From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #656 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 14 May 1996 Volume 05 : Number 656 In this issue: Re: SHAMU UNVEILED! Tacit Blue and Sea Shadow Re: Tacit Blue Speaking of Museums.... Tacit Blue & several locations Re: Tacit Blue & several locations U-2/France Shamu/Tacit Blue Re: Tacit Blue and Sea Shadow Re: USA Today Re: USA Today Re: USA Today - really AW&ST Groom & Nuclear Propulsion Re: Groom & Nuclear Propulsion Re: Tacit Trivia re: Groom & Nuclear Propulsion Sea Shadow video Sea Shadow video B-2 F-22 Re: F-22 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: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 02:47:18 PDT Subject: Re: SHAMU UNVEILED! The "SEA HUNT" aka Tacit Blue is a neat bird. I got a few queries on how a "cigar shaped object" is related to a flying wing. When more pics are available look at the head-on view and then check out the nozzle system. Chuck "Echos, roars, dinosaurs, they`re all doing the Monster Mash. And most of the taxis, and most of the whores are only taking calls for cash" - -Dire Straits ------------------------------ From: Timothy Riley Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 06:26:08 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Tacit Blue and Sea Shadow Just an observation from a biology/Navy person: The Northrup Tacit Blue looks an awful lot like the stealthy ship test bed Sea Shadow which was made by Lockheed. Just another example of how unrelated creatures will resemble each other when they evolve to solve similar problems. Just my two cents. ------------------------------ From: jeremy.compton@stonebow.otago.ac.nz (Jeremy Compton) Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 00:39:08 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Re: Tacit Blue Gidday, Well , l thought since that l saw the news report on tv and happened to videotape it so l could rewatch it at my leisure, and also transcribe it so l could put it on this news group. I thought since a few of you guys were talking about it in the last newsletter l would add my 5 cents worth on the subject. Excuse my punctuation, as this is word for word transcription. This was broadcast Wednesday night New Zealand time. [ (Square brackets) This is what was reported in the ABC news broadcast at 12.00 am Thursday morning NZ time] TV 1 (Television New Zealand) Report. An another American aircraft generating interest is a secret spy plane called Tacit Blue. The plane was the prototype for America's stealth bomber, and it was retired 10 years ago, but until today hardly anyone knew it even existed. [ABC Anchorwoman says"...that no one knew that even existed, at $165 million for just one plane, it was certainly not cheap, but it was certainly revolutionary, here's ABC's John McWhethy"] ABC's John Mc Whethy reports : It was code named Tacit Blue, with it's stubby wings , two small tails and a body that resembles a box car, [ARTHUR MONEY - Assist Secretary US Air Force. says "Tacit Blue is a programme that has been a very well kept secret, its an aircraft that is not been publicly seen until today'.] first flown in 1982, this was one of a kind airplane was part of a revolution in technology that helped to change forever the way military aircraft are designed . It was built as a model for a surveillance plane, but ended up providing proof of stealth technology for the B2 bomber, technology that makes the aircraft less visible to the radar than a Bumble bee. Everything about Tacit Blue was top secret, only 5 pilots ever flew the plane, and when it was retired 10 years ago, it was locked away, its now headed for a museum, a piece of aviation history, that until this afternoon was classified. [John Mc Whethy ABC News - The Pentagon] The Pentagon says Tacit Blue cost more than $200 million to build. (probably $NZ My note.) Well l hope this has'nt bored any one, by me transcribing this article. It's only here to convey what was said in the news article. It also showed Tacit Blue flying as well as a few other similar stealth aircraft. Cheers, Jeremy. Jeremy Compton Jeremy.Compton@Stonebow.Otago.ac.nz ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Fri, 3 May 96 11:36:08 EDT Subject: Speaking of Museums.... I heard a rumor that the Air Force Museum in Dayton is no longer free with donations accepted, that is was about $8.00 to get in. Does anyone know if that is true? I was planning on going down there this summer sometime to see the "new addition". It's only about an hour and a half drive and I've been there frequently. I'm not sure if it would be worth $8 per person just to see that aircraft and leave again! - -- 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: ConsLaw@aol.com Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 14:58:49 -0400 Subject: Tacit Blue & several locations Quoting from the released Air Force information on Tacit Blue: "The plane, which tested radar-absorbing materials and shapes that send radar beams awry instead of bouncing them back to the enemy, WAS FLOWN AT SEVERAL LOCATIONS (emphasis added) by both Air Force and contractor pilots." So they got by us skunk watchers at more than one location. I guess this demonstrates that you don't have to fly in contractors to a secret base in the middle of Nevada to keep a plane secret. Also, note: The plane stopped flying in 1985. This (1984-85) is the time the Air Force did the large (39,000 acres) illegal land withdrawal around the Groom base. This withdrawal had to be authorized after-the-fact by Congress. Tacit Blue is an interesting plane, but it is a mere sideshow. Clearly Dreamland was focused on something bigger during the last half of the 1980s. Steve Hofer (aka conslaw@aol.com) ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 14:16:20 -0700 Subject: Re: Tacit Blue & several locations >Quoting from the released Air Force information on Tacit Blue: ... > WAS FLOWN AT SEVERAL LOCATIONS >(emphasis added) by both Air Force and contractor pilots." > >So they got by us skunk watchers at more than one location. Hey, give yourself a break! Skunk Watching, as it is currently practiced, didn't really begin until after 1989, when the first pulser sightings were observed (the phenom. wasn't caused by that alone however). >demonstrates that you don't have to fly in contractors to a secret base in >the middle of Nevada to keep a plane secret. Many programs have flown off-site. > Tacit Blue is an interesting plane, but it is a mere sideshow. Clearly >Dreamland was focused on something bigger during the last half of the 1980s. I'd say that: The most recent withdrawal. The reluctance to even acknowledge the site. indicates stuff is still there that the gov. believes is necessary to hide, for whatever reason. Assuming the reason to hide it is not due to any illegality, this should not be unexpected. I believe at the end of the TACIT BLUE announce transcript General Muellner said it best when he said: "You know, we continue to explore new technologies all the time". Now here's another tip that I haven't confirmed yet for myself, but it's fun to ponder. I'm told by someone who has read the recent book on the Boeing 777 development effort "21st Century Jet" (I believe is the title), that aerospace companies and possibly other 'groups' (I'm even less sure of that last word so check it out first) have been buying recently closed USAF bases and facilities. ------------------------------ From: Kerry Ferrand Date: Sat, 4 May 1996 13:16:53 +1200 (NZST) Subject: U-2/France U.S. denies spy-in-the-sky mission against France Copyright 1996 Reuter Information Service PARIS (May 3, 1996 6:35 p.m. EDT) - The United States denied a French press report on Friday that one of its U-2 spy planes had been spying on secret installations in France, saying the aircraft in question was returning from a mission over Bosnia. The daily Liberation said the flight, in March, was sent from an air base in England to pierce the secrets of budding Anglo-French nuclear cooperation. "It is not the intent of the U.S. government to conduct operations beyond current agreements we have with the government of France," the U.S. European Command Headquarters said in a statement distributed by the American embassy in Paris. "Our aircraft do not use their surveillance equipment, not even for testing, over French territory," it said. The French military also quashed the story published by the left-leaning daily but hinted that Paris suspected spy missions had taken place less than three years ago. Both sides appeared eager to avoid a repeat of a major row last year when Paris publicly denounced a U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation aimed at gathering secret information on French international trade negotiating strategy. Liberation said a U-2 aircraft based in England carried out a high-altitude photo reconnaissance mission in March linked with the possible loading aboard British Royal Air Force aircraft of French nuclear warheads which the United States declined to supply to Britain. The U.S. military's statement said the flight mentioned by the daily took off and was returning to Istres air base in southern France after a mission over Bosnia and was circling "under the positive control of French air traffic controllers." The high-altitude U-2 returned from Bosnia early because of bad weather, it said. Aircraft often circle to use up fuel that can make them too heavy to land safely. "The U.S. has an excellent relationship with both the government and the military of France," the U.S. military said. "French installations are never under surveillance." French military sources told Reuters that Paris did not supply nuclear weapons components to Britain despite increased recent cooperation between Western Europe's only nuclear powers in nuclear weaponry and deterrence. Liberation, quoting undentified French military sources, said the U-2 flight, at an altitude above 20,000 meters (60,000 feet) -- beyond the reach of manned interceptors -- was monitored by French radar controllers who challenged the pilot to explain why he was flying circles over central France. The plane's flight path took it over a secret center where French nuclear warheads are assembled and stocked and over Dijon airbase where RAF planes were loading, Liberation said. French military officials said Paris had made "fraternal remarks" to U.S. authorities when U.S. planes heading for Bosnia from Britain from April 1993 onwards sometimes went into circular flying patterns over France. "The situation was remedied and there were no further problems," a source told Reuters. One top French official told Reuters he doubted the U.S. would risk a new row with Paris over American spying on France even as French authorities tightened links with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He added that the U.S. had, in any case, all the information it needed through spy satellites. The most celebrated of U-2 flights was the ill-fated mission of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers who was shot down by a missile over the Soviet Union in May 1960 during a Big Power summit in Vienna which broke up over the incident. ------------------------------ From: quellish@shore.intercom.net (Dan Zinngrabe) Date: Fri, 3 May 1996 23:13:54 -0500 Subject: Shamu/Tacit Blue Don't ya hate it when you mail program sends something 4 days late? Sorry about that last message folks... Here's something that aroused my suspicions concerning the declassification of Shamu a while back-excepted from: Statement by Larry Lynn Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Before The Subcommittee On Acquisition And Technology Senate Armed Services Committee March 20, 1996 "More recently, we have seen the emergence of many DARPA technologies in the display of weaponry in Desert Storm. For example, JSTARS (Joint Surveillance and Target Acquisition Radar System) was originated by DARPA in work of the 1970s and then as Pave Mover in the Assault Breaker demonstrations of the early 1980s, leading directly to JSTARS. The faceted stealth of the F-117 was an immediate follow-on to the Have Blue flights run by DARPA and the continuous curved stealth of the B-2 followed from a still classified program of DARPA in the early 1980s. The Predator Unmanned Air Vehicle, now used in the Balkan theater for surveillance, was developed under the Amber program at DARPA about a decade earlier." ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 11:21:09 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Tacit Blue and Sea Shadow As an eminent architect once observed, "Form ever follows function." Consider the B-70 -> Concorde -> B-1 evolution and then ponder the Tu-144, for example. 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 Fri, 3 May 1996, Timothy Riley wrote: > Just an observation from a biology/Navy person: The Northrup Tacit Blue > looks an awful lot like the stealthy ship test bed Sea Shadow which was > made by Lockheed. Just another example of how unrelated creatures will > resemble each other when they evolve to solve similar problems. Just my > two cents. > ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Mon, 6 May 1996 19:23:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: USA Today On Wed, 1 May 1996, George Allegrezza 01-May-1996 0908 wrote: > Today's edition of the abovementioned fishwrapper has a different Tacit Blue > photo then the one available on the USAF web site. Gives a view of the inlet > and nozzle combo, and the big-ass chine up front. (Is that a chine, exactly?) There are two interesting pictures of Tacit Blue taking from top view in Aviation Week & Space Technology (May 6, 1996). May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be, and all was light." Unknown ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 14:39:48 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: USA Today On Mon, 6 May 1996, Wei-Jen Su wrote: > > There are two interesting pictures of Tacit Blue taking from top > view in Aviation Week & Space Technology (May 6, 1996). Anyone wanting a graphic of this pix of TB for their philes, email me and I will send it to them compliments of one of my S-W buddies. regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Tue, 7 May 1996 10:44:11 -0700 Subject: Re: USA Today - really AW&ST > There are two interesting pictures of Tacit Blue taking from top >view in Aviation Week & Space Technology (May 6, 1996). Don't forget the interview with Ken Dyson, one of the TACIT BLUE test pilots, who also flew HAVE BLUE. And don't forget the article on the next page on 2 active hypersonics programs in the US. One of them is eventually planning to fly a subscale vehicle up to Mach 10 with an airbreathing engine, assuming the first phase of the program works out (the NASA program), and the other is a USAF program to develop scramjet engine technology. Dr. Fred Billig, the scramjet maestro, is leaving JH-APL to work on the USAF program. Heck, I'm excited! Larry ------------------------------ From: Mark Loney Date: Wed, 8 May 1996 08:50:19 +1000 Subject: Groom & Nuclear Propulsion Foolishly I deleted Byron Webber's (chosa@chosa.win.net) piece on Groom and Nuclear Propulsion before I read my printout of the last Skunk Works Digest. So I can't include the relevant passage. But, unless I missed something, and I don't think that I did, the argument essentially ran: Nuclear propulsion was being worked on but was abandoned because of specific technical considerations. That was twenty plus years ago and the technical considerations have been (theoretically) overcome. Therefore, because nuclear propulsion is such a good idea, it must be being worked on. Because there is nothing acknowledged in the public domain, it must be being done in the secret (black) world. I wanted to lay out what I thought the argument was in that way to come to the last sentence - if it doesn't seem to be happening, someone, somewhere, is doing it secretly. This is the classic misunderstanding of why anything is classified in the first place. It's not because someone is keeping something neat from you; it's because a decision has been made that a capability (whether directly military or the technology that supports it) is best protected by denying access to information about it. Occam's razor would lead me to conclude that, with a choice between a black nuclear propulsion project at Groom and no nuclear propulsion project at all, the no project alternative is the one to run with. Regards, TSW ------------------------------ From: chosa@chosa.win.net (Byron Weber) Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 17:53:39 Subject: Re: Groom & Nuclear Propulsion >Occam's razor would lead me to conclude that, with a choice between a black >nuclear propulsion project at Groom and no nuclear propulsion project at all, >the no project alternative is the one to run with. > > > >Regards, > > > >TSW > Occam's razor would lead me to conclude that, with an estimated $100 billion in space and space support assets, a TAV would be a financially sound platform as well as strategically defensive. Occam's razor would also lead me to conclude that, if the DOE has principle management responsibility at Groom, the EPA has been cut out of the loop and advances have been made in lasar fusion and magnetohydrodynamic conversion, they are probably doing nuclear. Byron ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Thu, 9 May 1996 10:50:35 +1200 (NZST) Subject: Re: Tacit Trivia I remember reading in Peebles' book that leaks about Shamu had indicated that it looked like a cartoon character; which character, exactly, being classified. Now we know: with that chine, it looks like Donald Duck. - --Brett ------------------------------ From: TRADER@cup.portal.com Date: Thu, 9 May 96 21:06:36 PDT Subject: re: Groom & Nuclear Propulsion The Timberwind program sort of became the DOE's Space Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (SNTP) program although it doesn't seem to have been active recently. Timberwind was scheduled to go into Area 25, not Groom Lake, at a location near Saddle Mountain. Initially, I had thought that the Timberwind program was on Pahute Mesa (Areas 19 & 20), but it turns out now that Pahute Mesa appears to be have been used for large yield thermonuclear weapons testing by the Defense Nuclear Agency. I have a couple of document references on nuclear rockets (i.e., a reactor is used to further heat a rocket's exhaust gases to increase the thrust), but I'm not sure how appropriate this topic is for an aircraft group. Another program proposed for the Nevada Test Site (but not listed in the environmental impact statement) is Sandia's FALCON nuclear pumped laser, that uses nuclear fission as a laser "pump". This program was supposed to have been cancelled around 1992-1993, but I have a 1994 technical paper that talks about it being planned for the NTS. So far, Sandia's Public Affairs Office has not called back in answer to queries about FALCON's current status. (FAS has a declassified document that shows that FALCON is a descendent of the CENTAURUS laser weapons system.) Paul McGinnis / TRADER@cup.portal.com / PaulMcG@aol.com http://www.portal.com/~trader/secrecy.html ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:15:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Sea Shadow video Hi, I just returned from viewing the ole Sea Shadow video, where the Navy brings it out in the Bay in a covered dock, and it cruises around, at its debut a few years ago. Since this was an excerpted MOV file from the PopMech site, you only see bits of it, but it was interesting to step through the frames. (I didn't have QuickTime capability until recently) If anyone's seen this, a question: In one view as the Shadow passes the camera, or actually the camera pans, the sides don't appear to come down right to the water. There actually appears to be a canvas, the exact composition and color as the skin of the craft, and you can see the sides of the Shadow, as in looking at a tent, with a storm tarp over it. There actually appears to be wires that support the 'tarp', and you can see waves sloshing up against the less sloped sides underneath. As the camera takes a different view, you see down the center of the SS, and it's not evident there is a tarp, although you can see the almost pencil shaped craft is not straight sided, but has a larger front section tapering to smooth sides: __ / - - - - - - -\ \__ - - - - - - -/ front rear ...overhead it looks like this, but much less extreme, the best I could do in ASCII. In fact the front section might even be octagonal in horiz. crossection, not merely hexag. as I've inferred in the drawing. This is a very curious craft indeed. Anyone have any other info? regards, ________ BaDge ------------------------------ From: BaDge Date: Fri, 10 May 1996 12:24:33 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Sea Shadow video Hi, I just returned from viewing the ole Sea Shadow video, where the Navy brings it out in the Bay in a covered dock, and it cruises around, at its debut a few years ago. Since this was an excerpted MOV file from the PopMech site, you only see bits of it, but it was interesting to step through the frames. (I didn't have QuickTime capability until recently) If anyone's seen this, a question: In one view as the Shadow passes the camera, or actually the camera pans, the sides don't appear to come down right to the water. There actually appears to be a canvas, the exact composition and color as the skin of the craft, and you can see the sides of the Shadow, as in looking at a tent, with a taut "storm tarp" over it. There actually appears to be wires that support the 'tarp', and you can see waves sloshing up against the less sloped sides underneath. Below the resolution of the MOV file, but visible, there appear to be short cross bars running perp. to the support lines, like steps, to the waterline. As the camera takes a different view, you see down the center of the SS, and it's not evident there is a tarp, although you can see the almost pencil shaped craft is not straight sided, but has a larger front section tapering to smooth sides: front rear __ / - - - - - - -\ \__ - - - - - - -/ ...overhead it looks like this, but much less extreme, the best I could do in ASCII. In fact the front section might even be octagonal in horiz. crossection. This is one interesting craft. Anyone else have any info on this? regards, _____ BaDge ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 11:30:30 -0400 (EDT) Subject: B-2 Anyone know the current status for additional B-2s? From AW&ST look like President Clinton already order 10 additional B-2 plus put in operation status the first B-2 (which was used for testing and it is now in storage). Thanks in advance. May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be, and all was light." Unknown ------------------------------ From: dougt@u011.oh.vp.com (Doug Tiffany) Date: Tue, 14 May 96 6:11:06 EDT Subject: F-22 I was reading the Air Force News Service this morning and they were talking about an F-22. Is this the same aircraft as the YF-22? - -- 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: Wei-Jen Su Date: Tue, 14 May 1996 07:58:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: F-22 On Tue, 14 May 1996, Doug Tiffany wrote: > I was reading the Air Force News Service this morning and they were > talking about an F-22. Is this the same aircraft as the YF-22? > Yeah. The "Y" mean prototype. The F-22 is the production line model of the YF-22 prototype. Same thing happened with YF-16 which is the prototype model of the F-16 Fighting Falcon. May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mail: wsu02@barney.poly.edu "Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night; God said, Let Newton be, and all was light." Alexander Pope ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #656 ********************************* 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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