skunk-works-digest Wednesday, November 26 1997 Volume 06 : Number 091 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Re: Myrabo's Lightcraft Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico Power's U-2 Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico (fwd) Roadrunners 1997 report Re: New Blackbird article Mach 10 Re: Mach 10 *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 24 Nov 1997 20:41:47 From: win@writer.win-uk.net (David) Subject: Re: Myrabo's Lightcraft George Culley wrote: >For those interested, the 17 Nov 97 edition of Air Force Times (p. 40) >has an article and two photos of Myrabo's Lightcraft, one of them a >time-lapse of the flight. The test vehicle is 5.7" in diameter, made of >polished aluminum, and weighs "about as much as 42 paperclips." The >in-door free-flight on 1 Oct reached 14 feet in two seconds, with the >craft revolving "several thousand" rpm, and the 10 kw laser pulsing at 10 >times/sec. The experiments have been underway "since last year," and are >budgeted at less than $1M. An out-door test is set for this month, and >Myrabo hopes to reach an altitude of 1-1.5 kilometers within 18 months. Out-door, free flight tests have already been performed early this month and they were very sucessful. Good to see Prof. Myrabo getting some funding for his work, especially from such a distinguished body as the Propulsion Directorate. Comparisons between these flights and Goddard's first tests are hard to resist don't you think ? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 07:20:16 -0700 From: Earl Needham Subject: Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico At 12:50 AM 11/25/97 GMT, George R. Kasica wrote: >On Mon, 24 Nov 1997 16:34:36 -0500, "Meinrad J. Eberle" > wrote: > >[Hi George: Here's to the Fastmover report. Please be so kind as to >post >it to the Skunk Works Mailing List, ok? Many thanks....Meinrad] > > >Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico: > >Date: Monday, 4/21/97 I don't remember now, but was this the same time the sonic boom was so loud here in Clovis? Earl Needham, KD5XB Clovis, NM Conquistador Council, BSA mailto:KD5XB@AMSAT.ORG Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, Pi Chi '76 (That was Texas A&I University.) (BTW - spent a year at SLU, too!) ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 17:55:51 +0100 From: Samuel Sporrenstrand Subject: Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico But why are there NEVER any videocameras at these occasions?? - -- Best regards // Samuel Sporrenstrand - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - \ / *URL: www.aircraft.base.org _\_/_ *E-Mail: alltech@swipnet.se *----/_(.)_\----* *Contact: Samuel Sporrenstrand - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 09:26:57 -0800 (PST) From: David Lednicer Subject: Power's U-2 > As for no Westerner ever being able to closely examine the remains of > Power' U2. I do not agree! I have seen and examined great chunks of > it in the Russian Air Force Museum at Monino on the outskirts of Moscow > - and at the time I was in the prescence of about 30 university students > from the UK. The metal is shown off with great pride by the Museum > Guides. Yes, you did get to look at it. However, what I am saying is that no Western accident investigation specialist has ever examined the wreckage (that I know of) closely enough to establish the details of the shoot down. There is a great difference between 30 university students looking at a pile of wreckage and an experienced aeronautical engineer combing over the wreckage, cataloging his/her findings and arriving at a conclusion as to how the U-2 was shot down. > I heard a version the other day that claimed Powers had a flame out at > his normal cruise altitude and had to either go to a lower altitude to > initiate a restart or ended up at a lower altitude while attemping to > restart thus coming within range of the missiles. Any truth to this? This is an artifact of the original CIA cover story that has been around for years. Consider the following story that appeared in the LA Times: The Russian Behind the Downing of Powers' U-2 (Los Angeles Times, April 30, 1995; page M-2) By David Wise WASHINGTON Monday, May 1, will be the 35th anniversary of the shooting down of the CIA's U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union, a watershed event in the history of the Cold War. When Francis Gary Powers, its pilot, was shot down over Sverdlovsk, some 1,200 miles inside Soviet territory, the Eisenhower Administration at first claimed the U-2 was a weather plane that had strayed off course. It clung to that story for seven days--until Premier Nikita S. Khrushchev revealed he had the pilot, "alive and kicking!" Then, on May 9, President Dwight D. Eisenhower admitted the truth: He had approved a program of spy flights over the Soviet Union to guard against surprise attack. For four years, the U-2 had been photographing missiles and other military targets. The U-2 affair marked the first time that many Americans even realized there was something called the Central Intelligence Agency and that it conducted secret operations around the globe. More important, the public realized, again, in many cases, for the first time, that the government--even a revered President like Eisenhower-- sometimes lied to protect those operations. With Thomas B. Ross, I wrote a book about the case and its dramatic denouement on a bridge in Berlin two years later, when Powers was traded for Rudolf Abel, a KGB colonel who had been arrested in New York and was serving a prison sentence for espionage. But it was only a little more than a year ago, on a trip to Moscow, that, entirely by accident, I learned the real ending to the U-2 affair. It came about in the most unlikely setting. I had contacted retired Col. Gen. Georgi Aleksandrovich Mikhailov, who had served in the highly secret GRU, Soviet military intelligence, during the 1980s. I wanted to interview him on a subject related to that period. At first, he refused to see me, but after several requests, he finally agreed. He suggested we meet in an Italian restaurant that was located, for some odd reason, in the House of Peace, an antiquated building that looked like a hangover from the Stalinist eta. At lunch, a bottle of wine was uncorked. In the small talk over the first glass of wine, the general asked me what books I had written. I got no further than my first. As soon as I mentioned the U-2, the general exclaimed: "I shot it down." While he had not personally fired the rocket that brought down Powers and plunged the world into a major diplomatic crisis, Mikhailov was on duty in the Moscow nerve center of the air-defense command when the order was given to launch the SA-2 rocket. "I was deputy chief of operations for the air-defense command," the general explained. A full colonel at the time, he had been summoned to a building near Gorky Park shortly after dawn on May 1, when the intruder entered Soviet air space. "I was sitting near our commander, Marshal [Sergei] Biryuzov. I heard all the talks between him and Khrushchev. 'There is a plane coming,' Biryuzov told Khrushchev, 'but it is not shot down. There is no rocket site ready until it gets to Sverdlovsk. At Sverdlovsk, we can try our luck.' Khrushchev gave the order to shoot it down. Then Khrushchev had to go to Red Square for the May Day parade. "It was nearly 9 a.m. when the plane was shot down. Marshal Biryuzov ordered me and another officer to take the next flight to Sverdlovsk to investigate what had happened. One of our fighters was unfortunately also shot down. We were not sure whether there was an American plane shot down or not, until Powers was brought to Sverdlovsk. We didn't know if it was a drone or a balloon or a plane." When Mikhailov arrived in Sverdlovsk at noon, Powers had been put aboard a plane that was on the runway and about to leave for Moscow. "I had to find the wreckage. It was scattered over a wide area. I stayed there for two days. We made sure it was all collected and brought to Moscow." The question of what altitude Powers had been flying at when his U-2 was hit had remained a mystery. Now, I might learn the answer. "We hit him at nearly 22,000 meters (about 72,200 feet) with a C- 75 rocket," Mikhailov said, giving the Soviet name for the SA-2. "Our maximum range was 25,000 meters (82,000 feet) for that rocket in that configuration. His altitude at any given point depended on fuel. As the U-2 burned fuel, it rose to higher altitudes." At the start of the flight from Peshawar, Pakistan, the general added, "Powers was at 19,000 meters (62,335 feet). By the time he reached Sverdlovsk, he was almost 22,000 meters. Had he reached Norway, he would have been at 24 or 25,000 meters (about 78,700 to 82,000 feet), at the edge of our range." After his plane was hit, the CIA pilot parachuted to Earth but never pushed the destruct button that was designed to trigger an explosive charge to destroy his plane, supposedly after a 70-second delay that would allow him to eject. But many U-2 pilots worried about the time lag; they wondered why the CIA would destroy the plane but not the pilot. There was more. "I admired Powers for two reasons," Mikhailov continued. "He never gave away the names of others he worked with, never said more than he should have, and he had warned the peasants who surrounded him when he landed not to touch the silver dollar on his collar, because it contained the poison pin he could have used to kill himself and would harm them. I felt he was honest." The years passed. In 1976, Mikhailov was stationed in Washington as the Soviet military attache. The same year, KNBC television, in Los Angeles, hired Powers to pilot a helicopter to cover traffic, fires and police chases. On the morning of Aug. 1, 1977, his helicopter crashed on a baseball field in Encino. Powers was killed. Police said he had run out of fuel. President Jimmy Carter approved a request by Powers' widow that he be buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. His body was brought east. "I was not officially invited to Arlington," the Russian general recalled, "but I went anyway." He wore civilian clothes and kept some distance from the others. He was standing there quietly on the hillside in Arlington when they buried Francis Gary Powers. - -------------------- David Wise is co-author of "the U-2 Affair" (Random House, 1962) and of the forthcoming "Nightmover," a book about the Aldrich Ames spy case (HarperCollins). - ------------------------------------------------------------------- David Lednicer | "Applied Computational Fluid Dynamics" Analytical Methods, Inc. | email: dave@amiwest.com 2133 152nd Ave NE | tel: (425) 643-9090 Redmond, WA 98052 USA | fax: (425) 746-1299 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 10:09:25 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: (fwd) Fastmover sighting during Roving Sands 97 in New Mexico At 05:55 PM 11/25/97 +0100, you wrote: >But why are there NEVER any videocameras at these occasions?? > >-- >Best regards // Samuel Sporrenstrand ====================================== There was one year and it made it worse. Douglas began filming an object at the end of dusk. Then his battery went dead. He created his "Black Manta" from that sighting. I have been to Roving Sands and it is basically a bunch of runway hawks "oohing" and "awing" when an F-14 or 15 takes off using full burners. And then an hour or two later when it gets quiet at night, some of the boys get bored and start seeing things way off in the distance. Normal stuff in my opinion. A film crew was there the year I was and filmed some good video of normal air ops to be sold to a new Discovery channel show on people with odd hobbies(runway hawks). Not sure if it ever aired. patrick cullumber patrick@e-z.net ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 21:43:37 GMT From: georgek@netwrx1.com (George R. Kasica) Subject: (fwd) Roadrunners 1997 report On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 07:30:00 -0600 (CST), georgek@netwrx1.com wrote: rom: jdonoghue@cclink.draper.com ate: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 08:23:00 -0500 (EST) Subject: Roadrunners 1997 report To: corkhoward@aol.com, drbob@creighton.edu, dutchtwozero@juno.com, enigma1@erols.com, hmmhua@worldnet.att.net, jcgoodall@msn.com, jniessen@aol.com, jstone@thepoint.net, k6rke@juno.com, meylerwalt@aol.com, brokenspar@aol.com, pathabu@aol.com, sipe@bentleyco.com, skunk-works@netwrx1.com, ucdx62a@prodigy.com, ukdragon@aol.com, wayneday@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu, weibin@cast.itri.org.tw, zlabs@aol.com Message-id: <0EK7ESONJ00987@mb2.draper.com> X-ccgate-env: skunk-works@netwrx1.com The attached is a brief report on the 15th Raodrunners Internationale Reunion held in Las Vegas October 7-10, 1997. File item: 97report.txt 11/25/97 8:03A Roadrunners 1997 Report We had a good turnout although several people who had led me to believe they'd attend were no-shows. The speakers at the Thursday night banquet were Francis Gary Powers Jr., General(USAF ret.) Jack Ledford, and Jim Eastham. They tried to get Darryl Greenamyer to talk about his - sadly unsuccessful, but heroic - attempt to repair and ferry a 40 year old wrecked B-29 out of Greenland but he was not prepared do do so this year. Gary Powers spoke of his plans for a Cold war Museum and some of his travels in pursuit of that goal. He has been to a Cold War conference at Bodo, Norway and to the Soviet Union to see the prisons his dad spent, or I should say, DID some time in. Gary distributed an interesting packet of press clippings which I'll send with this report. Among the clippings is a schedule for Gary's traveling Cold War and Frank Powers artifact exhibit which I hope you'll look for if it is due to be near you. Jack Ledford, who headed the U-2 and A-12 projects for the Agency for several years, had some interesting comments regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis and the contribution of Agency U-2s. (As a Captain, Ledford had been aircraft commander of one of the B-29s on the first '29 mission against Japan from China in June, 1944.) Jim Eastham, premier test pilot, discussed several problems which were surmounted in the early test program of the A-12 OXCART/Cygnus aircraft. Frank Murray, outgoing president of Roadrunners and one of the six A-12 pilots who flew the bird on operational missions over North Vietnam and North Korea, mentioned that members are welcome to bring guests to the reunions. If you have a friend or family member who might be interested in the accomplishments and travails of the U-2 and A-12 projects between 1955 and 1974, please consider inviting them to the 1999 reunion. Chris Pocock (author of DRAGON LADY: A HISTORY OF THE U-2 SPYPLANE) presented an early CIA briefing film entitled Inquisitive Angel in the hospitality room. Chris had some reprints of his recent article on the U-2R from World Airpower Journal for sale. His next major project is a follow-up book on the history of the U-2. Chris has amassed a great deal of new information on the U-2 since the 1989 publication of DRAGON LADY but is hoping for some declassification action on the part of the Agency before he commits the next book to print. Jim Goodall, author of several books on black aircraft, was his usual enthusiastic self. He departed on Friday, the 10th for a location on the departure path from Groom Lake/A51/the ranch with high hopes of spotting the latest generation of secret aircraft on a test hop while most of the base's personnel would be elsewhere for the Columbus Day weekend. Goodall says his next publication will be a report co-authored with Bill Sweetman on the forty year history of secret aircraft testing at Groom Lake. One of the highlights for me was a discussion with one of the early CIA U-2 pilots regarding his missions while stationed with Detachment C at Atsugi Naval Air Station in Japan from 1957 till 1960. This pilot had flown a mission over China on or about Sep 10, 1958 (which was protested by the Peoples Republic) out of Naha, Okinawa which took him over Shanghai and Beijing. He had no doubt that his presence was known to the defenders of PRC airspace. as he observed the contrails of fighter aircraft below him through his driftsight for most of the mission. The same pilot related another mission which he flew from Takhli, Thailand via Lake Baikal, USSR and Lhasa, Tibet to Dacca, East Pakistan during 1959. This was a very long range mission which probably lasted close to 10 hours in a U-2A. Peter Merlin, an aircraft archaeologist, was also in attendance. Pete brought with him some sample pieces of wreckage found at the crash site of Article 341, the very first U-2. On Friday, Pete and Chris Pocock returned to the crash site and picked up a few more pieces which Security had left behind in 1957. The best part of the reunion involved meetings of old friends from the U-2 and A-12 projects. I was particularly pleased to see Jim Sipe, whom I had not seen in about 30 years and Hsichun (Mike) Hua whom I had previously known only via internet exchanges. Hsichun was one of the first five Chinese U-2 pilots. Along with 'Gimo' Yang and 'Tiger' Wang, Hsichun flew 10 very dangerous U-2 missions over China. The SA-2 surface-to-air missiles were there and hunting these guys who didn't even have a warning system for much of their time over the mainland. Gimo and Tiger eventually left the Chinese Air Force for the (to them) greener pastures of China Air Lines while Hsichun Hua continued to serve his country until his retirement as a Lieutenant General in 1994. Hopefully, Roadrunners can bring these three and many others from the CIA/CAF U-2 project together at coming reunions. The new president of Roadrunners is Hank Meierdierck. Hank was one of the original cadre of Air Force pilots who were checked out on the U-2 in 1955 and became the IPs who taught the operational U-2 pilots to fly the U-bird. Hank eventually went to work for the Agency. Paul Zobrist (Z-man) is, as usual, the Secretary/Treasurer and his labors are greatly appreciated. I'm very grateful to Paul, Frank, and Hank as well as Slip Slater and Roger Andersen who take on these responsibilities so the rest of us can enjoy these reunions and keep in touch. Contact addresses for the next two years are as follows: RR President RR Secretary/Treasurer John J. (Hank) Meierdierck Paul Zobrist 2900 Valley View Blvd, Sp 287 1405 North Mojave Las Vegas, NV 89102 Las Vegas, NV 89101 702-876-5720 702-260-7196 Zlabs@aol.com RR Historical Officer Frank Murray If you have anything of a historical nature Route 4, Box 741A regarding the U-2, A-12 and D-21 projects, Flagstaff, AZ 86001-9397 please let Frank know. (photos, clippings, 520-774-4173 hardware, documents - an A-12 Flight Manual dutchtwozero@juno.com would be nice). Too much good stuff gets thrown out after the funerals. Me, totally unofficial and not responsible Joe Donoghue 4 Collins Rd. Wakefield, MA 01880-2513 781-246-1745 jdonoghue@draper.com Again, I call your attention to the fact that guests (and, of course, spouses) are welcome at Roadrunners. The 16th Roadrunners Internationale reunion is expected to be held in Las Vegas in October 1999. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 25 Nov 1997 18:28:18 -0500 (EST) From: Kathryn & Andreas Gehrs-Pahl Subject: Re: New Blackbird article Art brought up a most serious question to ponder: >Andreas, >Why do you always get your Wings of Fame and World Airpower Journal so >much sooner than I do (on the other hand, Aviation Week has been coming >to me like clockwork: Nyah, nyah). I have the suspicion that one of the postal workers here is an aircraft fan= ,=20 and likes to read my AW&ST -- it certainly looks like it when I get it at t= he=20 end of the week. I suppose (s)he keeps it once in a while, and then I don't get it at all. The WAPJ and WoF, on the other hand, come in their own happy little cardboa= rd box, and AirForces Monthly, AirInternational, and Combat Aircraft come in= =20 sealed plastic wrappers -- and those are all (usually) on time, and also in= =20 much better condition.=20 Maybe I get my WAPJ and WoF before you, because they send them out=20 alphabetically,=FFand Gehrs-Pahl comes before Hanley? Or your postal worker= s like to read the WAPJs, rather than AW&ST? :)=20 - -- Andreas - --- -= - -- Andreas & Kathryn Gehrs-Pahl E-Mail: schnars@ais.org 313 West Court St. #305 or: gpahl@acm.flint.umich.edu Flint, MI 48502-1239 Tel: (810) 238-8469 WWW URL: http://www.ais.org/~schnars/ - --- -= - -- ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 11:56:17 +1200 From: Brett Davidson Subject: Mach 10 This from http://jdw.janes.com/, the updated Janes site, and I presume, the current issue of Janes Defence Weekly (should be in my library next week or so): "The ability of the US Air Force to field a Mach 10 bomber and reconnaissance aircraft capable of carrying out strategic missions from the USA has been validated by a Boeing Phantom Works study. Details were revealed last week for the first time. " This is only a study, like so many others of course, but interesting nonetheless. The full article can be read online by subscribers, but I don't have the dosh... Reports elsewhere mention hydrogen (slush?), not methane fuel. Size and weight is about that of a B-1B. Rather garbled online - apparently there is a two-mode propulsion system (there'd have to be) with changeover around mach 4.5. I'll have to read the dead tree version of the magazine. A small article in the current issue of Flight International mentions Boeing work on hypersonic missiles (with a line drawing of a generic design - essentially, it looks like a shark), saying that combustor instability, which has previously hindered development, is near solution and that manned reuseable airbreathing hypersonics might not be far away. Same issue of Janes also reports relatively high hopes for the S-37 prototype making production supported by the Russian government and export sales. - --Brett ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 21:07:29 +1300 (NZDT) From: Kerry Ferrand Subject: Re: Mach 10 On Wed, 26 Nov 1997, Brett Davidson wrote: : This from http://jdw.janes.com/, the updated Janes site, and I presume, the : current issue of Janes Defence Weekly (should be in my library next week or : so): > youre lucky..my Library stopped getting JDW once they had to pay for it (they previously had a multi-year free subscription in return for buying a pile of Janes books). : "The ability of the US Air Force to field a Mach 10 bomber and : reconnaissance aircraft : capable of carrying out strategic missions from the USA has been validated : by a Boeing Phantom Works study. Details were revealed last week for the : first time. " : This is only a study, like so many others of course, but interesting : nonetheless. The full article can be read online by subscribers, but I : don't have the dosh... would this happen to be the "Global Reach" (I think that was the name) study mentioned on this list a month or so back? : Reports elsewhere mention hydrogen (slush?), not methane fuel. Size and : weight is about that of a B-1B. Rather garbled online - apparently there is : a two-mode propulsion system (there'd have to be) with changeover around : mach 4.5. I'll have to read the dead tree version of the magazine. The following report was found on a couple of newsgroups..I guess this was the blurb version of the article: > London, JANE'S DEFENCE WEEKLY Nov 12, 1997 via Individual > Inc. > > The ability of the US Air Force to field a Mach 10 Bomber > and > reconnaissance aircraft capable of carrying out strategic > missions from > the USA has been validated by a Boeing Phantom Works > study. Details were > revealed last week for the first time. > > Commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space > Administration (NASA) > with requirements input from the US Air Force, the study > contract > proposed an aircraft of similar weight to a B-1B bomber > with an 8,500nm > radius of action and a 5,000kg payload. > > The craft chosen was a dual-fuel/lifting body design with > a ramjet > engine powered by standard JP7 kerosene for flight up to > M4 to 5. At > that point, the transition to scramjet (supersonic > combustion ramjet) > propulsion would begin, using hydrogen to accelerate the > aircraft to its > M10 cruise speed. > > Using JP7 for the slower speed part of the flight regime > would allow the > aircraft, flown by a crew of two via a 'virtual vision' > system, to > refuel in mid-air from a KC-10 tanker or even to land and > refuel at > friendly bases outside the USA. > > Although not set to translate into any near-term > development > programme-OFFICIALLY, AT LEAST- the Phantom Works study is > > representative of a growing interest in hypersonics in the > USA and a > number of other countries. > > The first application in the USA is likely to be a > scramjet-powered > air-launched missle with a M7 to 8 cruise speed, designed > to destroy > mobile ballistic missile launchers from stand-off ranges > of 1000km or > more. Flight time would be cut to under 10 minutes, > reducing the > ability of the launcher to 'scoot and hide' after > detection. > > In the USAF's Hyper-sonic Technology (HyTech) programme, > the Wright > Laboratory's Aero Propulsion and Power Directorate at > Wright-Patterson > Air Force Base, Ohio, is seeking to ground-run a > flight-type liquid > hydrocarbon (JP7 fuel) scramjet engine by 2003 that could > be further > developed into a deployable propulsion system. > > It is expected that HYTech will initially develop into a > powerplant for > a hypersonic attack missile small enough for three to be > carried by an > F-15E or F/A-18E/F fighter. If a joint requirement can be > agreed by the > USAF and US Navy, its in-service date could be about 2010. > > HyTech evolved out of the X-30 National Aero-Space Plane > (NASP), a > NASA/USAF/ industry programme started in 1986 with the aim > of developing > a single-stage-to-orbit air vehicle, variants of which > would be capable > of roles spanning reconnaissance and strike to commercial > operations. > > Following a $2 billion expenditure, NASP was cancelled in > 1993 after the > programme ran into massive technical and funding > problems. Though the > NASP project resulted in failure-mainly because it sought > to conquer and > integrate too many cutting-edge technologies within one > programme-it > yielded enough positive results in key areas for follow-on > work to > continue. > > The Phantom Works Mach 10 aircraft study, commissioned two > years ago > when it was still under McDonnell Douglas ownership, was, > along with > HyTech, one such spin-off. Another was Hyper-X(Jane's > Defence Weekly29 > January), a NASA project to test a scramjet at speeds > between M5 to 10 > on a subscale flight vehicle boosted to altitude on a > Pegasus launcher. > The first flight is expected in mid-1999. > > Hyper-X, which was designed by the Phantom Works, but will > be built > under a NASA contract by Micro Craft of Tullahoma, > Tennessee, uses the > same body shape as the Mach 10 aircraft, according to > George Orton, > hypersonics programme manager at the Boeing Phantom Works > in St Louis. > > Following the NASA cancellation, the key to the successful > deployment of > a family of hypersonic military aircraft is to adopt a > stage-by-stage > development programme, NASA and USAF officials believe, > conquering each > technology area in turn, before integrating them all- > engine, materials, > avionics and airframe - into a single full-scale air > vehicle. > > While good progress is being made, officials worry about > the number of > separate, often over-lapping programmes under way in the > USA. > Organisations working on hypersonics include the USAF, > NASA, the US Navy > and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. In > several cases, > each organisation is working on different hypersonics > research > initiatives. > > This work, sources added, does not include the wealth of > activity > believed to have been under way for decades, under > CLASSIFIED or 'BLACK' > auspices, into ultra-high speed military air vehicles. > > <> Kerry ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V6 #91 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "skunk-works-digest-request@netwrx1.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 local-skunk-works@your.domain.net To unsubscribe, send mail to the same address, with the command: unsubscribe in the body. Administrative requests, problems, and other non-list mail can be sent to 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 viewing by a www interface located at: http://www.netwrx1.com/skunk-works If you have any questions or problems please contact me at: georgek@netwrx1.com Thanks, George R. Kasica Listowner