From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #636 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 19 March 1996 Volume 05 : Number 636 In this issue: Re: roving sands 96 subject list BVR missiles Tailless Tall Tales SR-71 article Re: Tailless Tall Tales Re: Tailless Tall Tales Re: Tailless Tall Tales Mary Shafer: Re: Looking for Information on Long Range Missile Kills Trip report copy for you (fwd) Mary, You are amazing. Taiwan Intel Biological Analogies Re: Mary Shafer: Re: Looking for Information on Long Range Missile Kills 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: pattonp@pipeline.com (phil patton) Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 21:23:13 -0500 Subject: Re: roving sands 96 from steve1957@aol.com Roving Sands dates: Move in date is the 19th of May. C-17s and C-5s will begin off loading of troops and supplies at Roswell on the 19th. Flight ops begin May 28th and extend till June 20th. The units attending have not yet been announced, however reports from sources say that the Air Force may (that's may) be flying the SR-71 out of Roswell! Also a Marine Corp Harrier Unit may be based here in Amarillo, flying AV-8B2+s. Open house date has not been set yet. - -- ------------------------------ From: evergrn@warwick.net (George W. Hayes) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 00:40:56 -0500 Subject: subject list Hey skunk-works Iam interested in topics you discuss. Can you please sent a list? Thanx! George ------------------------------ From: David Lednicer Date: Sun, 17 Mar 1996 21:34:35 -0800 (PST) Subject: BVR missiles A little trivia to throw into this discussion: Steve Ritchie, the USAF's only PILOT (vs. crewman) to make ace in Vietnam, scored all five of his victories with the AIM-7 Sparrow. However, as I can best determine, none of these engagements were BVR. My research has also shown that very few, if any of the aircraft shot down by the Israel Air Force have been in BVR engagements. The only exceptions might be their downings of MiG-25s (on 2/13/81, 7/29/81 and 8/31/83), using F-15s. The first downing was a staged ambush, with the AIM-7 fired from 10,000 feet below and at a range of 25 miles. - ------------------------------------------------------------------- David Lednicer | "Applied Computational Fluid Dynamics" Analytical Methods, Inc. | email: dave@amiwest.com 2133 152nd Ave NE | tel: (206) 643-9090 Redmond, WA 98052 USA | fax: (206) 746-1299 ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 03:49:48 PST Subject: Tailless Tall Tales John shares a quote from somewhere (as goofy as it is, it must be NASA) > By eliminating the need (*What!!!!-Chaz*) >for these tail control surfaces, future tailless fighter >aircraft will weigh less, fly farther and be able to survive Huh? A tailless aircraft with GREATER range! And no need for pitch and yaw control. Pretty neat. Impossible, but neat. Wonder which yahoo in congress bought into this one? Don`t you love reporters? They believe anything. Chuck ------------------------------ From: JOHN SZALAY Date: Mon, 18 Mar 96 09:16:10 EST Subject: SR-71 article For those of you with WWW access, AIR & SPACE magazine has a page at http://www.airspacemag.com/ one of the articles online is an interview with Tom Alison retired SR-71 pilot. Makes for interesting reading. The interview does have a few pictures. John jpszalay@tacl.dnet.ge.com ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:27:06 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Tailless Tall Tales Since we've been flying tailless airplanes at Edwards since the '40s, I'm a little taken aback by your apparent disbelief. I saw a big, dark grey, tailless plane flying on Friday, so it's not like we've lost our touch here in the desert. What you're apparently missing is a key to the terminology--"tailless" means no vertical stabilizer or rudder. It does not mean no elevons or ailerons. Ponder the B-2, at least briefly, before you make any further pronunciations. Quite tailless and well controlled. As another example, delta-wing aircraft have no horizonal tails, hence, by your rather peculiar standards, no elevons. If you can get rid of the draggy vertical, you will immediately and obviously decrease the drag, which wil automatically increase the range or the loiter time or the fuel economy (all three are interchangeable). Regards, Mary PS. McAir wrote the press announcement. 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, 18 Mar 1996 Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com wrote: > John shares a quote from somewhere (as goofy as it > is, it must be NASA) > > > By eliminating the need (*What!!!!-Chaz*) > >for these tail control surfaces, future tailless fighter > >aircraft will weigh less, fly farther and be able to survive > > > Huh? A tailless aircraft with GREATER range! And no > need for pitch and yaw control. Pretty neat. Impossible, > but neat. Wonder which yahoo in congress bought into > this one? > Don`t you love reporters? They believe anything. > > Chuck ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 09:44:48 PST Subject: Re: Tailless Tall Tales Mary, I`m VERY surprised at your reply!!!!!!!! Per the work of Ashkenas et. al. of Northrop, and the work by Cornell Aero labs (now Calspan) a pure flying wing is the ABSOLUTE WORST possible planform for a turbojet or turbofan aircraft- period. Visit my home page for some history here http://www.vivanet.com/"csmith9/index.html I have been for the past 10 months spending some spare time trying to get a tailless sailplane design that will give "adequate (say 30 to 1) performance with great difficulty. .It all comes down to the volume you need to enclose. A fuselage works better. No surprise, really, since Mother Nature figured it out millions of years ago. How many flying wing birds are there? Notice that a tuna or shark has small wings and a big fuse. The "flying wing" fishes live on the bottom. Now, as some of you are aware, I do beleive that with a closed-loop RSS system with symetrical sections a large, lightly loaded, a spanloader of moderate sweep would become practical, but only if the bypass ratio on the engines exceeds 75%. Not exactly a stealthy planform! Would be a good high endurance design,-maybe- if the Mach number never gets over 0.3. Remember that without a vertical fin the yaw stability requires a fairly good 1/4C sweep. Stability and control for tailless aircraft is well understood, and actually quite a bit simpler than for a conventional aircraft. All you need for pitch is positive static margin and a POSITIVE moment coefficient. And therein lies the problem. To get the proper moment you give up section efficiency - but you already knew that. No need to wory about downwash effects from the wing! In closing, the B2 is a useless dinosaur that has the range of a C150. It was a known failed concept when it was started. Several prominent people have been quite opposed to the program as based on poor mathmatics from the very beginning. It suffers the very same problems that killed off its forefathers, the, YB49, and the YRB 49. General Hap Arnold knew the problems with spanloaders, and all of his successors have. Remember also that the day after the YB49 set a speed record from Ca. to DC, the Boeing company utterly destroyed the record with a conventional planformed aircraft. Still, my picture of the "YB" over the Capitol made the whole exercise worthwhile! I love spanloaders, but I am realistic. Chuck ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:35:51 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Tailless Tall Tales Want to tell all this to the folks proposing the tailless X-31? Or explain to rays and skates that they can't swim? They're pelagic fish, not bottom dwellers. Irv Ashkenas doesn't work for Northrop, he works for STI (only part time now, he's pretty much retired). If he did work for Northrop, it was more than 30 years ago, because he was a founder of STI. Anything that came out of Cornell Aero Labs is sufficiently out of date that I wouldn't put a lot of stock in it. Considering the techniques used for generating math models back then, it's highly likely that their original model was so bad that no conclusions are meaningful. One bad assumption and the results are useless. What has Calspan had to say in the last few years? Also remember that there was a real conspiracy by the Air Force in the 1950s to prove that flying wings were terrible, following their inability to bully Jack Northrop into teaming with a Texas company that was in the district of a Congressman from Texas on the Armed Forces Subcommittee. 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, 18 Mar 1996 Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com wrote: > Mary, > I`m VERY surprised at your reply!!!!!!!! > > Per the work of Ashkenas et. al. of Northrop, and the > work by Cornell Aero labs (now Calspan) a pure flying > wing is the ABSOLUTE WORST possible planform > for a turbojet or turbofan aircraft- period. > > Visit my home page for some history here > http://www.vivanet.com/"csmith9/index.html > > I have been for the past 10 months spending some > spare time trying to get a tailless sailplane design that > will give "adequate (say 30 to 1) performance > with great difficulty. > > .It all comes down to the volume you need to enclose. > A fuselage works better. No surprise, really, since > Mother Nature figured it out millions of years ago. > How many flying wing birds are there? > Notice that a tuna or shark has small wings and a big > fuse. > The "flying wing" fishes live on the bottom. > > Now, as some of you are aware, I do beleive that > with a closed-loop RSS system with symetrical > sections a large, lightly loaded, a spanloader of > moderate sweep would become practical, but only > if the bypass ratio on the engines exceeds 75%. > Not exactly a stealthy planform! Would be a good > high endurance design,-maybe- if the Mach number > never gets over 0.3. > > Remember that without a vertical fin the yaw > stability requires a fairly good 1/4C sweep. > > Stability and control for tailless aircraft is well understood, > and actually quite a bit simpler than for a conventional > aircraft. All you need for pitch is positive static margin > and a POSITIVE moment coefficient. > And therein lies the problem. To get the proper > moment you give up section efficiency - > but you already knew that. > > No need to wory about downwash effects > from the wing! > > > In closing, the B2 is a useless dinosaur that has the > range of a C150. It was a known failed concept > when it was started. Several prominent people > have been quite opposed to the program as > based on poor mathmatics from the very beginning. > It suffers the very same problems that killed off > its forefathers, the, YB49, and the YRB 49. > > General Hap Arnold knew the problems with spanloaders, > and all of his successors have. > Remember also that the day after the YB49 set a speed record > from Ca. to DC, the Boeing company utterly destroyed the > record with a conventional planformed aircraft. > > Still, my picture of the "YB" over the Capitol made the > whole exercise worthwhile! > I love spanloaders, but I am realistic. > Chuck > ------------------------------ From: Michael Chui Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 19:58:56 -0500 Subject: Mary Shafer: Re: Looking for Information on Long Range Missile Kills Mary granted me permission to repost her response to the list. Michael - ------- Forwarded Message Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 11:16:44 -0500 (EST) From: Mary Shafer Subject: Re: Looking for Information on Long Range Missile Kills To: Michael Chui Cc: Mary Shafer In-Reply-To: <199603180438.XAA04306@moose.cs.indiana.edu> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, the term my friend used was "launched itself". He never touched the trigger. He was just flying as no. 4 in a combat spread doing either cap or barcap, with Master Arm on. His radar had shown a two-man flying toward them and he'd just made visual id on the two A-10s that were flying on essentially a reverse heading about 10K ft below the 18s. All at once he felt a thump on his airplane and he came back inside and focussed on the engine instruments, which were all just fine. Just as he looked up at his stores page and noticed that he was missing a Sparrow, his lead called "who launched that missile?" and he shut down the radar, denying the Sparrow guidance onto the A-10s. When they returned to the boat, they did a computer download and it proved conclusively that he hadn't launched it. He told me that he'd heard that there were at least four such incidents, including his. 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 Sun, 17 Mar 1996, Michael Chui wrote: > Mary: > > >I'm told by a very reliable source (one of the four pilots) that four > >Sparrows were launched by F-18s without any pilot input during the Gulf > >War and immediately after. > > I'm a little confused here. (Well, ok, it's not really that > unusual a condition for me. :-) Are you saying that four Sparrows > left the rails without the pilots firing them? Some kind of "accidental > discharge" in the sky? > > Michael Chui > mchui@cs.indiana.edu - ------- End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------ From: William Seiber Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 01:00:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: Trip report copy for you (fwd) Forwarded message: From tmahood@netcom.com Mon Mar 11 20:05:14 1996 From: tmahood@netcom.com (Tom Mahood) Message-Id: <199603120114.RAA00370@netcom11.netcom.com> Subject: Trip report copy for you To: will@escape.com Date: Mon, 11 Mar 1996 17:14:26 -0800 (PST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 11144 Trip Report by Tom Mahood The Grand Circumnavigation of Area 51 On March 10, 1996, Glenn Campbell and I met Will Seiber at the North Las Vegas airport for a aerial circumnavigation of the Test Site and Nellis Range, including of course, Area 51. Will, who with some friends was on spring break from the University of Oklahoma, was to be the pilot. Normal college students go to Florida, Palm Springs or Mexico for spring break, and some go to Area 51. Will arranged the rental of a Cessna 182 for the adventure. We departed the airport about 7:00 am and started to climb, following Highway 95 to the northwest. The air was smooth and quite clear, with visibility in the 80-100 mile range. Just a perfect day for what we had planned. Exactly what we had planned was a traverse of R-4807A, flying between the Tonopah Test Range and the NTS/Groom airspace. This was the airspace that opened up in July of 1995, allowing civilian air traffic on Sundays when the military had no Red Flag exercises planned. Will had taken the precaution of checking with the local Flight Service Station before we left, to ensure there wouldn't be any surprises. Hah! Shortly after we passed Indian Springs at 8500', we got a nice look at Groom Lake from the south, and an even better view of Papoose Lake. Due to the vibration of the aircraft, the viewing was no better than the further distant Mt. Stirling location. Still, it was a pretty sight. Passing Mercury, we had a good look into the Test Site, with Frenchman Flat and Yucca Flat spread out very fine, with CP-1 perched on its ridge between. Continuing northwest along Highway 95, we had a good peep at Area 27, which used to be the assembly area for the various devices detonated at the NTS. There were a number of smaller buildings there, but were a bit distant to see any details. Next, we came abeam of the Jackass Flats area. The BREN Tower and all the old NERVA facilities and MX missile deployment areas were easily seen, as well as the portal area of the Yucca Mountain project. As we reached the area between Yucca Mountain and Beatty, it was time to head due north into the formerly completely restricted R-4807A airspace. We came to the conclusion that it would probably be a good idea to be in touch with Nellis Control for any warnings of nearby aircraft, so Will gave them a call on the radio. Nellis came back right away and told us we were in restricted airspace and to immediately turn to a heading of 270 degrees (i.e., west) and exit the airspace. Get the hell outta Dodge! Well, THAT was certainly interesting, not to mention unexpected! After turning to the west, we looked at each other, then looked at the map then asked Nellis if they were sure about that? Nellis responded with a terse "yes!" Then, Will read to the controller that part of the aircraft sectional chart where the new restrictions for the area were listed. It didn't seem to impress the controller in the least. Nellis said the area was ALWAYS restricted! We quickly tried to decide what to due next. Even if this guy had his head up his ass, we weren't about to violate instructions and proceed through a restricted area. Not healthy, these guys have planes with guns. Will thought it best to land at Beatty and make a phone call or two (all of us completely forgetting the presence of Glenn's beloved cellular phone in the back seat). As we turned toward Beatty, Will got back on the radio and asked for Nellis' phone number so that we might give them a call from the ground, which he gruffly provided. This must have hit a nerve, because just a few minutes later Nellis came back and informed us that we were cleared to enter R-4807A. Musta been a new guy who finally checked with his boss! With that weirdness out of the way, we headed back north toward the twin radomes on Black Mountain. As we approached it, the Tolicha Peak Electronic Combat Range (TPECR) came into view just to the west, so we detoured over to have a look at that. I had previously seen the facility from Stonewall Peak, but from a direct overhead viewpoint it looked much less substantial. No airstrip, but a lot of expected radar and other electronic emplacements. At the main facility area there were several aluminum warehouse type buildings with large rollup doors. Access was via a paved road from Highway 95, which continued on to the radar facilities atop Black Mountain. All in all, not extremely impressive and certainly not a secret saucer base! However, just a bit further north from the TPECR was what looked like a large desert airstrip with a number of aircraft on it. Now that was worth a look, so we proceeded over to it and circled. It turned out it was some sort of target area made up to look like an airstrip, with a collection of junked planes. Some of the aircraft had their wings detached from the fuselages and placed next to them on the ground. None of us could quite figure out just what kind of planes they were, although there appeared to be an assortment. About this time, we must have been really annoying Nellis, because the radio crackled back into life and Nellis wanted to know "What your intentions were?" Will replied that we would be heading east toward Rachel. Nellis came back and instructed us to proceed toward Rachel without delay. We got the impression that civilian planes don't do this too often and they weren't going to relax until we were out of there. So we started east, marveling at all the weird targets, bomb craters and various pieces of junk out there. Of course we were also keeping our eyes open for secret saucer bases, but this being Sunday, they were apparently closed. We checked out the Gold Flat area, a potential location for the Cheshire Airstrip (but that's another story), and saw nothing. Just desert and bombed areas. We were cruising at about 9,500', so we had a look into the Tonopah Test Range to the north. It's boundaries were fairly apparent due to the perimeter road used to access the cinetheodolites. The main base area of TTR was too far north to make out many details. Unfortunately we didn't get too good a look into Area 19 of the NTS, as our route was a bit north of it and we picked up a bit of sun glare looking south. While we could have turned south and followed the border more closely, we were a bit nervous already at being where we were. Nellis had come back on the radio several times to warn us we were approaching the southerly boundary of TTR, so they might have freaked had we turned directly toward the NTS. But while we might have been nervous, the Nellis boys seemed even more so. At one point they asked what our final destination was going to be (Are they going to be meeting us, we wondered??) and Will described out route back to Las Vegas. Nellis replied "Sightseeing, huh?", to which we could only agree. I noted, with more than passing interest, the antics of our plane's transponder. The transponder flashes a light on the instrument panel whenever it's interrogated by a ground based radar. Normally, it flashes briefly every few seconds or so. In this area it was illuminated almost constantly! We were certainly being scanned a lot and I wondered if the light would burn out. After passing just north of the appropriately named "Saucer Mesa" (strictly due to its shape!!) we crossed over the Kawich Valley just north of Kawich Lake. The lake had what appeared to be a giant bullseye in it, with a pole at its center. Don't know what it was. Slowly, we could see Rachel and the normal world approaching off in the distance. But better than that was a choice view of Groom Lake looking right down the two runways to the south. The west runway still looked to be definitely the longer of the two. We were far enough from the main base so that we really couldn't pick up details, but we observed that the dirt road accessing Groom from the north (Rachel) is paved after it passes through the guard gate. So much for the idea that all really fine secret bases must be at the end of a dirt road. After passing out of the restricted airspace, we collectively breathed a sigh of relief and headed for Rachel. We made a few low passes over Rachel to check things out. It looks about as forlorn from the air as from the ground. Getting bored with that, we turned south, flying over the Tikaboo Valley. We had hoped to get a good view of Bald Mountain and the facility atop it, but after cheating death by crossing the restricted area, we decided to keep our distance and never got a really good view due to aircraft vibration. On the other hand, the view of Groom from high above Tikaboo Valley was nothing short of spectacular. From our vantage point there were no foothills to block the view, so the whole facility sprawled before us. From our height, even Papoose Lake was visible to the south. That view was worth the trip alone, and we weren't even in restricted airspace anymore. Turning a bit to the east to skirt the remaining restricted areas put us right over Tikaboo Peak. It certainly looks flatter from the air. Don't understand why the hike is so hard. There was minor snow and looked to be hikable as of now. The rest of the trip was almost noneventful. I say almost because as we continued south over Highway 93, we needed to contact Las Vegas approach prior to entering the controlled airspace which surrounds the Las Vegas area. After several minutes of wondering why they weren't responding to our radio queries, we realized that the transmitter in our aircraft wasn't working! That was just swell. Will wisely brought along a hand held aircraft radio as a backup, but it appeared we were too far out to make contact with the lower powered handheld radio. Will decided the best way at this point was to drop below the lower ceiling of the controlled airspace and slither our way back to the North Las Vegas airport. Perfectly legal, but we were unable to be anymore than 2,000' or so above the ground. It's situations like this where the engine usually starts to make funny noises, but this time it behaved itself. Finally, with the airport in sight, Will was able to raise them on the handheld and we plopped back down with an exquisitely smooth landing, just after 10:00 am, three hours after we left. The folks at the rental agency seemed to think the problem was simply that the microphone plug was pulled out slightly, but Will had checked that possibility several times in the air. Personally, I think it was all those electronic countermeasures we flew over. Anyway, disaster averted. All in all, an outstanding adventure. I'd highly recommend it for any aircraft buffs or anyone with interest in the NTS/Nellis area. I don't know that I'd do it again, as there just wasn't a whole lot to see, other that what we did see. It was certainly an itch I wanted to scratch. Thanks to Will for his fine pilotage skills, and avoiding the various missiles fired at us.... ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 03:40:36 PST Subject: Mary, You are amazing. Irv Ashkenas was head of aerodynamics for the Northrop Airplane Company. Calspan did the original"flight testing" for the B2 (the nose is in the hangar!) The stuff that came out of Cornell Aero Labs is still being taught at a graduate and post-graduate level at top-ten aerospace universities. There was no conspiracy. The Northrop people admitted they made a mistake. The YB was never going to hit the design point. I have copies of some of the documents. PS Rays and skates, while not benthic, are bottom living creatures. Chuck ------------------------------ From: crm114@erols.com (aka RESIDENT, POSTAL PATRON, and TAXPAYER) Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 11:41:41 -0500 Subject: Taiwan Intel Taipei, Taiwan, March 18 (Reuters) As Taiwan's military leaders moved to strengthen the defenses of Kemoy and Matsu, US intelligence officials acknowledged that these two long-disputed islets may not be the PRC's first objective. "SIGINT intercepts indicate the liklihood of a sharp movement by the elite PRC Long Wong force against the beachhead of Hai-Men," stated the intelligence officer, who requested anonymity. "Obviously this would threaten the strategically important target Poon-Tang." A White House official confirmed that the President has left standing orders to be notified immediately whenever Poon-Tang-related matters arise. The President was awakened with the Hai-Men breaking news, and immediately dressed and returned to the White House. #### /===========================================================\ | ------------------------- | | CRM 114 SSB DISCRIMINATOR | | ------------------------- | | | | ////////////////////////// ================= | | ////////////////////////// | | | | | | ///////AUTODESTRUCT/////// | O | P | E | | | ////////////////////////// | | | | | | ////////////////////////// ================= | | | | | \===========================================================/ ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 13:38:54 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Biological Analogies Assertion: There are no flying wing birds. Conclusion: A flying wing is apparently not a good design for an ornithopter. Assertion: Diamond is very hard and strong. Conclusion: Our skeletons are made of diamond because it is ideal. Were the only, or pricipal criteria for the selection of a flying wing design for the B-2 aerodynamic? ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 20:10:40 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Mary Shafer: Re: Looking for Information on Long Range Missile Kills Remind me about the accidental fire from the Japanese F-15 a couple of month ago. Two Japanese F-15 was doing some dogfighting exercicies, when one of them look on the other F-15, the aircraft have the MAster Arm off and suddenly a Sidewinder was fired "automatically" destroying the aircraft. After the F-15 landed, the found that the Master Arm still off with the pin on it. This was not the only accident from a Sidewinder... It happen couple of times on ground but never in air shooting a friendly aircraft. The F-15s don't suppose to carry real missile while in training but since they must stay in alert as reserve aircrafts, they have to carry real weapons. May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #636 ********************************* 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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