From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #671 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Thursday, 27 June 1996 Volume 05 : Number 671 In this issue: Re: Blackbird as a Target Re: SR Acceleration Re: SR Acceleration Re: Re: SR Acceleration was the Hawthorne Airport Sightings Re: guided intercepts - long Spy in the Sky Small X15 correction Re: Read My Lips Re: topic list Re: Read My Lips RE: Bush statement Wide-area spysat junked with SR-71? Re: Blackbird as a Target Re: topic list 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: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Tue, 25 Jun 96 12:19:28  Subject: Re: Blackbird as a Target As far as I'm aware, we never flew a SR-71 mission in Soviet airspace. The SR wasn't really that big on concealment from people with sophisticated enough systems, it was just that they couldn't do much about it when it was there. There wouldn't be much point to shadowing an airliner with the SR because at those altitudes and speeds it would be too vulnerable. Although the official party line at the time was that they had thought they were shooting at an American recon aircraft that had actually turned turned back before entering their airspace, subsequent information shows that they pretty much knew (at least on the ground) what they were shooting at. In the book "Fulcrum", a defecting Soviet pilot states what he says was the reason that the order to fire was given. He wrote that a recent storm had knocked a number of radar sites out some weeks prior and they still hadn't been repaired (This was why they kept losing track of it). Moscow had given orders that these sites were to be repaired or heads would roll (in the old Soviet Union, that could be taken quite literally). KAL 007 was about to exit Soviet airspace for the last time, and if it escaped Moscow would know that the particular sites weren't up. According to what he wrote, the local people decided it would be better to bring the plane down than it would be to allow Moscow to find out, so they directed the interceptor to fire. Given that despite their adamant denials for years, the Soviets had recovered the flight data and voice recorders soon after the crash, I would tend to believe him. Art Hanley These thoughts, such as they are, do not represent the thoughts of my employers, if in fact they choose to have any ------------------------------ From: John Stone Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 17:38:29 -0400 Subject: Re: SR Acceleration Doug Tiffany wrote: >When the SR is finished refeuling, how long would it take to get up to >mach 3.2? What airspeed would it be refeuled at? Okay, the only thing I could find quickly was a quote from Rich Graham's nw book , it says that at Kadena, there was a mission they called the "Rocket Ride". It was an unrefueled Mach 3 recon of the Korean DMZ and back to Kadena 57 minutes, they were in the afterburner from take-off to deceleration to land. Every one tried to set time-to-climb record the best time was set by Jim Sullivan and his RSO was from brake release on take-off to 80,000 ft and Mach 3 in 14 minutes! I'm still checking on your specific question.... Best, John | / ^ \ ___|___ -(.)==<.>==(.)- --------o---((.))---o-------- SR-71 Blackbird U-2 Dragon Lady John Stone jstone@thepoint.net U-2 and SR-71 Web Page:http://www.thepoint.net/~jstone/blackbird.html ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Tue, 25 Jun 96 16:28:34  Subject: Re: SR Acceleration Mild trivia note not really answering the question at hand: I seem to recall being told it took the XB-70 15 minutes to accelerate from wheels up to Mach 2, and then another 15 minutes to get to Mach 3 Art "Sonic Boomer" Hanley These thoughts, such as they are, do not represent the thoughts of my employers, if in fact they choose to have any ------------------------------ From: dadams@netcom.com (Dean Adams) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 16:55:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: Re: Re: SR Acceleration >When the SR is finished refeuling, how long would it take to get up to >mach 3.2? What airspeed would it be refeuled at? According to the NASA mission profiles, it looks like around 7-15 minutes is the average time from breaking Mach 1 to reaching a Mach 3 cruising speed at ~80,000 ft. ------------------------------ From: chosa@chosa.win.net (Byron Weber) Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 19:24:55 Subject: was the Hawthorne Airport If anyone in the Los Angeles area happened to see a B-2 today, according to the radio news, it flew from Hawthorne Airport between 11:30am and 1:00pm, pst. The Hawthorne Airport has been renamed the Jack Northrop Airport. Byron ------------------------------ From: CULLY@svr81trw.kee.aetc.af.mil (CULLY, George Mr) Date: 26 Jun 96 07:53:03 EDT Subject: Sightings I don't usually pay much attention to UFO stories on TV, but was channel surfing on sunday night and caught a part of a 'Sightings' piece which showed a video alledgedly taken by a "tracking crew at Nellis." The vehicle was genuinely weird in shape...something like the head of a four-globe street lamp. I missed the first part, so I don't have much info on who, exactly, was supposed to have done the filming. Apparently, it was not a stealth vehicle, as there was some talk of it being tracked on radar. The show trotted out the usual 'experts' who nodded solemnly and declared, that, "yes, this IS a video image." Did anyone else see the piece, or does anyone know more about this incident? Geo. Cully ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 14:56:35 -0700 Subject: Re: guided intercepts - long Charles_E._Smith writes: >All good points, Art. Nice to have your input. Well, if you have nothing to say about what Art posted then I guess you agree with me about the difficulties of hitting a high speed target. And remember I said, that a modern system would be designed to deal with the threats. >Larry, we may have to agree to disagree. But thats >what makes life fun. Fine, but you asked me a question below. >I should have been more specific actually. I was thinking >in 1990`s trems of missle performance. Hmmm, not with statements like: "As to why a Blackbird never got shot-down- who knows? Probably had the flights all worked out with the Soviets anyway." >The old Vietnam era SAMS were pretty primative >compared to what you can do today. Yes. >Think of what was available for intercept computations >in the late 60`s and early 70`s. Pretty laughable by >todays standards. >The modern systems I`ve peeked into have enough >processing power and thrust to initiate the intercept >from t=0. You don't have to tell me about that. I design CPU's for a living! :) > They are also up-down linked and have >the guidance computers ON THE GROUND, with all >the data from DIFFERENT sources as parameters. >Thats a HUGE difference . As a point of interest, the old SAMs in question were also uplinked for at least part of their trajectory, as are the new ones. That makes sense for many reasons. >Multimode tracking turns a so-so system into world >beater. Look at the MIG 29. Or the Patriot. As I understand it, multimode allows one to change PRF for AA or AG, as well as change scan window width and orientation. Assuming for the purposes of this discussion, we're always talking about looking up at a hypersonic target, mutlimode doesn't seem to buy you much in this case. >This, along with hypersonic velocites makes a modern >SAM pretty damn formidable. I never said they weren't! > I really doubt the >SR would stand much of a chance against a system >designed today to get it today. > Question is, has anyone >seen the need to do it? For all its speed and bravado, >the SR71 is a pretty benign aircraft. My point was that any aircraft doing SR style of recce today would have to deal with the threats. The speed of such an aircraft would be one (just one) of the defensive capabilities of such a system. Don't forget, we could design in, as one of the defenses, the same technology that is trying to kill us. In fact, such a defense could probably be retrofitted to the SR-71. >I stand by my statement that a rocket motor will out- >perform an airbreather in a missle. > >As far as range- >Larry, you`re way way way way off with your statement. >Thinking too linerarly. The absoluteness of you're claim is what I disagree with. Rockets have advantages over airbreathers in certain regimes. In many cases it is the acceleration advantage of a rocket and the fact that you can get it out of the atmosphere quickly that makes them the propulsion of choice for certain applications. But not all apps. For example, if the application requires the missile to stay low in the dense atmosphere, airbreathers can have many advantages there. For one, the rocket has to deal with a lot of drag down low, and given the definition of specific impluse in rockets, which translates to specific fuel consumption, the rocket burns its fuel very quickly realtive to the airbreather, which is wasted down low as the drag eats that advantage very quickly. An airbreather down low can have superior range to a rocket and still be hypersonic. > As I remember from hueristics and >my years in school, the fastest, farthest traveling thing >ever made by man is Voyager. A multi-stage rocket >if memory serves! You're comparing an airbreather in the atmosphere to an interplanetary and now interstellar space craft!!!!???? The only other Voyager I know of orbited the earth once, soaring with an airbreathing engine. >My personal opinion is that airbeathers make better >reusables and rockets make better one-shots. But >I`m sure there`s an almost infinite number of >exception. There have been many one shot airbreathers. Rocket boosted ramjets are a popular thing. Even ramjets with solid fuel, where the ramjet grain is below the solid rocket grain and is exposed once the solid rocket grain burns away. >The fastest airplane ever built was rocket powered. >Mach what for the X15? Well! I can't let you get away with this one! :) AHEM! The X-15A-2's major purpose was to test fly scramjets! X-15A-2, flew Mach 6.7, on its way to Mach 7 or Mach 8 (depending who you talk to). The X-15A2 had been rebuilt after the crash with a lengthened fuselage to add a H2 fuel tank for the scramjet. It also added the external tanks to allow a higher speed to be reached by the rockets. That Mach 6.7 flight was its last flight. The seriousness of hypersonic shock/boundary layer interactions were brought home on that flight and Pete Knight did one heck of a great job bringing the bird home with half of its insides burnt out and without being able to dump fuel so the chase aircraft could find him before landing. Those shock/BL interactions of course are a big factor in hypersonic inlet design, and therefore one could say that that last flight of the A-2 was really a quite useful SCRAMJET test flight, even though the scramjet mounted on the pylon was a dummy scramjet and therefore wasn't completely functional. >I still want to know what you think of my idea with >Aphids on Rockwell orbiter? The little bugs on plants? Do you think that if we built little high temp suits for them that they would be small enough to hang on back there real low in the hypersonic boundary layer (as you know, the BL gets thicker as the Mach number goes up)? Assume no low density flow. Maybe they could walk around and help maintain the smart skin controllers on future shuttles. What a great idea! No? Oh, you meant the AA-8 Aphid! Hmmm. Interesting, we need to solve a few problems: One, the shuttle isn't very stealthy. I should think that it could be seen coming. The whole surprise thing would work once, then people would get wise to it. :) You might be able to design a fairly stealthy shuttle (high speed vehicle) given that you're out of the atmosphere and either on a ballistic or orbital trajectory. You won't need to burn and you can radiate away heat from hot skin temperature into cold space. Eventually IR seekers won't be able to see you as you get colder. The stealth would also help with search radars trying to locate you. Optionally refuelling in space could also help to make you cold real quick if you have a regeneratively cooled skin, as the faster hypersonic aircraft will need. To get the advantage of the SR-71, namely to appear from any location, at any time for recce, you could drop down in the atmosphere and go scramjet for awhile to change your orbit. Then bop back into space and go dark again (refuelling could be done in the atmosphere too and adding enough cryo to go cold as quick as you like in space). You make your pass over the target in stealth mode. Or, for a cheaper first generation vehicle, it could be a two-component vehicle. The booster and the recce pod. The recce pod would be very stealthy and small. The booster which is not, goes somewhere else in space. The recce pod goes to do its recce (directed by the booster). The two would join later. The booster could continually catch the recce pod (in space) and send it on different missions potentially (assuming the pod has no OMS). I should think that you won't even know the pod is there. Two, I think the Aphid has a range of 2-4 miles or so. That doesn't sound long enough. Three. The Aphid has an IR seeker. At the hypersonic velocities implied, does an IR seeker work well? Most of the SAMs we're talking about are uplink guided by powerful ground radars and processors (as you said). I imagine the Aphid's IR seeker sitting inside its protective cover and IR lens (how do IR lenses do in high heat) with its lens getting real hot from skin friction. Will it even be able to see my engine exhaust in the frame of high heat on the lens? We'll have to cool the lens. Can we make it cold enough? Four. What's your cross range? What's your maneuverability? You're a glider, I'm not. And is my response to you to climb and accelerate? Or maybe sudden deceleration! You still have to close within 2-4 miles with an Aphid. Maybe I'm really fast too. Maybe I shoot some missiles your way too! Five. You have to add a missile launch bay or launch blister to the shuttle. You can't hang these on the shuttle's wings. Six. You'd have to stop shuttle crews from bouncing happless F-15's and F-16s on their way back from space! ------------------------------ From: TrimtabNYC@aol.com Date: Wed, 26 Jun 1996 23:07:15 -0400 Subject: Spy in the Sky Long Island's PBS station broadcast an American Experience show tonight called "Spy in the Sky." It was a beautiful hour long telling of the history of the design and use of the U-2. It was just produced this year, and it had some great details - such as the arguements that took place over how to land the U-2, and how a dirty version was produced using early radar absorption technology (which caused the engine to overheat and knock out the hydraulic system). For a fan of the skunky world such as myself, it was a great show! - - Steve ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 04:08:46 PDT Subject: Small X15 correction My friend Larry writes: You don't have to tell me about that. I design CPU's for a living! :) My condolences.... I blow them up which is lots more fun! :-) AHEM! The X-15A-2's major purpose was to test fly scramjets! Weeeeeeellllllllll............ As you remember, the X15 was designed to work into orbit. The original intent was to go for LEO with it. After the Russians put Sputnik up the US decided to accelerate the space program. This meant using existing airframes (Atlas and Titan) and "man in a can" techniques. (Probably a good thing too. The 15`s suffered much more heat damage than expected. I`m told the ablatives for re-entry vehicles where being considered. Can you imagine what a ride that would have been!) Personally, I think this was a major blow to hypersonic A/C research. So much would have been learned. The `A-2 came later when the original gaols of the x15 program were changed. Also - we are in total agreement on the A-2`s success. As for Pete Knight- yep. ALL the X15 pilots were heros to me as a kid. I think Crossfield`s (?) PIO is about the scarryest films from those days. Well, I don`t know about the rest of the you but seems like we`ve beat this horse into the ground. Fords or Chevy`s? Chuck ------------------------------ From: agentx@closer.brisnet.org.au (Matthew Etherington) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 21:14:45 +1000 Subject: Re: Read My Lips Chris Mathews wrote : >Anyway, the seemingly enigmatic Bush quote about UFO's has a humorous >explanation: > >Back when Bush was campaigning for Prez, one of the tabloids printed a >picture of George (and perhaps his wife) with a space alien. The headline >screamed something about Aliens Support Bush. Bush's comment was merely off- >the-cuff and innocuous. > Or it was *meant* to seem off-the-cuff and innocuous. Personally, I think that the mere fact that he was a director of the CIA is grounds enough to reasonably assume that he knows something .... My $0.02 worth .... ********************************************************************* * * * "You don't know the half of it" * * -- Ex-US President George Bush, commenting on UFOs * * * * "The truth is out there ... But so are lies." * * -- Dana Scully * * * * "Is it a game, or is it real?" * * -- David Lightman * * * * "Some men see things the way they are, and say 'Why?' * * I dream things that never were, and say 'Why not?'" * * -- Robert F. Kennedy * * * * ------------------------------------------------------- * * Matthew Etherington * * =8^) [ agentx@closer.brisnet.org.au ] =8^) * * * ********************************************************************* ------------------------------ From: agentx@closer.brisnet.org.au (Matthew Etherington) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 20:51:37 +1000 Subject: Re: topic list Dean Adams wrote : >> The sr-71 and the u-2 are not classified anymore so why are they >> still on the list? > >On what list? This mailing list?? > > >Your answer is found in the following question: > > What organization built the SR-71 and U-2? > Ah, I'm not the only one who wants to join a mailing list that discusses classified, or at least sensitive, information. ********************************************************************* * * * "You don't know the half of it" * * -- Ex-US President George Bush, commenting on UFOs * * * * "The truth is out there ... But so are lies." * * -- Dana Scully * * * * "Is it a game, or is it real?" * * -- David Lightman * * * * "Some men see things the way they are, and say 'Why?' * * I dream things that never were, and say 'Why not?'" * * -- Robert F. Kennedy * * * * ------------------------------------------------------- * * Matthew Etherington * * =8^) [ agentx@closer.brisnet.org.au ] =8^) * * * ********************************************************************* ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 05:47:46 PDT Subject: Re: Read My Lips Agent X gave us: >Chris Mathews wrote : >>Anyway, the seemingly enigmatic Bush quote about UFO's has a humorous >>explanation: >> >>Back when Bush was campaigning for Prez, one of the tabloids printed a >>picture of George (and perhaps his wife) with a space alien. The headline >screamed something about Aliens Support Bush. Bush's comment was merely off- >the-cuff and innocuous. >> > Or it was *meant* to seem off-the-cuff and innocuous. Personally, > I think that the mere fact that he was a director of the CIA is > grounds enough to reasonably assume that he knows something .... > My $0.02 worth .... Or does he think that I think that he thinks......? After all, he is not a wimp. PS , the X - Files tag line always adds credibility. Agent "C" - -Captain, She`s got no more power!" -Scotty Now, really, I need some help. I have a prospect from Tuskeegee University. Anyone know where this school ranks for ME programs? Chuck ------------------------------ From: JOHN SZALAY Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 08:15:34 EDT Subject: RE: Bush statement >FROM: "agentx@closer.brisnet.org.au" "Matthew Etherington" > Subj: Re: Read My Lips > Chris Mathews wrote : > >> Anyway, the seemingly enigmatic Bush quote about UFO's has a humorous >>explanation: > >> Back when Bush was campaigning for Prez, one of the tabloids printed a >> picture of George (and perhaps his wife) with a space alien. The headline >> screamed something about Aliens Support Bush. Bush's comment was merely off- >> the-cuff and innocuous. > > Or it was *meant* to seem off-the-cuff and innocuous. Personally, > I think that the mere fact that he was a director of the CIA is > grounds enough to reasonably assume that he knows something .... > > My $0.02 worth .... Soapbox mode ON: Me thinks: you put too much stock in politicans. Most political appointees know nothing about the field or the work that they are in charge of, They are mere paper pushers, on ego trips. What they know is how to do best, is to cover their collective butts, and Ones that don,t remember that simple fact, don,t last .. James Watt was a prime example. Bush also forgot the fact, thats why Slick Willy is now MMFIC. (shame too!) Smoke & Mirrors $.02 and 2 mills change.. NOW: Back to the list topic, LADC and their products. SR-71 A-12 D-21 U-2 M-21 F-117 John Szalay jpszalay@tacl.dnet.ge.com Soapbox mode OFF: - --------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I regard govt officals, as I regard the instruments on the dashboard on my automobile, they show me the condition of engine of state, however; they do not control it" "The Black Cloud" Nevil Shute -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Thu, 27 Jun 96 07:33:44 GMT Subject: Wide-area spysat junked with SR-71? Forwarded from the Space Tech list: Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 20:07:07 -0400 From: John Pike Subject: Wide-area spysat junked with SR-71? Allen Thomson wrote: > > does anyone > here have the interesting-sounding presumed HR mentioned? Yeah, we have it layin around somewhere, and will have it on our WWW in the next little while or so [it ain't too long]. > taken from a House Report titled "Intelligence Successes and > Failures in Operations Desert Shield/Storm". I would want to check for accuracy. > found that the retirement of both the SR-71 and a wide-area > satellite imagery system simultaneously without follow-on A curious observation [if accurate] since I "think" that the public record on late-80s IMINT is pretty good, and there just weren't any overhead IMINT systems that were retired in that timeframe, unless the KH-11 came in two flavors, which is possible, though unanticipated. AFAIK the only wide-area system that was retired was KH-9, but that wasn't NRT. - -- John Pike Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/ CyberStrategy Project http://www.fas.org/cp/ Intelligence Reform Project http://www.fas.org/irp/ Military Analysis Network http://www.fas.org/man/ Space Policy Project http://www.fas.org/spp/ Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. - Jefferson ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 13:27:27 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: Blackbird as a Target As a by-product of being a Mach-3+ aircraft, the SR-71 has a very small RCS. In addition, many radars have filters on them which remove returns from targets going slower or faster than a certain range. I wouldn't count on radar seeing one in time to do anything useful. There's an axiom in air combat (submarine combat, too, I'm told), "Turn to kill, not to engage". This derives from the fact that it's very difficult to catch up to a target, that reacting is likely to be much less successful than acting. Even a Mach 5 air-to-air missile fired from the top right corner of the launch envelope won't catch an SR-71 at the top right corner of its flight envelope. The missile just doesn't have enough fuel. The same is true of SAMs. Getting to 85,000 ft while the SR-71 is still within range is just too much to ask. Even if it were to have enough fuel, the climb takes long enough that the SR-71 would be gone. This has been discussed several times in rec.aviation.military, by the way, always with the same answers. It's physics, mostly. 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 Tue, 25 Jun 1996 pricharc@agcs.com wrote: > It is my understanding that the USSR complained regularly about SR71 > over flights which we, of course, denied. > > The trick to such over-flights is to hide the a/c until it's too late for a > good response. Since the SR71 isn't effective under radar the next > best approaches are to mislead the defenders into thinking that they > are not the targets or to fly in the shadow of another a/c such as an > airliner. The latter approach works for only very fast high altitude > a/c and at entry points where radar patterns don't overlap too > much. This was the basis for the USSR shoot-down of the airliner en route to > Japan. They claimed they were shooting at a shadowing a/c. > > Also, a effective defense doesn't have to be a kill. A small deviation > in flight path won't bring home the picture. Even a lame shot can > be a winner if it forces a deviation. > > Clyde ------------------------------ From: Mary Shafer Date: Thu, 27 Jun 1996 14:17:54 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: topic list Well, I don't want to join a list like that, so please don't turn this list into one. 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 Thu, 27 Jun 1996, Matthew Etherington wrote: > Dean Adams wrote : > > >> The sr-71 and the u-2 are not classified anymore so why are they > >> still on the list? > > > >On what list? This mailing list?? > > > > > >Your answer is found in the following question: > > > > What organization built the SR-71 and U-2? > > > > Ah, I'm not the only one who wants to join a mailing list > that discusses classified, or at least sensitive, information. ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #671 ********************************* 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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