From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #642 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Monday, 1 April 1996 Volume 05 : Number 642 In this issue: Big Safari Secret room.. Darkstar Darkstar First Flight British Police intereset in Darkstar Re: Big Safari micro UAVs Re: British Police intereset in Darkstar Miniature Air-Launched Decoy / miniature turbine engines Re: Darkstar MIG-29 sets height record Re: British Police intereset in Darkstar 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: "Joe Pialet" Date: Fri, 29 Mar 96 06:58:45 +0000 Subject: Big Safari The March 22 Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Star has an article that lists some of the recent significant Skunk Work accomplishments. The list includes the Tier III Minus, JAST, SSTO, SR-71 reactivation and Big Safari. I am familiar with all of them except Big safari. Can anyone tell me what Big safari is? ------------------------------ From: JB Date: Fri, 29 Mar 1996 22:26:26 -0700 Subject: Secret room.. REMEMBER THE P-38 LIGHTNING? Last October ('95) I called my friend Charles Stewart, also a retired engineer from Lockheed Aircraft Corporation, for a chat. Chuck was one of the 21 young (early 20s) engineers that designed the 1937-38, XP-38 in the Lockheed secret room. Which later ecame the Skunk Works, a name derived from the only available older building which had been occupied by a very fragrant family of skunks. I was a new engineer at Lockheed from North American Aviation (later designers of the P-51 Mustang) and was assign to the secret room then situated in a corner of the engineering department with about 90 other engineers, later to become 3000. "Chuck just how many of the original engineers are left." I asked. "I think that there are three of us alive." Chuck replied. "But outside of the two of us I don't know the name of the third and maybe we are the only two left." he added. We continued our conversation with the usual pleasantries of two old friends. We talked about the days we spent at Lockheed engineering, as well as in the secret room. I remembered the first time at, 22 years of age after FBI clearance, I was introduce to the secret room personnel plus the numerous passes and guards to gain entrance to the room. Inside the secret room was the full size wooden mockup of the XP-38. I marveled at the sight of the twin tailed fighter which was then as unique as viewing a cket to the sun. Later, the production P-38 became the Lightning and the pilots loved the flying ability, durability, safety and speed of the two 2000 horsepower Allison engines, The maneuverability was not outstanding compared to the P-51 when I witnessed a test aeria dog fight conducted at Wright Field out of Dayton (OH). After XP-38 preliminary tests, the government planned to attempt a record speed run from coast to coast. The XP was being prepared at March Field just outside of Riverside (CA). Engineer Dan Newell and I flew there in an open cockpit biplane from Burba in light clothing and froze our tootsies. Dan was a wizard with instrument panels, and I, both under Group Engineer Bob Richolt, was familiar with the control system and we helped with some of their problems. While the XP flew at record speed to the east coast, unhurt, Major Kelsey the pilot, buzzed the target field but failed to pull up soon enough and was forced down on an adjoining golf course. As far as I know the XP never flew again but the government aced an order for 20 or so YP-38s with the same configuration, the final production model, almost unchanged, the P-38 was built in the thousands. After the nostalgia, Chuck and I said good-bye, as it turned out, for the last time because in November '95, Chuck ended his tenure on this planet and is positioned in heaven designing jets for the angels. I'm not sure that I like the role as the last near last engineer from the XP-38's secret room. However, the alternative isn't that great , he says, because he and his also retired professor wife Doreen, spend a great deal of time in their 28' motorhome writing while touring Canada and the U.S. with their Springer. "After retirement we were trave agency owners and saw the world for 15 years and now it's the USA." he closed. Paul James Burchett, Lockheed Engineer (ret), Engineering Professor (ret) fax/voc 801 673 9558, Box 2245, St. George, Utah 84771 PS If anyone is left out there from the secret room engineering please touch base. - -- ------------------------------ From: Mickeyboat@aol.com Date: Sat, 30 Mar 1996 19:24:34 -0500 Subject: Darkstar Why haven't we heard about the extremely successful Darkstar (Tier II-) first flight that occured yesterday morning?? This joint Boeing/Lockheed Skunk Works vehicle is about the oddest looking thing I've ever seen fly! ------------------------------ From: Jim Blue Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 11:21:22 -0500 Subject: Darkstar First Flight Here is the text from an online announcment of the first flight. SEATTLE (Mar 30, 1996 7:58 p.m. EST) -- The battlefield of tomorrow: Slow-flying but hard-to-see robot aircraft loop methodically over enemy territory as high-tech cameras and radar on board pinpoint a troop concentration nearly 9 miles below. They transmit the data instantly to front-line commanders, who direct a squadron of heavily armed robot fighter jets that thunder to the scene, relaying back the results to humans far from the actual fighting. Fantasy? Not much. Boeing and Lockheed Martin have built the spy plane, and Boeing scientists are studying the robot fighter. The reconnaissance craft's name makes it sound like the aersospace firms were paid by the word: The Tier III Minus DarkStar High Altitude Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. Friday, it successfully completed its first flight, taking a 20-minute spin around Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California. Except for its programming, DarkStar flies on its own. Eventually, that will take it aloft for up to eight hours, where it will travel up to 500 miles at altitudes above 45,000 feet. The stealth-technology reconnaissance craft is designed to sneak through battlefield hot spots, sending commanders quick information on who's doing what and where. Boeing spokesman Randy Harrison, discussing the need for such a vehicle, said satellite data gathered during the Gulf War still reached front-line commanders up to a day later. In defense-speak, DarkStar is a UAV -- an unmanned aerial vehicle -- of which Boeing has built a handful since the 1970s, including the Compass-Cope and the Condor. The Predator, a UAV built by Boeing and General Atomics of San Diego, is beginning its second tour of duty in Bosnia. Harrison said in the future, unmanned aircraft will do a lot more. "We want to use technology in place of humans whenever possible," he said. "There is a tremendous amount of development and study going on right now." Those studies include looking at armed unmanned aircraft that would fly -- and fight -- on their own. "There's going to be a range of unmanned vehicles just as there are today in manned vehicles," Harrison said. "Lethal unmanned vehicles," he said, "will essentially be fighter planes without humans in them, and Boeing is studying that technology aggressively." Unmanned fighters might work in tandem with manned aircraft, with a human pilot leading a squadron of unmanned "wingmen." DarkStar is armed only with high-tech radar and electro-optical devices, which allow it to scan up to 14,000 square nautical miles a day. Its cameras can take up to 600 images a day, in 2-by-2-kilometer blocks. Airborne, it plods along at little more than 250 nautical miles an hour, but designers hope its stealth-technology shrouding will make that unimportant. Boeing provided the ship's swept-forward wings and related subsystems, while Lockheed Martin provided the fuselage and final assembly at its famous Skunk Works facility in California. But like an increasing number of defense and space projects, DarkStar also relies on some off-the-shelf hardware, including the same engines found on a Cessna Citation business jet and landing gear also common to small commercial aircraft. The partnership also produced the aircraft only 11 months after signing a contract with the government. "It's a sweeping renovation of the way the government buys things," Harrison said of the Defense Department's new, streamlined acquisition procedure. He said the project's work statement and contract ran to only 22 pages. The government could buy up to 20 of the aircraft, at a firm price of about $10 million a copy. No date has been set as to when the craft will enter service, and considerable flight testing is still ahead for DarkStar. ------------------------------ From: John Burtenshaw Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 07:56:27 +0100 Subject: British Police intereset in Darkstar Hello All There was a report in one of our more serious Sunday newspapers about the British police chiefs looking at UAVs for crime surveillance. One they mentioned was Darkstar and they were very impressed with its performance etc. and it would cost-effective as the number of police on the streets would be reduced. The idea being that it would fly over high crime areas (inner cities) and keep watch when a crime is detected in go the boys-in-blue. Interesting idea the only problem is that it is April Fools Day today and I cannot help but wonder..... Regards John John Burtenshaw ------------------------------ From: habu@why.net (habu) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 09:19:35 -0800 Subject: Re: Big Safari Joe Pialet wrote: > Can anyone tell me what Big safari is? I used to hear the name "Big Safari" at General Dynamics in Ft. Worth, before Lockheed bought them. The group is still there and, based on how little anyone said about them, I would have to guess they were (are?) GD's version of the Skunk Works, at least WRT classified projects. Greg Fieser Since I'm self-employed, the above views DO represent those of my employer... ------------------------------ From: bsmith@zippynet.com (Brentley Smith) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 10:49:54 -0500 Subject: micro UAVs JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY INTERNATIONAL EDITION (JDW) MARCH 20,1996 COPYRIGHT 1996 Jane`s Information Group. A pocket-sized unmanned aircraft could be built under proposals by the Pentagon's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA). The development of the Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicle would be a technological feat so radical that it would push the state of the art in flight control, navigation, communications and propulsion. The US Department of Defense could use it for missions such as surveillance in extraordinary situations. The tiny drones, no more than 15 cm in span or length, could scout inside buildings, for example, collect biological-chemical samples, or attach themselves to structures and equipment to act as listening or video posts. No specific application has drawn engineers to the project, however. Confident that technologies like microsensors and micro-electromechanical systems will continue being developed for other programmes, their primary aim is to make a small-scale aircraft fly. "We don't know how to mechanize flight at those scales," Col Mike Francis, programme manager of ARPA's Advanced Systems Technology Office, said. "We're at the edge of something that is so different it may be enough to not answer the question of what is it going to do." Last year a study workshop concluded that it would be possible to build a hand-sized UAV that could fly for an hour and travel 16 km. ARPA is seeking FY96 funds for a more formal study and plans a conference later this year. Design integration, flight control and navigation pose the toughest challenges. Today's smallest GPS antenna would be too big to fit on a Micro UAV, and a gust of wind could roll the so-called "airplane on a [computer] chip" onto its back. Communications, power and propulsion will also be difficult issues, but their miniaturization is further advanced. Much work has been done to miniaturize battery technology, and a microturbine engine has been developed. "The way it was put to me is that if I have 1,400 [microturbine engines] on my kid's skateboard, he could actually leave the surface," Col Francis said. ARPA picked the dimension of 15 cm to stress technology, knowing that this size "represents the scale at which nature starts to operate differently in the air. In very large scales - the typical ones we operate in with manned aircraft - the air around us is predominantly turbulent. There are classes of insects for which the flow is never turbulent," said Col Francis. ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 08:16:25 PST Subject: Re: British Police intereset in Darkstar Timely question! I was talking to a "friend" and he was approached at one time with a similar scenario for over here. In veiw of what has been learned through experience here, it was seen as a poor choice. We have learned that officers on the street, interacting with people proactively, and not sitting in cars responding to calls after an event occurs, has a much better effect on reduction of crime. Given the amount of officers that could be hired for the price of a single Tier (n) system.................. Chuck ------------------------------ From: bsmith@zippynet.com (Brentley Smith) Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 11:10:24 -0500 Subject: Miniature Air-Launched Decoy / miniature turbine engines Below is a transcript of a DoD Briefing which includes discussion by the Director of ARPA, Larry Lynn. Some or all of this may be old news, but interesting none-the-less. (It's from the Assistant Secretary of Defense Office's website @ "http://www.dtic.dla.mil/defenselink/osd/atsdpa.html".) The first half of this breifing is a bit dry, but hang in there, it gets better. Some additional info on the Miniature Air-Launched Decoy (MALD) is available at http://www.arpa.mil/asto/mald.html. If anyone has any additional info on either of these subjects, please post. Brentley - ----------------------------------------------------- DoD News Briefing for Acquisition and Technology Dr. Paul G. Kaminski, Under Secretary of Defense Wednesday, June 28, 1995 - 3:30 p.m. (Also participating in this briefing were Captain Mike Doubleday, DATSD(PA); LtCol Don Blackwelder, Lead Coordinator for UAV and Decoy ACTDs; Dr. Louis Marquet, ADUSD for Advanced Development; Mr. Bruce Deal, ADUSD for Concept Development; Mr. Troy Crites, Lead Coordinator for the Air Base/Port Biological ACTD; and Mr. Larry Lynn, Director of the Advanced Research Project Agency) Captain Doubleday: Good afternoon. Thank you all for coming.

I want to introduce Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, Paul G. Kaminski. Dr. Kaminski is here today to make a personnel announcement and also to discuss some aspects of the Department's Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations Program.

With that, Dr. Kaminski, I'll turn it over to you.

Dr. Kaminski: Thank you very much, Mike.

Good afternoon. I want to take some time today to describe our Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration Program. This complex set of words is responsible I think, perhaps, for us not getting our full message across on this program, and that was one of my objectives today.

Let me start off, though, by introducing the team of people who have made the key contribution to this program over the past couple of years. Let me start off by introducing Dr. Anita Jones, Director of Defense Research and Engineering; Larry Lynn, who is the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Technology, and also now is acting Director of ARPA, and that's one I want to come back to a little bit later. Major General Ken Israel who is the Director of our Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office. Next, I want to introduce five Assistant Deputy Under Secretaries of Defense. These are Assistants to Larry Lynn. First, Tom Purdue with responsibility for Ballistic Missile Defense; next, Lou Marquet, with responsibility for Advanced Development; next, Bruce Deal, responsibility for Concept Development; Graham Law for Technology System Integration; and Pete Hoag, for Cruise Missile Defense. Finally, let me introduce Captain Benjamin Riley. Ben is the Military Deputy to Larry Lynn. He's hiding in the back. Mr. Troy Kreitz, our Lead Coordinator for our Air Base and Port Biological Defense ACTD, and Lieutenant Colonel Don Blackwelder, our Lead Coordinator for UAV and Decoy-related Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations.

My first main announcement here is that effective immediately, Larry Lynn is appointed director of the Advanced Research Project Agency. I congratulate Larry with the removal of the "Acting" piece of that title.

Larry has served for the past two years in this Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Advanced Technology position. Prior to that time, Larry spent eight years as a co-founder, vice president, and chief operating officer of Atlantic Aerospace Corporation.

In the early '80s, Larry was the deputy director of ARPA for four years, having come in to service there after two years of service in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In the preceding 26 years, he was at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Massachusetts.

In addition to Larry's broad experience in defense R&D, he served as a member of the Defense Science Board and the Army Science Board. Larry played, I think, really the critical pivotal role in establishing this whole approach of advanced concept technology demonstrations. I can really credit this fundamental idea to Larry and to the team of people with Larry in terms of implementation.

In addition to his new role as the Director of ARPA, I've asked Larry to retain his current position and his responsibility for the ACTD program through the planning cycle for our FY96 ACTD starts.

Since Larry has some additional responsibilities, I've asked Tom Purdue to become the principal assistant to Larry Lynn as he conducts this role -- helping to lead the outstanding team in our Advanced Technology Office.

I intend to continue to increase the Department's emphasis on ACTD's. I believe it is a critical initiative to improve our response time, our cycle time, to support our operational warfighter needs, and to decrease the time and cost to get new capabilities fielded.

ARPA has made many key contributions to the ACTD initiatives, and I expect with Larry as the director it will continue to do so in the future. However, the management of our ACTD program will continue to be an OSD function. After we get through this critical ACTD planning phase, I do expect to appoint a replacement in the Deputy Under Secretary for Advanced Technology position, who will then begin to work with our operational users in determining the next cycle of ACTDs and who will continue to expand this initiative in the future.

Let me turn now to describe our program of ACTDs, with some help.

The ACTD program and process is one of the fundamental core elements in improving our acquisition system. There are three characteristics here which are the hallmark of the program. The first is that there is usually joint service involvement in an ACTD. Second, ACTDs allow our warfighters to perform a very early operational assessment of a system concept before we've invested a lot of money in the concept. And third, there is usually some residual operational capability left in the field at the completion of an ACTD, even if we haven't decided to put the program into a full development phase. Prototyping and early user involvement in product assessment and tactics development are key to reducing our development time and providing quick initial operational capabilities.

As opposed to the more traditional approach under which our material developer first produces an item and then hands it off serially to the user after development, ACTDs are taking full advantage of the integrated product and process development approach that I described a few weeks ago -- currently used in the Department -- and also used by commercial industry to ensure shorter cycle times, lower cost, and more rapid delivery to the customer.

The intent is for ACTDs to marry technology and the related employment doctrine. This marriage, I think, is one thing that we have not given adequate attention to in the Department in the past. We have traditionally underestimated the importance of developing the appropriate doctrine and the tactics for the employment of technology along with the related training of the people who will use the system.

As I look back to my own personal experience in the F-117 program, I note that as advanced and as significant as that technology was, I think that one of the major contributions made in that program was to very carefully understand the limitations as well as the strength of the technology, to develop the mission planning tools and the training to support its use, so that we could employ the system in a way that the limitations that were there were not apparent in its application. That is, we knew these limitations, we had the planning tools to work around them, and one couldn't see the limitations as the system was employed because we understood them.

Our leverage here was obtained by people, by warfighters, doing things that certainly were not standard from a historical, tactical, and doctrinal standpoint. That's the same issue we're facing with our ACTDs. The real issue here, I think, as we look ahead, is how can we do more with less, where the measure is not simply in developing the best technology or even building the best equipment, but getting this combination of equipment and people in the field to use it wisely. ACTDs are a key part of the Department's plan to get this job done.

If I may have the first slide.

The Department currently has ten ongoing ACTDs and 12 FY96 new starts shown on this chart. Just to give you some feel for the base here, in FY96, if we add up the ongoing programs plus the new starts, including both OSD and service funds, this is roughly a $1 billion program in '96. The total '96 investment will be slightly more than what we've invested in the program all the way through FY95 thus far. So you can see that this program is building and growing on a base.

Today we will have four of our lead coordinators present you with an overview of the two ongoing and the four new start ACTDs. Those are shown in blue lettering on this chart.

Let me start that process right now by turning over the podium to our first lead coordinator, Lieutenant Colonel Don Blackwelder. Don?

Lieutenant Colonel Blackwelder: Good afternoon.

The first ACTD I'll introduce is a High Altitude Endurance UAV. The objective of this ACTD is to demonstrate and produce and evaluate the military utility of a design-to-cost system with long endurance, all-weather, wide-area coverage capability.

The objective is to have it tasked by the warfighter and provide that information directly back to him with the only fixed requirement being a $10 million unit fly-away price. Some of the lessons we learned in DESERT STORM were that the commanders needed better, wide-area, all-weather coverage that was very responsive to his needs. The current systems today are limited in numbers, payload capability, endurance, and aren't as responsive as the commanders would desire.

Another thing we've learned from passive elements in UAVs, we've had difficulty converging on an affordable design. We're finding out in today's environment with the spreading of very sophisticated air defense systems, we put our pilots at a lot of risk and end up chancing losing those pilots, or having a POW situation.

In this concept scene, the tasking would come directly from the theater commander to the ground control element. They would do the mission planning and control the aircraft while it's airborne, via line-of-sight or SatCom datalinks. He would also have the capability to do real time in-flight retasking so as the priority changes, they can retask the aircraft and the sensors on board to look at different targets. The imagery would flow back through the datalink, back to the ground control station, and then back out to the users and the analysis centers as determined by the theater commander.

The United States Atlantic Command is the lead user. It's representing the warfighting community. The Advanced Research Projects Agency is leading the development of the effort. The Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office rounds out the team in making sure this all fits into a joint architecture. ARPA leads the Joint Program Office, and there are deputy program managers and project officers from each of the services. The team together is taking full advantage of the acquisition streamlining initiative and ARPA's other agreement authority to get this done quickly, cheaply, and basically at the most bang for the buck.

In this ACTD, we're going to be building two -- back to building, testing, and evaluating, two -- very different air vehicles. The first to fly will be the low observable DARK STAR that the Boeing/Lockheed team rolled out earlier this month. It's scheduled to fly this October.

The conventional UAV -- the contract -- was competitively awarded this month to Teledyne/Ryan. It will be more of a workhorse for the wide area coverage. It will be a moderately survivable system with threat warning and electronic countermeasures that will have much greater range, payload, and endurance capabilities, giving it the ability to cover 40,000 square nautical miles a day with one system. It will have the endurance to fly about 40 hours, so you can trade off that endurance for range and time over target. The objective was to produce a system that would have 3,000 nautical mile range, be able to stay there for 24 hours, and come back home again, and data link that imagery back to the warfighter so he can have it immediately.

The roll-out for the conventional is scheduled for October '96, with the first flights starting in early '97.

Together, the two vehicles form a very -- have the potential to be a very -- responsive and capable team that will address those urgent needs for the warfighters.

My other ACTD that I'm going to briefly introduce is a miniature air-launched decoy. Our objective here is to demonstrate the military utility of a light- weight, low-cost expendable decoy that will act and look like an attacking aircraft.

The decoys have a good reputation as a result of operations like Bakka Valley and DESERT STORM. In Bakka Valley, the decoys were used to simulate Syrian air defense systems. Anti-radiation missiles honed in on those radars, destroyed the radars, and then attacked aircraft to destroy the missiles and launchers at very reduced risk. In DESERT STORM, we also used decoys to confuse and saturate the Iraqi air defense system.

In this scene, the decoys are being used to stimulate the defense systems on the ground, increasing the effectiveness of the attacking aircraft so they can proceed on with their mission.

You can also use them as a deception tool. You can launch them into an area to fake an attack, to draw airborne air defenses away so your main attack can get in and be much more effective. One of the things we want to explore in this ACTD is their use in an air-to-air role, where you can take an aircraft. Because they're light weight you can load up to ten or so on an airplane and saturate the defenses, or giving up maybe just one weapon station, you can provide each airplane out there with a standby expendable wing man in case he gets into an air-to-air fight. That's one of the things we're going to explore as an option.

ARPA is the lead development agency on this ACTD also, and we're building upon their work in small turbine engines. We're going to use an engine that weighs about seven pounds, has a four inch diameter turbine, and produces 50 pounds of thrust. The avionics are going to come from the brilliant anti-tank submunition, and there's a host of packages, emitter packages out there, to simulate attacking aircraft that both the services and industry have developed.

The integrated user/developer team, in this case ACC is the user representative. We're going to be producing 25 to 30 missiles, about half of those used in the demonstration, and the other half will be set aside for residual capabilities in either real world contingencies or future demonstrations at the end of it. This ACTD is scheduled to actually start in late '96, after they finish up some of the small engine work that's ongoing now with the first flights and demonstrations to be in early '98.

This concludes the two ACTDs I was going to present.

Thank you all.

------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 14:18:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Darkstar I dunno why you haven't, but it was on the local news and in the L A Times. here in Los Angeles County. Plus, I knew they'd flown when I saw everyone on the team out on the ramp for group pictures with the plane. A pretty cheerful group, I tell you. 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 Sat, 30 Mar 1996 Mickeyboat@aol.com wrote: > Why haven't we heard about the extremely successful Darkstar (Tier II-) first > flight that occured yesterday morning?? This joint Boeing/Lockheed Skunk > Works vehicle is about the oddest looking thing I've ever seen fly! ------------------------------ From: habu@why.net (habu) Date: Mon, 01 Apr 1996 21:15:19 -0800 Subject: MIG-29 sets height record From World Air Power Journal (Spring 1996, Vol. 24, p. 7): "The FIA has revealed that it has ratified a new class C1H (turbojet landplane with a take-off weight between 12000 and 16000 kg) world altitude record without payload, of 27460 m (90,092 ft). This was set on 26 April 1995 by Roman Taskaev, Mikoyan's Cjief Test Pilot, in a MiG-29 powered by a pair of standard RD-33 engines, rated at 81.39 kN (18,298 lb) each. He flew the aircraft from the test centre at Akhtubinsk, referred to in the FAI documentation as Jasmine. Mikoyan have failed to publicise this achievement, leading many to wonder why the record attempt was made at all. The record was previously held by a Lockheed SR-71 at 25929.031 m (85,069 ft), and had been set on 28 July 1976." This was nearly a year ago, but is the first I've heard of it. Has anyone else heard of this new record? Greg Fieser (Since I'm self-employed, the above opinions do reflect those of my employer...) ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 14:08:20 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Re: British Police intereset in Darkstar Reminds me of a story that LA (ex) police chief Daryl Gates (?) had proposed a satellite in geostationary orbit at the same latitude as LA constantly watching the city for signs of disorder. Even Keyhole-class optics wouldn't be able to resolve much at 36 000 km. Urban legend? - --Brett ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #642 ********************************* 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". Back issues are available for anonymous FTP from mail.orst.edu, in /pub/skunk-works/digest/vNN.nMMM (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number).