From: skunk-works-digest-owner@pmihwy.com To: skunk-works-digest@pmihwy.com Subject: Skunk Works Digest V5 #756 Reply-To: skunk-works-digest@pmihwy.com Errors-To: skunk-works-digest-owner@pmihwy.com Precedence: Skunk Works Digest Tuesday, 17 December 1996 Volume 05 : Number 756 In this issue: Re: Mergers (fwd) Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 (fwd) Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 (fwd) Re: Nuclear-powered flight experiments Re: (fwd) Re: Nuclear-powered flight experiments Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 Re: Mergers and Re: Nuclear Aircraft Re: Nuclear Aircraft (Pluto and NB-36 etc.) US Manufacturers Re[2]: Mergers Re[2]: E-Systems 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: Brett Davidson Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 17:13:29 +1300 (NZDT) Subject: Re: Mergers On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, Jeff Blue wrote: > military aircraft manufacturers and where they are now? Who was > bought/merged by/with whom, who closed shop and disappeared, and who is Off the top of my head, without any reference, who ate who goes something like this: BOEING got McD-D, itself a merged entity, the defense parts of Rockwell, which had long ago eaten up North American, Rocketdyne and ... LOCKHEED MARTIN got, well Martin Marietta obviously, Loral, the aircraft-building part of General Dynamics (G-D still makes submarines and the like however, which is by no means trivial), the aircraft and helicopters bits of Hughes???? and ... the aircraft-related bits of Grumman by way of G-D (wild guess here)???... LTV includes Vought. Stricly subcontracting nowadays. GENERAL ELECTRIC PRATT AND WHITNEY (sp?) NORTHROP GRUMMAN ...apart from themselves? REPUBLIC? BELL? SIKORSKY (Boeing get them?)? CURTISS-WRIGHT? MORTON THIOKOL? The missile manufacturers? Hughes still makes missiles, there's Raytheon - who owns them? ...er... don't sat "The Rockefellers," "The Vatican" or "The Masons" please..:-) In Europe things are quite interesting... many companies are state owned and consortia are often set up in politically-brokered ventures to manufacture one type of plane. AIRBUS, strictly civil airliners, is a consortium, and in wake of the Boeing-Mc D-D merger (I'd call it more of an an acquisition, really) there is talk of turning it into a true corporation. It includes Aerospatiale, British Aerospace and Deutsche Aerospace and Italian and other companies. BRITISH AEROSPACE Includes Vickers (artillery, submarines etc)???, which itself owns Rolls Royce cars and did include Rover until BMW bought it. It has the remains of Hawker-Sidney.. or is it Hawker Siddely... whatever, far too much coffee today obviously...Saunders-Roe, Gloster and Supermarine (Spitfire) and most of the other great British manufacturers. Chichester-Miles is still extant as a separate entity, however. BMW has recently made deals with R-R cars involving engines and chassis (R-R were going to go with Daimler-Benz, but that's another story). Rolls Royce aero engines (which actually owns the name and only lends it to the separate car manufacturer providing that it maintains its quality!) is allied with BMW in a venture. DEUTSCHE AEROSPACE, or DASA is a subsidiary of Daimler-Benz (D-B trucks, Mercedes-Benz cars) is a compond entity of what used to be Messerschmidt B -I forget B - I foget-and-couldn't-spell-it-let-alone-pronounce-it, Fokker (now kaput) and others. Daimler-Benz has also taken over AEG and other defence industry companies. AEROSPATIALE (sp?) may get Dassault in the near future. PANAVIA is a compound entity. They only make Tornadoes and have German, British and Italian parts. SEPECAT is/was? an Anglo-French venture that made Jaguars (the plane, not the car - Ford owns them). TURBO-UNION makes the engines for Panavia. EUROFIGHTER will make the EF 2000 and is similarly constructed, with German, British, Italian and Spanish parts. Sorry, I forget the names of the Italian and Spanish companies involved EUROJET. Engines for above. ARIANESPACE builds, operates and blows up the Ariane rockets. French-dominated, it includes Aerospatiale (sp?), DASA and British Aerospace with dozens of minor partners from all of the nations of ESA. (I'm a New Zealander, we have a thing about the French blowing things up) (...I only jest!) The former Soviet Union... well, MiG (design and prototypes only under the Soviet system) has merged with its manufacturer to become MAPO-MiG... expect more consolidation or collapse. Und so weiter... This is an incomplete, informal, unreliable and unresearched list. Everybody take it as an invitation to correct - PLEASE - --Brett ------------------------------ From: georgek@netwrx1.com (George R. Kasica) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 11:47:11 GMT Subject: (fwd) Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 14:20:24 -0800, "Lee Watters" wrote: Hi all... Does anyone remember any tales about the nuclear-powered flight experiments at the Idaho labs in the late 1950s? I'm especially curious about how they transferred power to the engine(s). Thanks. ------------------------------ From: georgek@netwrx1.com (George R. Kasica) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 11:48:05 GMT Subject: (fwd) Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 19:25:22 -0500 (EST), Daniel Adam Singer wrote: I am not sure if it is the same project, but my Thermodynamics Prof. said that he helped on a nuclear powered airplane program. He mentioned that liquid metals (like Mercury) were used to transfer heat to the engines. Dan Singer On Mon, 16 Dec 1996, Lee Watters wrote: > Hi all... > > Does anyone remember any tales about the nuclear-powered flight experiments > at the Idaho labs in the late 1950s? I'm especially curious about how they > transferred power to the engine(s). Thanks. > > ------------------------------ From: georgek@netwrx1.com (George R. Kasica) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 11:48:37 GMT Subject: (fwd) Re: Nuclear-powered flight experiments On Mon, 16 Dec 1996 17:14:45 -0800, "Earl Needham, KD5XB, in Clovis, NM" wrote: > From: "Lee Watters" , on 12/16/96 2:20 PM: > Hi all... > > Does anyone remember any tales about the nuclear-powered flight experiments > at the Idaho labs in the late 1950s? I'm especially curious about how they > transferred power to the engine(s). Thanks. From everything I've ever read, they didn't. They just flew a working reactor around to test shielding, etc. Earl Needham, KD5XB, in Clovis, NM Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Pi Chi '76 ------------------------------ From: JNiessen@aol.com Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 07:56:14 -0500 Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: Nuclear-powered flight experiments Just a short note to you guys. If you can track down a copy of my book, The X-Planes, X-1 to X-31, you'll find a good overview of the nuclear aircraft program under Chapter 6. There's also a rare and difficult to find government document entitled, Nuclear Propulsion for USAF Aircraft 1945 - 1958. Highly recommended and probably the definitive work on the subject. Hope this helps. Jay Miller ------------------------------ From: tcrobi@most.fw.hac.com (Tom Robison) Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 09:17:30 +0000 Subject: Re: Skunk Works Digest V5 #754 Lee wrote: >Does anyone remember any tales about the nuclear-powered flight experiments >at the Idaho labs in the late 1950s? I'm especially curious about how they >transferred power to the engine(s). Thanks. Steam, wasn't it? Or electric? Tom Robison tcrobi@most.fw.hac.com Hughes Defense Communications, Fort Wayne, IN Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Hughes Defense Communications, Hughes Aircraft Corp, Hughes Electronics Corp, General Motors Corp, God, or my wife. ------------------------------ From: Jeff H Clark Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 10:54:27 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Mergers and Re: Nuclear Aircraft On the subject of mergers: United Technologies owns Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Hamilton Standard, Norden (WWII bombsight maker), and a bunch of other non-aero companies. Back a long time ago, United Technologies Corp was called United Aircraft, and at one point UA also owned United Airlines _and_ Boeing. Boeing split off at some point (I don't know why or how) and I believe UA had to split off United Airlines to avoid anti-monopoly laws. Also, didn't Grumman contract at one point to support the Fairchild-Republic A-10 when F-R went under? On nuclear aircraft: There was also a nuclear ramjet project called Project Pluto. Air & Space magazine did a good article on it a few years ago. A few prototype ramjet reactors were test fired at Nevada Test Site in the 60s, and I have heard that these reactors now can be viewed at whatever nuclear site is in Idaho (or was it Tennessee). Anyway, the reactor was directly in the ramjet and heated the air as it flowed past. Jeff Clark jclark@freenet.tlh.fl.us ------------------------------ From: "Hoel, Erik" Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 09:47:30 -0700 Subject: Re: Nuclear Aircraft (Pluto and NB-36 etc.) >From: Jeff H Clark[SMTP:jclark@freenet.tlh.fl.us] >Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 1996 8:54 AM >To: skunk-works@pmihwy.com >Subject: Re: Mergers and Re: Nuclear Aircraft > >On the subject of mergers: ... chop ... >On nuclear aircraft: >There was also a nuclear ramjet project called Project Pluto. Air & Space >magazine did a good article on it a few years ago. A few prototype >ramjet reactors were test fired at Nevada Test Site in the 60s, and I >have heard that these reactors now can be viewed at whatever nuclear site >is in Idaho (or was it Tennessee). Anyway, the reactor was directly in >the ramjet and heated the air as it flowed past. The best url that I have on the NB-36 etc. is one of MegaZone's (a frequent contributor to this list): http://www.world.std.com/~megazone/ANP/atomair.html Another fun one (Nuclear Power for Transportation) can be found at: http://starfire.ne.uiuc.edu/ne201/webproject/cerven/nuctrans.html Here's what I know about Pluto; these were taken from r.a.m. a while back (btw - if anyone wants my _extensive_ collection Pluto-related gifs (3!), let me know directly) : - ------------------------- Begin Pluto ------------------------- Yup, a prototype propulsion reactor was engineered and tested. The design goal was a low-altitude supersonic (nearly) unlimited-endurance aircraft which would spit out hydrogen bombs like soda straw wrappers whilst searing the terrain below with radiation from an unshielded reactor, and as a grand finale, zip up to a high altitude and vaporize the reactor core with the last thermonuclear device. A genuine dragon from hell, and quite possibly the most fearsome weapon system to ever reach the prototype stage. From mc.wilson@auckland.ac.nz Thu May 4 15:41:06 EDT 1995 Article: 43357 of rec.aviation.military Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military Subject: Re: nuclear a/c & Pluto missile I was reading with interest the recent talk about nuclear aircraft. The Pluto missile sounded like the most out to launch idea of the cold war. Sure I had some info about nuclear a/c I checked out a book I had picked up called "Power Reactors", put out by the US Atomic Energy Commission in 1963. And there at the end was Pluto. So the pictures will follow. The item in the book reads... "PROJECT PLUTO In late 1955 the US Department of Defense requested the AEC to undertake a feasibility program to develop high-temperature reactors for a nuclear ramjet that could propel an aerodynamic vehicle through the atmosphere at supersonic speeds. The most promising application appears to be the propolsion of an unmanned low-altitude strategic- bombardment missile. This program was initiated in January 1956 as Project PLUTO. Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, prime reactor developer, entered the program in 1957. To demonstrate the feasibility, the Tory series of reactors are being developed and tested. The first reactor of this series, Tory IIA-1 (150 megawatts) was tested successfully in september and October 1961. The next test reactor, Tory IIC, is a ground prototype of a flight type reactor (See gifs). Total design power, temperature, power density, and size are those required in a propolsion system for low altitude supersonic flight in so far as they can be determined during the Tory IIC design. The reactor control system and reflector are of the flight type. Tory IIC represents the first reactor specifically designed to function under the full-power and aerodynamic requirements of a nuclear-ramjet-propolsion system. The feasibilty demonstration program will be completed with the Tory IIC test, to be conducted at the Nevada Test Site (See Gif Pluto3), and Project PLUTO will have progressed to the point where the next logical step in a continuing program would be the fabrication and ground-testing of a prototype ramjet under simulated flight conditions. Flight-testing would then logically follow the ground tests. The Air Force is continuing its studies of nuclear-ramjet-propulsion- system applications, and the Navy has expressed an interest in the use of nuclear ramjet missiles in a seaborne launch configuration." Pew! Would anyone like to be around when this baby was tested in the in-flight configuration? The gifs that follow seem to show 2 different engines, pluto1 and pluto2 (Tory IIA-1 and Tory IIC perhaps? The description covers both photos and says "Project PLUTO: Tory IIC reactor on test car." The gif pluto3 has the caption "Project PLUTO: artists drawing to test facilities at Nevada Test Site." Does anyone have info on how far this project got? BTW, I have a copy of another article, called Nucleonics in Flight, which I can't find at the moment. It has a photo of two J-47 jet engines hooked up to a nuclear reactor. If I can find it, I will post it. BTW2. Does anyone have a copy of the article on pluto that was posted a few days ago? I was unable to download it for some reason. TTFN ********************************************** Martin Wilson, Department of Political Studies University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand ********************************************** From rickb@eng.sws.pb.com Mon May 8 09:19:04 EDT 1995 Article: 43590 of rec.aviation.military Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military Subject: Re: nuclear powered airplane In article , mjsheltn@omni: > >The Wright Patterson Air Museum has the prototype of the first nuclear >bomber. I cant remember many details about it except that it was big and >the only shielding was between the pilots up front and the reactor above >the wings. So unless you were directly in front of the reactor, It was >very hot, I wouldnt want to be the guy to maintain this thing. > >Hope this Helps > >Jim Shelton Back in the Late 50's the Air Force looked into a Nuclear RAM JET Powered Super Sonic Cruse Missile - called project Pluto. This aircraft (which was never built) would have looked like a Navajo Cruse Missile, but larger. It was designed to fly at about 200 feet at MACH 2-3. When the missile flew over its targets, it would drop nuclear bombs. When its bombs were exhausted it would crash on its last target. Latter in the project, one engineer proposed that once the last warhead was dropped, the missile could just fly back and forth over enemy territory, radiating a remarkable amount of Neutron Radiation, Fission products (the REACTOR WAS the RAM JET, after all), and Neutron Activated atmospheric gases. Studies indicated that the missile would cause a militarily significant number of radiation induced deaths at significant distances from its engine alone. Also it was theorized that the Neutron Radiation from the reactor would "kill" incoming SAM and Fighter electronics (along with the pilots). Before the project was canceled, a Nuclear Ram Jet was build and TESTED at Jackass Flats, Nevada (or Arizona, I'm not sure). The Air Force built thousands of yards of high pressure pipe that was filled to 3000 psi air, and the air was then released into the Nuclear Ram Jet (with a LIVE REACTOR), which exhausted into the atmosphere. Test showed that the engine generated the expected thrust, and was within the expected weight range for a flight model development. ======================================================================== ==== Rick Bartholomew - Senior Engineer | My opinions are my own Pitney Bowes Shipping and Weighing Systems | and not necessarily those of Shelton, Connecticut, USA | my employer. - -------------------------------------------|---------------------------- - ---- E-Mail Address: rickb@eng.sws.pb.com | I think - Therefor I am not | politicaly correct. ======================================================================== ==== - ------------------------- End of Pluto ----------------------- >Jeff Clark >jclark@freenet.tlh.fl.us Erik Hoel hoel@gdscorp.com > > ------------------------------ From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Date: Tue, 17 Dec 1996 13:52:56 -0500 (EST) Subject: US Manufacturers I got several inquiries for a history of US aerospace manufacturers, which I will do my best to compile. I always wanted to do this project, but just haven't gotten around to it, yet. I have to decide which companies should be included, and which ones should be skipped, how much detail regarding subsidiaries, units, plants and facilities I should add, and which format I should use (a list or a table, sorted alphabetically or chronologically, with or without sub-indexing), etc. And it probably will still be a pretty incomplete genealogy. This may take a couple of days, though, because I am also pretty busy programming right now. - -- 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: "Terry Colvin" Date: Tue, 17 Dec 96 13:14:07 GMT Subject: Re[2]: Mergers ____________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re[2]: Mergers Author: Bill Riddle at FHU2 Date: 12/17/96 1:02 PM On this BEAUTIFUL December Arizona day, Brett Davidson (half a world away, and standing upside down) said: > LOCKHEED MARTIN got, well Martin Marietta obviously, Loral, the > aircraft-building part of General Dynamics (G-D still makes > submarines and the like however, which is by no means trivial), the > aircraft and helicopters bits of Hughes???? and ... the aircraft- > related bits of Grumman by way of G-D (wild guess > here)???... To which I (as a sometime Mesa resident) must make the correction: McDonnel-Douglas (and now Boeing) got the helicopter bits of Hughes. The plant is located at Mesa's Falcon Field. From whence comes the magnificent Apache. (Totally off subject: Aviation trivia for the day- Falcon Field gets its name from the RAF, who trained there during WWII. I assume that the RAF hat crest is a falcon? (They left a significant number of their dead behind. There is an RAF cemetery in Mesa. Rest easy Brits. They are suitably memorialized each year.)) Bill Riddle, Army Aviator (Emeritus) ------------------------------ From: "Terry Colvin" Date: Tue, 17 Dec 96 14:02:52 GMT Subject: Re[2]: E-Systems ____________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re[2]: E-Systems Author: Bill Riddle at FHU2 Date: 12/13/96 1:22 PM Couple of comments. 1. I wonder where Mary Shafer got the idea that the existence of NSA was classified until a few years ago. I entered the Naval Security Group in 1961. It was well ... and openly ... known who DIRNSA (Director, NSA) was and that his HQ was at Ft Meade. Her comments are usually quite pithy and on the mark. This one was wide by a mile. 2. Aaron Jacobovits refers to "60 Minutes" and says "(Recently) ... I have not had as much faith in their reporting." Aaron, buddy, as an engineer you had better relook your commitment to the scientific method. Anyone who examines "60 Minutes" reporting and emerges with any "faith in it" obviously went in with eyes closed. They carried stories, 3 times, of which I had inside knowledge. In all three cases they had it wrong, sensational, but wrong. It seems the truth wasn't interesting. They are NOT in the truth business. They are in the sensationalism business. In one of the cases I have knowledge of, an error in their story line was pointed out to them while they were still in production. They were quite forthright in their words. They said something like: "Well, the script is already written, and what you just said doesn't fit the script." So much for the truth. As an engineer, you will appreciate the equations: Sensationalism = Ratings = Money Truth = Boring = (Ratings - n) which leads to (Money - x) Which is not to say that they never have it right. I am sure they do. I know that I have, on occasion, been quite upset by stories they have carried. That is their intention. All that I can say is, in every case where I was in a position to know the truth of their story, they had it wrong. Or at least "incomplete," (which puts the charitable slant on it). Bill Riddle ____________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Re: E-Systems Author: Mary Shafer at smtp-fhu Date: 12/12/96 5:50 PM However, E-Systems has never ever been entirely skunky. We've had them here as contractors, working in totally unclassified areas, for example. I think that 60 Minutes show was about a USAF project, any way. I didn't watch it (never do) but the discussion at the time pointed toward a USAF project, not NSA. Virtually all contractors will work on anything, no matter what their core business is. Regards, Mary PS. The existance of the NSA was classified until just a few years ago. MFS Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com URL http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/People/Shafer/mary.html Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end.... On Mon, 9 Dec 1996, Aaron Jacob Jacobovits wrote: > E-Systems used to be much skunkier than it is now. I remember reading in > a book called "The Puzzle Palace" by James Bamford that it had EXTREMELY > close ties to the National Security Agency (NSA), and probably still does > today. I believe there was some mention of it actually being a corporate > offshoot. If anybody cares about ELINT stuff I could post a short > description of their joint projects. I would need to reread that chapter > first, and that would have to wait until after finals. > I also recall watching an episode of 60 minutes a few years ago that > dealt with an E-Systems employee who had some quarrell with the company, > or possibly had been killed (I wish I could remember). The whole thing > revolved around one of their heavily classified projects. I was > dissapointed that 60 minutes didn't mention the NSA even once in their > report. Especially because this was before they were acquired by Raytheon. > Since then I have not had as much faith in their reporting. > > Aaron Jacobovits > Undergrad Aersopace Engineering, University of Michigan. > Washington DC native. > ------------------------------ End of Skunk Works Digest V5 #756 ********************************* To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe skunk-works-digest in the body of a message to "majordomo@pmihwy.com". 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@pmihwy.com" or, if you don't like to type a lot, "georgek@netwrx1.com". 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 e-mail request by sending a message to majordomo@pmihwy.com with no subject and a line containing "get skunk-works-digest vNN.nMMM" (where "NN" is the volume number, and "MMM" is the issue number). You can get a list of all available digests by sending the one line command "index skunk-works-digest". If you have any questions or problems please contact me at: georgek@netwrx1.com Thanks, George R, Kasica