From: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #717 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@mail.orst.edu Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@mail.orst.edu Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Friday, 11 October 1996 Volume 05 : Number 717 In this issue: re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Researc re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Research Re: SPYPLANES, the review re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Research AIM-47 speed bad news for SR-71 fans Re: bad news for SR-71 fans Re: bad news for SR-71 fans re: AIM-47 speed Thunder Over Louisville Airshow.... re: bad news for SR-71 fans "Artichoke" re: bad news for SR-71 fans Re: Bad news for SR fans... A-17 and Brilliant Buzzard re: AIM-47 speed re: AIM-47 speed 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: Wed, 9 Oct 96 16:45:23  Subject: re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Researc Does anyone really think NASA will get funded for this? Not whether it's good or bad, just whether they'll actually get funded when it comes time to spend real money on hardware. Art Hanley My views are my own and do not represent my employers (They made me say that) ------------------------------ From: larry@ichips.intel.com Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 18:41:34 -0700 Subject: re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Research Art writes: >Does anyone really think NASA will get funded for this? Not whether it's good >or bad, just whether they'll actually get funded when it comes time to spend >real money on hardware. Finally! This program came out in the light of day. Being one of the high speed airbreathing NUTS on this group, and being incredibly frustrated by what has happened in the past, I am pleased to say, that I have NOT lost hope!! This also fits very well with the X-33 program as I expect that the two programs together will actually eventually field the technology for a useable SSTO, or one mean Black Horse or Black Colt derivative. I was actually hoping that Hyper-X would be required to have its own rocket cycle so that it could accelerate itself (heck we've tested enough of them on the ground). It will be interesting to see what they want to accomplish at each Mach number. Let me venture some ideas: Mach 5: Test scramjet mode at Mach 5 Test ramjet mode at Mach 5 (most probable as the news release mentioned ramjet mode). I would expect that a dual mode engine is the subject of this test so this will be interesting as they will attempt ramjet mode in a scramjet duct (probably using heat addition instead of variable geometry to create a physical throat) but we'll see. Mach 7: Test scramjet mode at Mach 7 Test ramjet mode at Mach 7 with a changeover to scramjet mode (I hope they do this one) followed by stable scramjet mode. Mach 10: Vary the engine parameters for scramjet mode at Mach 10 and measure heat transfer and thrust etc. They will be measuring all kinds of things during flight and verifying CFD. I would also hope that they plan on doing some acceleration in each regime. Unfortunately the series of tests are only 4 flights, but heck, if the vehicle is designed well, I'll bet someone funds additional flights, to say nothing of the test fixtures and procedures that will have been established with the funded test flights. So I have hope that it WILL happen!! Art, if this doesn't happen, it will be NASP all over again, and I don't think anybody wants that to happen. There have been SO MANY proposals to fly scramjets since the late 50's that someone ought to be impeached if it doesn't happen, so retract the cynicism please! We don't want it to spread! :) If there's no Aurora, hell, ... we'll build it!! Larry ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:12:39 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: SPYPLANES, the review I posted this before, but I never got it back from the list, and it wasn't included in the latest digest, so here is a re-post: John Gregor wrote: >First, Andreas, thanks for the WINGS summary (and for the many other >terrific articles you've posted over the years). Thank you for the compliment. :) >Second, I have a question. During the show, I thought I heard them say >that it took 11 refuelings to do the CONUS-Israel-CONUS recon trips >during the 1973 war. Did I hear that right (I was out of the room)? I >remember reading that there was a hard upper limit on SR-71 endurance >based on TEB shots and on-board Nitrogen (used to purge the tanks after >each refuelling). I would have thought that 11 trips to the tanker >would have used up one or both of these resources. The narrator indeed said "...after a gruelling 10 hour mission, a mission that included 11 mid-air refuellings and five hours of Mach 3 flight...", but Paul F. Crickmore in his book "Lockheed SR-71 -- The Secret Missions Exposed" (from which that statement was incorrectly plagiarized) disagrees. On pages 101 and 102, where he describes the first of those missions, flown by Jim Shelton and Gary Coleman on October 13, 1973, he talks about 6 mid-air refuellings, three for each way: "Thinking back on Jim's good night of sleep compared to his own experience, Gary was now pleased to see how well his pilot could refuel after six tracks, involving eleven tankers and more than five hours of flight above Mach 3.0. The other five hours had been filled with air refuellings, and climbs and descents but he was still going strong. Jim and Gary landed back at Griffiss after ten hours and eighteen minutes." He also states that another 8 sorties were flown (on October 25, November 2, around November 9, December 2, December 10, 1973, and January 25, one unspecified date, and the last on April 6, 1974), from Griffiss AFB, NY, and Seymour Johnson AFB, NC. The Pilot's manual states on page 1-22, under the heading "CHEMICAL IGNITION (TEB) SYSTEM": "At least 16 metered TEB injections can be made with a full tank of TEB." Each engine has its own tank, and a full TEB shot is needed for each engine start or afterburner ignition, which is required after each air refuelling and after any possible flame outs. On page 1-58 of the same manual, under "FUEL TANK PRESSURIZATION SYSTEM", it states: "Two Dewar flasks, each containing 106 liters of liquid nitrogen are located in the nosewheel well. The third Dewar flasks, containing 50 liters of liquid nitrogen, is installed in the left forward chine (B bay)." Also in the pilots manual, on page A6-3, under "LN2 CONSUMPTION" a table is given, with nominal consumption based on test flights, which amounts to about 100 liters LN2 for a mission with 2 air refuellings, plus about 30 liters LN2 for any additionally supersonic leg, including ascent, descent, refuelling etc. Based on that, the 262 liters of LN2 would last for a maximum of 7 air refuellings. Another statement from the end of the show doesn't make sense either. It claims about the Blackbird: "...more then once its been retired, only to be pulled back into service in a time of need." As far as I know, the SR-71 was only once retired, and only once brought back to (very limited and interrupted) service. But I don't think more than once or because of any "time of need", but because of politics (which, at least in my opinion, was also the reason for the retirement in the first place). - -- Andreas - --- --- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@raptor.csc.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.umcc.umich.edu/~schnars/ - --- --- ------------------------------ From: Brett Davidson Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 15:46:36 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: re: NASA Seeks Industry Proposals for Hypersonic Flight Research On Wed, 9 Oct 1996 larry@ichips.intel.com wrote: > > Art writes: > >Does anyone really think NASA will get funded for this? Not whether it's good > > I was actually hoping that Hyper-X would be required to have its own rocket cycle > so that it could accelerate itself (heck we've tested enough of them on the ground). Relying on my vague memory here... wasn't NASA talking about developing Rocket-Based Combined Cycle engines as part of a hypersonic research programme aimed at an eventual spaceplane? Does anyone know if this is the stripped-down remnant of that project, or a part of it that has managed to secure support, with more to follow? - --Brett ------------------------------ From: Wei-Jen Su Date: Wed, 9 Oct 1996 22:32:03 -0400 (EDT) Subject: AIM-47 speed Talking about Blackbird a high speed. Does anyone know what is the maximum speed of the AIM-47 carry by YF-12?? The reason is that if the AIM-47 fly below Mach 4, YF-12 firing the missile at Mach 3+ it will practically reach her target almost at same time as the missile... May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mails: wsu02@barney.poly.edu wjs@webspan.net ------------------------------ From: PaulMcG@aol.com Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 00:56:59 -0400 Subject: bad news for SR-71 fans I found the following item during my analysis of the 1997 defense budgets. It appears in House Report 104-563 , "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997". Paul McGinnis / PaulMcG@aol.com http://www.frogi.org/secrecy.html [military secrecy site] http://members.aol.com/paulmcg/ [home page] ======================================================================= SECTION 1040--PROHIBITION ON CARRYING OUT SR-71 STRATEGIC RECONNAISSANCE PROGRAM DURING FISCAL YEAR 1997 This section would prohibit the Secretary of Defense from obligating any funds during fiscal year 1997 to operate the SR-71 strategic reconnaissance program. The committee is concerned that this program, while continuing to provide a unique capability, has outlived its affordability. Further, the committee notes that the Department of Defense has long sought to cease the operation of this aircraft and has been precluded from doing so by Congressional direction. The committee intends for this provision to serve as emphatic direction to the Department to cease the operation of this unaffordable intelligence collection program. The committee notes the recent letter from the Deputy Secretary of Defense informing the committee of the decision to terminate fiscal year 1996 SR-71 operations. The committee supports the Department's decision. While the Deputy Secretary's letter implied that this action was taken based on conflicting Congressional direction, the committee believes that it is fully consistent with the Department's position, as reflected by the lack of funding for this program in the President's fiscal year 1997 budget request. ------------------------------ From: keller@eos.ncsu.edu Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 10:14:05 EDT Subject: Re: bad news for SR-71 fans It seems to me that I've read someplace--it might have been either one of my nuke industry trade rags or Robert Park's American Physical Society electronic news rag, that authorization report language often/pretty much gets ignored in many situations in the federal government. It's the appropriations bills and reports which government agencies pay attention to, since, after all, it's the appropriators who are providing the funding. Government agencies are much less inclined to p*** off their respective appropriations committees, since they're the ones who are really providing the bucks for an operation. If this authorization language does become law, and the Pentagon actually follows it, in spite of funds being appropriated, then it may be more due to opponents of the SR-71 seeing it as a convenient excuse to ground the Sled than out of any particular respect for authorization bill report language. Comments, anyone else? Art--(or anyone else with a .mil or .gov address), don't hurry to respond to this from work. Obviously, this issue is a hot potato for anyone in the federal government or funded by the feds (I'm not). If anyone wants to use me to post an anonymous reply to this, I'll be happy pass on a reply to the list, with the anything about the original author deleted. Paul Keller ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 9:59:07  Subject: Re: bad news for SR-71 fans Paul McGinnis: That language was in there for some time, inserted at the request of Blackbird opponents. That is a committee report/reccomendation. The real issue will be what was actually in the final language of the Defense bill as signed by the President. This is similar to what was done to attempt to ground the Marines' version of JSF that I wrote about earlier. I am attempting to find out what exactly was in the final budget. Paul Keller: You're right, there's no way I'd comment on that from This address. Art Hanley In compliance with the Full Employment For Lawyers Act, I must state that the Above does not represent my employer's Views, only mine ------------------------------ From: ahanley@usace.mil Date: Thu, 10 Oct 96 15:58:40  Subject: re: AIM-47 speed The maximum speed at burnout of the AIM-47, like the AIM-54 that was derived from it, was a function of its acceleration plus the launch speed of the aircraft, up to the thermal or drag limit (I don't know which it was on the AIM-47). For example, let's say an AIM-54 could increase its velocity by Mach 4 over its launch speed. If a F-14 was just subsonic when it launched, the missile could theoretically reach Mach 5 at burnout (depending on the flight profile). If the F-14 was doing Mach 2, the AIM-54 could theoretically reach Mach 6. However, if the missile was thermally limited to Mach 5 it would shut down early, and would still each the same maximum speed even though it launched sooner. The AIM-47 was probably similar, though not as advanced or capable Even if the AIM-47 was just 1 Mach faster than the F-12, that could still make a big difference. On a 60 mile shot the missile would get to the target around 5 minutes before the F-12 got there. Art Hanley If you asked my employers whether they had anything to do with the above, if it represented their views or if they even knew about it, they'd say, "No", and they'd be telling the truth. ------------------------------ From: John Stone Date: Thu, 10 Oct 1996 19:22:08 -0400 Subject: Thunder Over Louisville Airshow.... Hi, Tried posting this earlier, but for some reason it didn't show up, so I'm trying again, Here goes: Hi, I was just up on the Kentucky Air guard home page http://www.kyang.win.net , in the unit newspaper was an article about the 1997 Thunder over Louisville which kicks off the Derby activities here. The Air Guard will host an airshow incelebration of the Air Forces and it's 50th birthday, here are some excerpts: "The U.S. Air Force, Kentucky Air National Guard and Louisville International Airport will celebrate their 50th birthdays next year with the largest annual fireworks demonstration in the world and a comprehensive airshow featuring the Thunderbirds. The celebration, scheduled for April 19, will be part of Thunder Over Louisville, the opening ceremony of the Kentucky Derby Festival. Virtually every type of aircraft in the active Air Force inventory and a host of historic Air Force aircraft will be featured in the airshow and static display. Thunder Over Louisville drew more than 600,000 spectators last year. A static display of military aircraft, "The Planes of Thunder," drew 30,000 visitors to the Air National Guard base in a single day. Plans for next year's event are even more ambitious. "We'll be hosting one of two marquee events for the year-long celebration of the Air Force 50th anniversary," Tonini said. The national theme for the 50th anniversary is "Golden Legacy, Boundless Future Your Nation's Air Force." The Air Force and Air National Guard are giving this event their full support, Tonini said. Plans call for taxiways and part of a runway to be shut down to make room for static displays of current and historical Air Force aircraft, along with some of the premier Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard aircraft, Tonini said. A special homecoming for past and present KyANG members also is planned." I spoke with the Public Affairs Officer at the Air Guard and she said that they were trying and it looked like they were going to have at least one of every flyable aircraft that IS or HAS flown in the Air Force. Sounds like a great time. John Stone | / ^ \ ___|___ -(.)==<<.>==(.)- --------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: betnal@ns.net Date: Fri, 11 Oct 96 05:36:08 GMT Subject: re: bad news for SR-71 fans The following is solely my opinion coming totally from me. it's important to keep this in mind. Paul Keller: A while back I posted an explanation of appropriations and authorizations and their relationship to how money gets spent. Briefly, they are two sides of the same coin. For those agencies that have real budgets (Defense is one), the former is how much Congress makes available for whatever. The latter is how much money it's legal to spend for a particular purpose. If you have more authorization than appropriation, that's like saying, "It would be OK to spend x amount of dollars, if you had them, but you don't". If appropriations exceed authorization, it's like being told, "See how generous I am? I'm giving you a credit card that can be used for purchase up to $5,000. Oh, by the way, your max credit limit on this card is $2,500". Authorizations are not ignored. It's against the law. You can go to jail for that. What can happen is that Congress sometimes will appropriate funds for something and then be vague on exactly what is authorized. Sometimes the authorization doesn't fully cover every nut and bolt of the appropriation. However, if it was clearly Congress' intention for something to be done it usually gets done, and the language is fixed up later, or Congress is approached for an adjustment. Sometimes this will even get stretched a bit. The reason it seems the Government appears to be more concerned about appropriations is that while you could actually buy things with money that hasn't been fully authorized, all the permissions in the world won't purchase a cup of coffee if there's no money actually there. That said, what's happening with the SR-71 is a tactic that has been used before. Instead of openly dealing with an issue (especially if you think you'll lose), you "interpret" the budget to get what you want. The argument to keep the Blackbird from flying operational missions was that although Congress clearly funded the program to make use of the SR's capabilities , they didn't Specifically authorize the provided money to make use of the SR's capabilities operationally. Now, the same argument holds true of U-2s, JSTARS and UAVs, but amazingly doesn't seem to apply in those cases. Since the USAF doesn't like the SR, they weren't about to fight over this. The language recommended by the committee (which doesn't become law unless it stays in the budget, the budget passes and the President signs it), is another tactic that is used. Make an end-run by inserting or having inserted language that accomplishes your goal. To cite other examples: The US did fully develop, test and deploy an ABM system, The Sprint/Spartan. Sen. Kennedy lost a fight in Congress over this and it was built. What he did was insert language in The Defense bill for the following year that forbid any money from being spent on operating the system. The system was completed near The end of a fiscal year. AS soon as deployment was complete, the system was operational. However, the new fiscal year had started. Since the Defense bill forbade any money (which had been appropriated) being used to operate the system, after a little over a month the entire multi-billion dollar system was mothballed and then torn up. Similarly, an ex-USAF Congressional staffer reportedly snuck language into the FY97 Defense Bill forbidding any money to be spent on development of The STOVL version of JSF. This would have the effect of killing off advanced high speed V/STOL work and put the Marines out of The tactical air business in about 10 years, which was probably the staffer's intention. The Committee didn't catch this until after they had sent forward their recommendations. The story is that they wanted to fix it but this would embarrass them, so they let it go hoping that it would be fixed on the Floor. I don't know yet how this turned out. This latter is what was done to the SR-71. If the budget passes with specific language like that in there, the SR-71 is dead again. There are a lot of people who don't like the SR-71 because it's not career enhancing or steals the thunder of other projects. The opponents (and there's a lot that The SR-71 embarrasses) know that if they can get this language into law there won't be that big a fight to save it, because it isn't that high a priority to many members of Congress. if they can put it to sleep again (or even have the planes rot on the ramp), they can keep it from ever coming back. Art ------------------------------ From: quellish@shore.intercom.net (Dan Zinngrabe) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 04:51:24 -0500 Subject: "Artichoke" I've seen and heard recent evidence that points to the F-117X/N program as at the very least the starting point for the "artichoke" aircraft seen in the SW US a few years ago- more on this in a few days. Dan Z ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 04:35:47 PDT Subject: re: bad news for SR-71 fans It REALLY is time to put the Sleds out to pasture. reasons: i It no longer has the ability to evade a threat. ii It is no longer cost effective. iii (Most important) If the Blackbird goes away someone will finally step up and secure a replacement with a much better technology baseline. The SR71 is the fastest and the bestest only by default. The turnaround time of the SR71 is not adequate for the threat it is to be used for. This means multiple airframes and crews. The cost of project and security is an exponentail function of its size. Chuck ------------------------------ From: John Stone Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 08:40:52 -0400 Subject: Re: Bad news for SR fans... Charles Smith wrote: >It REALLY is time to put the Sleds out to pasture. >reasons: >i It no longer has the ability to evade a threat. "Evade a threat" the replacement has to evade the same threat, which the speed of the SR does play a factor, but the "def" systems play a bigger role, if the "def" system are not up to snuff on the SR, the systems on the "replacement" won't be either! >ii It is no longer cost effective. And it's replacement is going to be cheaper.......I was under the assumption that to go faster entailed more cost then even the SR costs. >iii (Most important) If the Blackbird goes away someone will >finally step up and secure a replacement with a much better >technology baseline. The SR71 is the fastest and the bestest >only by default. On your line of retire it and a replacement will come along, the Air Force is looking at a new fighter, lets go ahead and retire the F-15s, F-16s, so we can get a new fighter faster with a better "technology baseline".......... >The turnaround time of the SR71 is not adequate for the threat >it is to be used for. This means multiple airframes and crews. >The cost of project and security is an exponentail function of >its size. So this "replacement" is going to have a faster turnaround time, it sounds like it's going to "faster, more technologically advanced (read more complicated, and exotic), and it also is going to need as much if not more maintenance time as the SR. On the subject of multiple airframes and crews, this "replacement" is so efficient at evading threats and air emergencies and maintenance problems we'll only need one airframe and crew, as opposed to all the crews and airframes that we need to use the SR. As for Security, lets see, same missions, same sensors, "blacker" program, sounds like at least the same security costs, but actually, probably more costs! Respectfully submitted, 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: "J. Pharabod" Date: Fri, 11 Oct 96 14:34:33 SET Subject: A-17 and Brilliant Buzzard What happened to the "A-17", reportedly seen over the North Sea (if memory serves) ? Below is an excerpt from an old mail: >Date: Tue, 6 Feb 1996 03:40:26 -0500 (EST) >From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl >[...} >The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is working on a >modification program for F-16s, to enable autonomous flight and >auto-landing capability. Other options include an F-117-like >delta-wing design without a cockpit, but with a blended surface >fuselage, instead of flat planes. [A sketch of this design is >included, which might also be a candidate for the "A-17".] Could this "A-17" be the same as the "Brilliant Buzzard" ? J. Pharabod ------------------------------ From: Charles_E._Smith.wbst200@xerox.com Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 05:59:26 PDT Subject: re: AIM-47 speed Art, 1) How does one shut down an SRM with integrated oxidizer in the propellant? 2) The acceleration comes from F=ma. The drag is a function of the dynamic pressure (yep, even supersonic -although the shock waves do complicate it) which increases with the square of the velocity. since it is a rocket, at a constant altitude the thrust stays pretty constant. So: V =Vo + at must be modified such that a =d(mVe)/dt -Cd(M)rhoV*V/2 where Ve is the exhaust velocity of the missile (body axis system) and V is the velocity of the air , M the Mach number is defined as V/A where A is the local speed of sound ,A=sqrt(gamma*R*T) Gamma being , if I remember Cp/Cv. Cd(M) is a drag coefficient which is a function of the Mach number and rhoV*V/2 is the dynamic pressure. What this does is incorporate the gas kinetics of the shock wave into the drag calculations. Due to compression in the shock wave the air flowing next to the missile is going slower than the air a few feet out in front of it! If we assume constant altitude (fired horizontally) we can take d(mVe)/dt to be constant, T to be constant and hence, A to be constant M is a function of V , since the geometry of the rocket is incorporated into my Cd(M) phantom term. So without going into solving the DE we see right away that there is a large sensitivity to initial conditions! But this is not rocket science. Anybody can do it. Thats why I like flight controls. I am looking for any input on neural networks used in adaptive flight control systems. Can anyone help? Chuck ------------------------------ From: seb@tadpole.co.uk (Steven Barber) Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 16:32:00 +0100 Subject: re: AIM-47 speed I hate to get involved in what may become a technical argument but as I understand it, Phoenix-type missiles do *not* follow a level flight. Don't they follow a ballistic trajectory? I'd have a look & see what this would do for your assumptions except I'm trying to swap servers right now! Regards Steve ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #717 ********************************* 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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