems flakey. The effect of a shock wave is to compress the air >in a very short distance. What they claim as a propulsive method would, >if I understand, increase the pressure in front of the aircraft. Seems >like you`d end up going backwards! Yes, but a shock does something else, it also imparts momentum to the air. That is what the 'spike' action of 'air spike' is all about. In one of John Anderson's books (maybe it was Modern Compressible Flow) he derives the theoretical maximum momentum that can be transfered from a moving shock to the gas medium it's traveling in. I believe from memory that the result was for an infinite Mach No shock, moving though air at rest, that the air would end up moving at Mach 4 to 5 or somewhere in there, after the shock passed through it (in fact, this is the main thrust mechanism of some Pulsed Detonation Engines). He also derived the general equation for much slower shocks in air. Maybe I should check first however. So the spike in airspike is actually the action of a shock (caused by a detonation immediately in the path of the vehicle) moving air off to the side of the vehicle where the annular inlet is. The air spike had nothing to do with propulsion save to move the air to the inlet annulus which surrounds the vehicle, since the vehicle is disk shaped, and as you say Chuck, it would also pressurize the air as well. Now if you've all been following this, a big problem, assuming that a detonation could be caused, is to shape the detonation shock to impart the right momentum to the air in front of the vehicle. In the operational airspike concept the detonation is caused by a microwave directed energy beam. In the successful wind tunnel test, the detonation was caused at the end of a physical pole which was attached to the front of the vehicle (a metal spike instead of an air spike, if you will) model. The whole reason for this air spike stuff is to design a hypersonic vehicle that used air for propulsion which physically doesn't look anything like traditional hypersonic vehicle designs, which use forbody shape to direct and compress airflow to the inlet. The forebody on a these airspike disk designs is nonexistant. So they are quite different than traditional hypersonic designs. Since you're also moving air out of the way of the vehicle, the additional desire is to reduce friction forces on the vehicle as well. >Also, can you imagine a power source to make it work? They`re talking >gigwatts. As Doc Brown said ... 18.8 jigawatts, ... Great Scott! > Seems like the ultimate power to weight ratio would >be insignificant. Well, all the power for thrust, in the original concept, is off the vehicle, so the Isp's are quite high. Little or no (I recall?) fuel. >The only "Aerospike" I`m familiar with is a variable-area rocket nozzle. That's different. This confuses everybody. One is AirSpike the other AeroSpike. yes, they're too close. >This would allow a rocket motor to work well at all altitudes, and would >be very beneficial. Yes. > It also allows the use of regenerative manifolds >to "lift" the vapor back into the tanks after powering the pump >turbines. You don't dump the turbine exhaust overboard or burn it, as in the many different types of rocket cycles, you cycle the gas back to the tanks? > (The REAL cool technology in rockets is the pumps that >must supply the propellant mass flow to the high pressure >combustion chamber-think about it!) Yes I agree. Cool stuff! >Clue #2: >Magnetohydrodynamics is a liquid technology. It has nothing to do with >shock waves. Well, perhaps, in usual usage it's a plasma term. There are many non-liquid phase applications from generating power to seeding rocket/jet exhausts to get a higher flow rate. > Mitsubishi Heavy Industies built a superconducting >MHD boat. It sailed Tokyo harbor at a whopping 3 Kts. Yes, the J (or current) in the JXB body force vector equation had a rather low value there. The J can get much larger however. In the Air Spike concept, the J is a very large value as the Mach number is definitely way into the hypersonic realm. The actual propulsion for the Air Spike is the whirl in the plasma caused by the JXB body force. The air plasma flow crosses the magnetic field generated on the vehicle which will causes the JXB whirl action, imparting acceleration, just like the action of a fan in a turbofan or compressor stage section (compressor maps). This is the MHD Fan that is talked about. I agree that it might be nice to look at an afterbody as well to expand the flow back to ambient. >I can see MHD in a sub but not in an A/C. The Air Spike concept is very interesting, and it should be possible to develop it to see if it really works with existing tunnell technology. It's also a lot easier to cause detonations using chemical based methods as well. Perhaps a chemical detonation generated just on the upper part of the vehicle would be interesting to study. Pulsed Detonation Engines (PDE's) require a precisely shaped detonation shock but PDE's use chemical agents to cause the detonation, so it seems like the concept could be developed further without reliance on microwave technology to me, but uwaves would definitely be cool! I'd like to generate them on board though. larry ------------------------------ From: "Mark E. Schmidt" Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 02:17:14 UT Subject: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps Recent comments regarding not using expensive stealth acft in daylight made me wonder what became of the past experiments with mounting lights on the front of acft, adjusting them to match the luminance of the background, thus *poof*. Also haven't seen any discussion here of the liquid crystal coatings being tried, that can chameleon w/ different electrical currents passed thru them. ------------------------------ From: "Mark E. Schmidt" Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 01:55:30 UT Subject: B2 $ REQUEST: 5262 ROBERT BELL BRIEFING ON B-2S REVIEW--February 8, 1996--Robert Bell, Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control at the National Security Council, briefed reporters on the decisions the President made as a result of the National Security Council's review of the B-2 bomber. Bell said the $493 million added by Congress to the B-2 program in the Fiscal Year 1996 authorization and appropriation bills will be spent on procurement of B-2 components, upgrades, and modifications that would be of value for the existing fleet of 20 B-2 bombers. The Administration will continue its current B-2 program, which includes about $7 billion over the next 5 years to buy, deploy, and operate the 20 B-2s and upgrade them to the more capable block 30 configuration. Bell said the Administration believes that no additional B-2s are required and will not include money for additional B-2s in its Fiscal Year 1997 budget. He said the Defense of Defense will, however, expand an ongoing study of deep attack munitions options to examine tradeoffs between long-range bombers, land- and sea-based tactical aircraft, and missiles that are used to strike the enemies' rear area. ------------------------------ From: Corey Lawson Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 20:11:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: Sounds... I hate it when the Foley/Sound FX people do not match sounds to the objects making them... most noticable with helos (i.e., non-Jet Ranger helo making Jet Ranger sound/Huey sound), but jets also occaisionally. - -------------------------------+--------------------------------------------- Corey Lawson + Daddy lets me drive slowly around the UW Bothell Computer Facilities + driveway on Tuesdays... but only on Tuesdays csl@u.washington.edu + -the Rainman 206.685.5209 + - -------------------------------+--------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: "Mark E. Schmidt" Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 01:57:59 UT Subject: B2 $ REQUEST: 5260 PRESS SECRETARY'S STATEMENT ON B-2 BOMBER REVIEW--February 8, 1996--President Clinton met with Vice President Gore, Chief of Staff Panetta, Secretary of Defense Perry, Deputy Secretary of Defense White, and Deputy National Security Adviser Berger on February 6 to discuss the National Security Council review of B-2 Bomber acquisition options. As a result of the review, the President determined that the $493 million added by Congress to the B-2 program in FY 1996 will be spent on procurement of B-2 components, upgrades, and modifications that would be of value for the existing fleet of B-2 bombers. The President noted that the Administration will continue its current B-2 program, which includes about $7 billion over the next 5 years to buy and deploy 20 B-2's and upgrade them to the more capable Block-30 configuration. He said the Administration believes that no additional B-2's are required and, therefore, will not include any money for additional B-2's in its Fiscal Year 1997 budget. The President said that the Department of Defense will, however, expand an ongoing study of deep attack munitions options to examine tradeoffs between long-range bombers, land- and sea-based tactical aircraft, and missiles that are used to strike the enemy's rear area. ------------------------------ From: "Art Hanley" Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 21:16:48 +0700 Subject: Message to Ted Cormaney Sorry to force everyone to put up with this. Ted: If you're still on this list, Prodigy is not recognizing your mail address. Contact me @ betnal@ns.net. Art ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 01:33:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Electromagnetic drag reduction On Thu, 15 Feb 1996, George Allegrezza 15-Feb-1996 1654 wrote: > 4) and OF COURSE it's secret like a bastard. Can you imagine the > shitstorm that would erupt if someone like Mike Wallace found out > that "they" were flying NOO-CLEAR REACTORS RIGHT OVER OUR HOUSES?!! > > I'm not saying this is the case, it's just a plausible explanation. We know > that Northrop basically proved the concept back in the 1960s, aimed at reentry > vehicle manuverability and drag reduction. A compact airborne nuclear reactor > is certainly achievable with current technology. Safety and operational > effectiveness, not to mention the support/flight hours ratio, would be huge > question marks. The head of Aerospace Department of my school archieved already a clear nuclear engine. He separate the radiactive residuos from the exhaust. This research was already done a couple years ago. But, to get in the production, will take another 20 to 30 years approximately. May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 01:45:14 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps On Fri, 16 Feb 1996, Mark E. Schmidt wrote: > Also haven't seen any discussion here of the liquid crystal coatings being > tried, that can chameleon w/ different electrical currents passed thru them. > I heard about that about 3 years ago. The Army is doing research about that. Even a uniform for the solder that can change the color like a chameleon using electrical currents in the clothe. I don't have further infromation about that, but I wish to have it. Anyway, there is "Stealth Polar Bear" too!!! About a year ago, I read a article where they tried to track Polar Bear to study their migration behavior. So, they come out using a infrared camera to find easily a warm Polar Bear in a cold weather of teh North Pole. Suddenly, they expect the unexpected... Polar Bear can not see in infrared camera!!! They find out that their hair have something special to keep them "Stealth on infrared waves". Now the military is doing research about Polar Bear. Does anyone know any result from that research? Maybe a "monkie uniform" is going to come out of there hehe... May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ From: "J. Pharabod" Date: Fri, 16 Feb 96 11:54:42 MET Subject: Re: 1) Air spikes, 2) Adaptative aircraft >The only "Aerospike" I`m familiar with is a variable-area rocket nozzle. >Charles E. Smith (Thu, 15 Feb 1996 11:29:32 PST) I am not familiar with any aerospike, but, owing to previous postings to this group, I know that "air spike" is not "aerospike" (see also Larry's answer). >Clue #2: >Magnetohydrodynamics is a liquid technology. It has nothing to do with >shock waves. Mitsubishi Heavy Industies built a superconducting >MHD boat. It sailed Tokyo harbor at a whopping 3 Kts. >I can see MHD in a sub but not in an A/C. The name of the Japanese MHD boat is Yamato-one; it has been tested in the Kobe harbor, not in Tokyo. From a photo I have, I would say its length is between 20 and 25 meters. Thanks for the info about its speed, I never managed to find it elsewhere. J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 06:51:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps Just so the group won't think Su is dreaming, I can confirm that part of his post about the tracking of the Polar bear, where they lost the infrared due to the hollow outer hair shafts not radiating heat, losing the imaging qualities in that spectra. regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 07:51:35 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Coming soon, new tech. actually worked. The news agency report was not directly quoted from Flight International (which I don't get anymore since I am in the USA), but Urban Fredriksson posts a weekly Flight International summary at the r.a.m newsgroup, where he wrote: "Nautilus, a US/Israeli laser anti-missile system was test fired on Feb. 6th against a BM-21 rocket, which it hit." I don't know what a "BM-21 rocket" is, but it definitley is an unguided system. The laser seems to have potential against all sorts of artillery in general, not only missiles and rockets, if I understand this right. It seems to work in co-operation with an artillery acquisition radar, and I imagine, that it would make a very nice "last defense" system. Combined with other AA/ABM/ATBM systems, and one of those electronic anti-grenade shields, it could protect troops pretty good in the field -- if and when it 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: jstone@shivasys.com (John Stone) Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 05:03:31 -0800 (PST) Subject: Re: Daylight Stealth Using Floodlamps Hi, Wei-Jen Su wrote: >> I heard about that about 3 years ago. The Army is doing research >>about that. Even a uniform for the solder that can change the color like >>a chameleon using electrical currents in the clothe. I don't have further >>infromation about that, but I wish to have it. >> Anyway, there is "Stealth Polar Bear" too!!! About a year ago, I >>read a article where they tried to track Polar Bear to study their >>migration behavior. So, they come out using a infrared camera to find >>easily a warm Polar Bear in a cold weather of teh North Pole. Suddenly, >>they expect the unexpected... Polar Bear can not see in infrared >>camera!!! They find out that their hair have something special to keep >>them "Stealth on infrared waves". Now the military is doing research >>about Polar Bear. Does anyone know any result from that research? Maybe a >>"monkie uniform" is going to come out of there hehe... The hair of a Polar Bear is hollow (and is actually not white, it's clear!). It traps heat and funnels it down to the skin to help keep the bear warmer. Best, John ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #623 ********************************* 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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