skunk-works-digest Monday, March 9 1998 Volume 07 : Number 012 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Article on F-117A Do you know your kids "go code"? SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... F-117 Markings Re: F-117 Markings Re: SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... Re: Area 52 Re: X-15 Re[2]: Spice Up Your Briefing with War Fighter Photos Re[2]: X-15 Re: F-117 Markings F117 radar Re: SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... Re: F117 radar RE: F117 radar RE: X-15 Re[2]: X-15 - re: SR-71's at 314,750' [Fwd: Leading an assault on the Pentagon:Chuck Spinney] *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 6 Mar 1998 19:22:39 -0600 (CST) From: jetguy1@ix.netcom.com (BRENT CLARK ) Subject: Article on F-117A Secrecy, The Media, and the F-117A. I needed to add the "L" onto htm. Correct address is: http://www.cdsar.af.mil/apj/cunn.html Sorry! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 20:57:35 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Do you know your kids "go code"? >Air Force Core Competencies: >Air and Space Superiority, Global Attack >Rapid Global Mobility, Precision Engagement >Information Superiority, Agile Combat Support >& >Air Force News Service >AFNS electronic filename: 07mar98 >980312. Hazardous Recall -- Fisher-Price refrigerator magnet > >DALLAS (AFNS) -- The Army and Air Force Exchange Service announces the >hazardous recall of 21,000 cookie-shaped refrigerator magnets. > >Fisher-Price Inc., of East Aurora, N.Y., in conjunction with the >Consumer Product Safety Commission, initiated the voluntary recall >because the magnets can come apart, releasing small plastic pieces that >might present a choking hazard to young children. > >The refrigerator magnet toy looks like a partially eaten chocolate >cookie with colorful candy pieces on top. The bottom of the cookie is >white. > >There is an alphanumeric imprint on the back of the magnet, the first >three numbers of which make up the date code. The recall involves only >cookie-shaped magnets sold after September 1, 1997, with date codes 224 >through 228. > >The cookie-shaped magnet sold as part of a three-piece Refrigerator >Activity Set, Fisher-Price No. 71126. The other magnets look like a >carrot and a piece of cheese. The recall affects only the cookie >magnet. > >Customers should take the magnet away from children immediately and call >Fisher-Price toll free at 1-888-407-6479 8 a.m. to 6 p.m EST, Monday >through Friday, for a replacement magnet. Customers overseas may return >the magnet to their nearest AAFES exchange for a full refund. _____________________________________________________ patrick cullumber "Pureity of Esscense" patrick@e-z.news ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 17:14:52 +0900 From: "James Matthews" Subject: SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... SAR: Thank you, Art. That cleared it up...BTW: The U-2 uses SAR, right? UAV: What do you people think about these UAV's -- you think the politicians will win? The basic argument is that politians obviously favour UAV's because they're pilotless...and military people favour conventional aircraft because you have the 'human loop' which is probably more effective. Pilots nowadays cope with just as much information as pilots will do in the future...its just the info then will be more accurate. I did see a go-between: a picture (drawing) of a Jaguar fitted with TIALD, and two RAF UAV's by the side of the Jag, with LBG's (I love acronyms :) ) SWD: Thank you Andreas for the tip. I'll remember that. Thanks for the typing compliment :) - you learn well when you're young (I think at 16 I'm probably the youngest SWD subscriber...) U-2: I have been learning about the Cuban Missile Crisis in History -- at some point a U-2 (or so it said in my book) ventured over Soviet airspace in E-Russia. Now, the US said it was an air-sampling flight. Surely that was a TR-1, and the book was using U-2 to simplify it for the general public...? U-2 cont'd: You mentioned U-2 carrier take offs! Wow, what carriers were they? The U-2 has a massive wingspan...perfect for carrier landings and takeoff, but where'd they put it? S-37: Is this just a proof-of-concept aircraft? Beautiful, isn't it? Sukhoi have a knack for making the most beautiful jets... Sorry for the long post... James. ____________________ James Matthews. E-mail (family): matthews@tkb.att.ne.jp E-mail (private): james_matthews@hotmail.com Homepage: http://home.att.ne.jp/gold/tomcat21/index2.html ICQ: 7413754 ____________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 14:45:33 EST From: AWHardin Subject: F-117 Markings Have any pictures ever been published of the F-117 that had the American flag painted on the under-surface? ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 07 Mar 1998 14:12:51 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: F-117 Markings At 02:45 PM 3/7/98 EST, you wrote: >Have any pictures ever been published of the F-117 that had the American flag >painted on the under-surface? > >======================================== Probably not yet. So far just artist renditions of model box tops and appropriate decals only. This is one of those stupid political deals. For a long time it was claimed the photo didn't exist. Supposedly, Lockheed was embarassed the flag was painted, flown and photographed. But the denial's became so strong that someone from Lockheed finally admitted they do have it. This is not a big revelation. For several years prior to this, a large print of the photo has been hanging in the Flight Director's office at the Skunkworks, easily seen by all who visit. Peter Merlin may be able to provide a few more details. patrick cullumber patrick@e-z.net ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 18:04:00 -0500 (EST) From: Wei-Jen Su Subject: Re: SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... On Sat, 7 Mar 1998, James Matthews wrote: > U-2 cont'd: You mentioned U-2 carrier take offs! Wow, what carriers were > they? The U-2 has a massive wingspan...perfect for carrier landings and > takeoff, but where'd they put it? From "Wing" on Discovery Channel once I saw the U-2 landing and taking off from US carrier "Kitty Hawk" or "Forrestal" class. I believe someone on the list mention that the U-2's wing can be fold down, or remove? May the Force be with you Su Wei-Jen E-mails: wsu02@utopia.poly.edu wjs@webspan.net "If God had meant man to fly, He would have given him more money." ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 19:38:45 EST From: Xelex Subject: Re: Area 52 There actually is an Area 52. It is Tonopah Test Range. I'm not kidding. TTR is actually listed in the Department Of Energy phone directory as "Area 52." Peter W. Merlin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Mar 1998 19:37:03 EST From: Xelex Subject: Re: X-15 Not to beat this subject to death, but... The X-15 did technically enter "space" every time it flew above 50 miles. Of the 12 pilots who flew the X-15, eight of them earned their astronaut wings. All of them did so in the number three X-15 (56-6672). Here is a list of initial astronaut wings flights for each of the pilots: 17 JUL 62 Robert M. White 314,750' FAI world altitude record 17 JAN 63 Joseph A. Walker 271,700' First civilian flight above 50 miles 27 JUN 63 Robert A. Rushworth 82,000' 29 JUN 65 Joseph H. Engle 280,600' 28 SEP 65 John B. McKay 295,600' 01 NOV 66 William H. Dana 306,900' 17 OCT 67 William J. Knight 280,500' 15 NOV 67 Michael J. Adams 266,000' Fatal accident On 22 AUG 63, Walker set an unofficial record of 354,200' altitude. Peter W. Merlin ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 12:51:45 -0500 From: gregweigold@pmsc.com Subject: Re[2]: Spice Up Your Briefing with War Fighter Photos That's what I thought too.... but a very nice S.Sgt. called me and told me that you can access 99.9% of the images WITHOUT a .mil address; use user name PUBLIC and you can get to everything that's out there. All is unclassified anyhow...... Greg Weigold ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: Spice Up Your Briefing with War Fighter Photos Author: at INTERNET Date: 3/6/98 9:00 AM Terry Colvin wrote: > Are you looking for some Warfighter images to spice up your > briefings, > task web pages, or other official documents. > > Try the JCCC (Joint Combat Camera Center) > > http://dodimagery.afis.osd.mil/home.html > > You'll have to apply for a password and their server could be a > little > faster but they have a lot of photos and new ones are added > daily. > > Put a Warfighter in your briefing! Unfortunately, I understand you have to have a .mil access to see these images. It's such a pity! :-( Life's so unfair! Felipe ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 08 Mar 98 16:21:08 -0500 From: gregweigold@pmsc.com Subject: Re[2]: X-15 Does anybody know where the 'official' final word is on this? I'm currently having a discussion similar to this on another list. The other guy says the SR-71 had the record, I say the X-15. But neither of us has enough complete info to prove the other wrong. Thanks in advance Greg Weigold ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Re: X-15 Author: at INTERNET Date: 3/7/98 7:37 PM Not to beat this subject to death, but... The X-15 did technically enter "space" every time it flew above 50 miles. Of the 12 pilots who flew the X-15, eight of them earned their astronaut wings. All of them did so in the number three X-15 (56-6672). Here is a list of initial astronaut wings flights for each of the pilots: 17 JUL 62 Robert M. White 314,750' FAI world altitude record 17 JAN 63 Joseph A. Walker 271,700' First civilian flight above 50 miles 27 JUN 63 Robert A. Rushworth 82,000' 29 JUN 65 Joseph H. Engle 280,600' 28 SEP 65 John B. McKay 295,600' 01 NOV 66 William H. Dana 306,900' 17 OCT 67 William J. Knight 280,500' 15 NOV 67 Michael J. Adams 266,000' Fatal accident On 22 AUG 63, Walker set an unofficial record of 354,200' altitude. Peter W. Merlin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 09:06:56 -0500 From: "Tom C Robison" Subject: Re: F-117 Markings >Have any pictures ever been published of the F-117 that had the American flag >painted on the under-surface? I remember seeing a photo in Aviation Week, during the "coming out" party several years ago. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 14:16:40 +0000 From: Steven Barber Subject: F117 radar Having read the Web article about the F117, program leaks, etc, I have a query. One thing the author comments on is that a radar dish is automatically a good radar reflector, at least at the frequency of the aircraft's radar, and that if the enemy know the radar in the aircraft, they can choose a frequency to help them find the F117. My question is: is this true? Modern radars use electronics to sweep the beam, etc, and the 'dish' is flat, so it's not trying to focus the return on a single detector. This implies (to me) that the 'dish' just needs to be a radar *absorber* at the correct frequency and not a reflector. REgards, Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 09:05:47 -0800 From: G&G Subject: Re: SAR/UAV/U-2's and more... Wei-Jen Su wrote: > I believe someone on the list mention that the U-2's wing can be > fold down, or remove? True, but only once. The airframe is pretty much ruined after that... :) Greg ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 09:56:16 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: F117 radar At 02:16 PM 3/9/98 +0000, you wrote: >Having read the Web article about the F117, program leaks, etc, I have a >query. One thing the author comments on is that a radar dish is >automatically a good radar reflector, at least at the frequency of the >aircraft's radar, and that if the enemy know the radar in the aircraft, >they can choose a frequency to help them find the F117. > >Steve =================================================== Steve, my batting average has been low lately but here goes: Currently, the F-117 has only one radar system onboard. And that would be the radar altimeter. I wouldn't venture to guess the answer to your second question. patrick cullumber patrick@e-z.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 18:10:53 -0000 From: Gavin Payne Subject: RE: F117 radar Along time ago I remember reading that even the radar altimeter is only used for approaches. When over enemy territory, every system is passive. Can anyone confirm this? Gavin - -----Original Message----- From: patrick [SMTP:patrick@e-z.net] Sent: Monday, March 09, 1998 5:56 PM To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com Subject: Re: F117 radar At 02:16 PM 3/9/98 +0000, you wrote: >Having read the Web article about the F117, program leaks, etc, I have a >query. One thing the author comments on is that a radar dish is >automatically a good radar reflector, at least at the frequency of the >aircraft's radar, and that if the enemy know the radar in the aircraft, >they can choose a frequency to help them find the F117. > >Steve =================================================== Steve, my batting average has been low lately but here goes: Currently, the F-117 has only one radar system onboard. And that would be the radar altimeter. I wouldn't venture to guess the answer to your second question. patrick cullumber patrick@e-z.net ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 08:38:40 -0800 From: Erik Hoel Subject: RE: X-15 Peter Merlin wrote: ... chop ... > Here is a list of initial astronaut wings flights for each of the pilots: > > 17 JUL 62 Robert M. White 314,750' FAI world altitude record > 17 JAN 63 Joseph A. Walker 271,700' First civilian flight above 50 miles > 27 JUN 63 Robert A. Rushworth 82,000' > 29 JUN 65 Joseph H. Engle 280,600' > 28 SEP 65 John B. McKay 295,600' > 01 NOV 66 William H. Dana 306,900' > 17 OCT 67 William J. Knight 280,500' > 15 NOV 67 Michael J. Adams 266,000' Fatal accident > > On 22 AUG 63, Walker set an unofficial record of 354,200' altitude. Can anyone shed any light (or provide a good URL) on what happened during Michael Adams' fatal flight? I was unaware of this event. Thanks, Erik - -- Erik Hoel mailto:ehoel@esri.com _|_| Environmental Systems Research Institute http://www.esri.com _|_| 380 New York Street 909-793-2853 tel ESRI Redlands, CA 92373-8100 909-307-3067 fax ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Mar 1998 13:55:19 -0800 From: Larry Smith Subject: Re[2]: X-15 - re: SR-71's at 314,750' >Pete wrote: >17 JUL 62 Robert M. White 314,750' FAI world altitude record >... >On 22 AUG 63, Walker set an unofficial record of 354,200' altitude. Greg replied: > Does anybody know where the 'official' final word is on this? I'm > currently having a discussion similar to this on another list. > > The other guy says the SR-71 had the record, ... But > neither of us has enough complete info to prove the other wrong. The other guy says the SR-71 had what record? The altitude record? No way! Think of it this way. Have any SR or A-12 pilots earned astronaut wings? Not to my knowledge. Does the SR have a similar control system to the X-15-3? Namely BOTH an endoatmospheric (aerodynamic) and exoatmospheric (reaction control thrusters) control system? Nope! Also, look at those big 6-digit numbers on the list Pete posted. Look at the top one which is 'official FAI world alt. record', 314,750. An SR at 314,750? No way. Can an SR zoom itself outside its aerodynamic envelope? Yes, I believe it can, but not that far out. Someday it will be way cool when USAF and hopefully USN/USMC pilots earn astronaut wings on non-shuttle military missions, but we're not there yet. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 18:55:31 -0500 From: "James P. Stevenson" Subject: [Fwd: Leading an assault on the Pentagon:Chuck Spinney] This is a multi-part message in MIME format. - --------------FD65ADB4C4815F02E56CBB11 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I thought this would interest you. Jim - --------------FD65ADB4C4815F02E56CBB11 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from imo25.mx.aol.com(198.81.19.153) by mailgate31-hme2 via smap (KC5.24) id Q_10.1.1.24/Q_24040_1_3502ad1f; Sun Mar 8 06:37:20 1998 Received: from WILSONGI@aol.com by imo25.mx.aol.com (IMOv13.ems) id 9KHAa02816; Sun, 8 Mar 1998 09:35:25 -0500 (EST) From: WILSONGI Message-ID: <84edcee2.3502acaf@aol.com> Date: Sun, 8 Mar 1998 09:35:25 EST To: eric_thorson@finance.senate.gov (eric thorson), burnsm@usa.redcross.org (Mike Burns), aldiemanor@aol.com (Jim Burton), amcockburn@aol.com (Andrew Cockburn), mgreeley@usni.org (Mac Greeley), strategoi@aol.com (Grant Hammond (h)), Kokonut@ix.netcom.com, Kohut@eglin.af.mil (John Kohut (w)), r.leopold@ieee.org (Ray Leopold), suntzujr@erols.com (Dan Moore (h)), moore_jrd@quantico.usmc.mil (Dan Moore (w)), MuellerJD@bakuwpoa.us-state.gov, cmyersaero@aol.com (Chuck Myers), ericcioni@prodigy.net (Rich Riccioni), crichards@iainc.net (Chet Richards (h)), jrothr9879@aol.com (John Rothrock), greg.schneider@baltsun.com, cspinney@erols.com (Chuck Spinney (h)), jamesstevenson@sprintmail.com (Jim Stevenson (h)), wilsongi@aol.com (G I Wilson (h)), gwilson@ra.osd.mil (G.I. Wilson (w)), pvt57@aol.com (Mike Wylie), forager@erols.com (Chris Yunker (h)), zuhoski_charles@bah.com (Charlie Zuhoski), tchristi@ida.org (Thomas Christie) Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: Leading an assault on the Pentagon:Chuck Spinney Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 for Windows 95 sub 62 Leading an assault on the Pentagon: Analyst: Chuck Spinney sifts through piles of bureaucracy and points out flaws he uncovers in the Defense Department. By Greg Schneider Baltimore Sun Staff March 8, 1998 The Navy has a $47 billion problem, and some of its leaders have decided who gets the blame. Not Boeing Co., the contractor that built a flawed fighter plane. And not program officials who let the Pentagon start production of the plane without mentioning that its wings don't work right. That's not what the Navy's upset about. Instead, the thread of blame twists through the halls of the Pentagon to an office so small the desk blocks the door from closing. Here Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney has infuriated Navy brass by using the telephone, copy machine and e-mail to tell the world what's wrong with the Navy's Super Hornet fighter jet. Now the secretary of defense is withholding $2 billion from the $47 billion program, and some members of Congress are spoiling to put the whole project in deep freeze. For his efforts, Spinney hears comments like Assistant Navy Secretary John W. Douglass made recently in the Norfolk, Va., Virginian-Pilot, saying that the fighter's biggest problem is leaks to the news media by "weenies" who otherwise would be "just another low-level puke in the bureaucracy." Spinney looks the part in his plaid sweater vest and khaki pants. But in a bureaucratic career that spans more than a generation, he has transcended his lowly status as a civilian analyst to become one of the most polarizing figures in the Pentagon. "Chuck is sort of like the conscience of the Pentagon," said Charlie Murphy, an aide to Republican Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. "He's a very moral person. He sees things in terms of right and wrong." "He can antagonize some people with that," said Thomas Christie, a former boss. "Chuck doesn't help himself all the time." The Super Hornet is only the most recent example of Spinney's vast body of criticisms and writings, much of it focused on the Pentagon budget and loaded with terms such as "hallucinating," "insults the American taxpayers" and "undermines our form of government." Some insiders won't talk about Spinney publicly for fear of association, others because they despise him so much they mistrust their tongues. His defiance is doubly lonely because it violates both the military's code of obedience and the bureaucracy's need for facelessness. But he wasn't always a solitary voice at the bottom of a well. Fifteen years ago, Spinney made the March 7 cover of Time magazine and became the poster boy for an eccentric band of renegade bureaucrats known as the Pentagon Underground or the Military Reform Movement. At its heart was a now almost mythic former fighter pilot named John Boyd, known as "40-second Boyd" because he could win any dogfight in that time or less. Under Boyd's direction, the group of fewer than a dozen civilian and uniformed insiders set out to change the habits of the military and the industry that serves it. Then, one by one, the enormous machine they challenged ground them down. Boyd, who died last year, left to study philosophy. His right-hand man gave up and started a jazz recording studio. Another high-profile follower went into county politics, wrote a book and was recently the subject of an HBO movie. Today, only Spinney is left, plodding along on the same course. "We call Chuck," said one sympathetic Marine Corps colonel, "the Last Man Standing." Boyd's disciple There is a window in Spinney's office, but it faces another Venetian-blinded window. One wall is mostly blackboard, covered with equations. A set of bookshelves is stuffed with military reference works, the desk piled with three-ring binders, policy journals and, usually, a bottle of Diet Coke. Lately, documents about the Super Hornet form another layer of clutter atop it all. Spinney, his eyes red by the end of the day and face pulled into a perpetual scowl of concentration, spins in his chair from desk to laptop computer to telephone. He hates the passive-sounding title of analyst, but that's basically Spinney's job -- to study warplanes for the program analysis and evaluation section of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Spinney refuses to stay within boundaries, though, roaming into a variety of military issues. His civil service salary is about $100,000 a year. Though the 52-year-old engineer came of age during the 1960s, he is no graying campus radical. He was born into the military at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. His father was a career Air Force officer, what Spinney calls a "true believer." The son followed straight into the Air Force after graduating from Lehigh University in 1967 with a mechanical engineering degree. His first posting: Wright-Patterson, where he worked in the flight dynamics lab next to a lieutenant whose father had worked there with Spinney's. He spent most of the Vietnam War researching the characteristics of fighter planes. It was during an assignment to the Pentagon that Spinney encountered the force that would alter his life: Col. John Boyd, who became his boss in the Air Force research and development office. Boyd was a rakish figure with Reaganesque good looks and an ever-present cigar that he brandished so aggressively he once burned a hole in a general's tie. Unlike Spinney and his researcher father, Boyd was a man of combat. He had flown fighter jets in Korea and trained young pilots, then learned to stop counting kills and instead "count the stars of generals that he shot down," said longtime ally Pierre Sprey. Boyd had an open contempt for authority that would have scrubbed him early on if not for one factor: He had a brilliantly unconventional mind. He looked at aerial combat in ways no one else had considered, writing a dogfight handbook that remains the standard worldwide. Boyd was shackled to the Pentagon to help save an overweight new fighter plane design that would become the F-15, and his battlefield sense of honor was offended by the furtive and insinuating nature of the military bureaucracy. He began surrounding himself with proteges and teaching them to use his increasingly abstract theories of conflict against the Pentagon itself. "John had hired guys of character and aggressiveness and bluntness and honesty -- guys willing to challenge the system," recalled Sprey, a French-born mathematician who became Boyd's alter ego. "With John as their mentor, he turned them into raving tigers, really sharpened their fangs." Boyd's message of subversion was not based on some revolutionary radicalism. Instead, he preached an old-timer's mistrust of technology, a spendthrift's anger that costs were spiraling out of control, a veteran's indignance that the interests of contractors were coming before the good of the troops. To Spinney, the impact was all the more profound because just as Boyd came into his life, Spinney's father died, in 1972. "My father instilled a sense of doing what you think is right," he said, "and Boyd basically taught me how to do that without killing myself." Boyd's methods were anything but traditional. He retired from the Air Force and returned to the Pentagon as a consultant, refusing all but token pay so he could work with freedom. He housed his wife and five children in a shabby basement apartment in Northern Virginia. Spinney himself left the Air Force in 1975, returning two years later to work with Boyd in the Program Analysis and Evaluation Office. "The people who were disciples of John Boyd learned that the measure of real success is whether or not you contribute something significant. And to do that, quite often you have to forgo the opportunity for normal success like medals and promotions and that kind of thing," said retired Col. James Burton, who worked on the Air Force staff but had a secret alliance with Boyd's camp. What seemed like noble self-denial to some, though, just seemed overly dramatic to others. David Chu, who as head of program analysis and evaluation often served as the villain for his noisy underlings, said the group's wartime mentality clouded its vision. The process of equipping and sustaining the American military may be ugly, Chu said, but all that counts is that the resulting forces are the envy of the world. "That doesn't mean they're perfect or that further improvement couldn't be achieved. In that sense the reformers are correct," he said, "but neither is it at the far end of the scale that the reformers would have you believe." Boyd and his followers could never be so sanguine. They saw the system in absolute terms of lives and dollars, and imperfection had to be attacked by any legal means. Using the code name "Arbuthnot," Boyd, Sprey or Spinney would call to arrange clandestine meetings with Burton in front of the NATO flags in a particular corridor of the Pentagon. There, they traded information on the latest problems with weapons systems or the latest effort by the Air Force brass to discredit Boyd's group. Spinney soaked up Boyd's enthusiasm for intrigue and bureaucratic combat, which bordered on mania. When Boyd was on the trail of a particular general or admiral, the old fighter pilot would concentrate on the person and stare at the tip of his pen as though it were the gun sights of a fighter plane, twisting the pen faster and faster with gathering venom. By the early 1980s, Spinney became Boyd's lead gunner. The Spinney thesis Some say it was Boyd who came up with the insight; Spinney credits Sprey. Either way, in the late 1970s, Spinney set to work on a simple thesis with big implications: The Pentagon was spending more money for fewer weapons and consistently underestimating their cost. The result was a vicious cycle that helps explain why the country still supports Cold War-sized defense budgets even as the military shrinks. First, the cost of weapons rises faster than the budget that buys them. As the nation spends more to buy less, forces shrink. Those forces wind up with older equipment because existing supplies are replaced more slowly. Aging equipment and the high-tech nature of new weapons drive up maintenance costs. Those higher costs cause further force reductions. Congress is politically powerless to break the cycle because the system creates jobs in so many districts. By the time true costs emerge, the programs are too far along to cancel. Spinney began analyzing budgets during the Carter administration to prove his thesis and continues to find examples that he says show the situation is worsening. For instance, the Air Force planned last year to buy fewer than 800 new aircraft in the coming decade at a total cost of almost $69 billion. By contrast, during the 1980s -- the most expensive decade of the Cold War -- the Air Force spent an inflation-adjusted $50.3 billion to buy 1,800 planes. That means the future plan would provide 56 percent fewer planes at 37 percent greater cost. When Spinney began presenting such statistics in Pentagon briefings in 1982, word of his study made its way across the Potomac to Capitol Hill. In early 1983, Grassley wanted to hear what it was all about. This is where Spinney's supporters and detractors alike agree that the Pentagon made a grave tactical error. Rather than hand over the obscure young bureaucrat, the system stonewalled. Officials told Grassley that Spinney couldn't come to his office, so the senator drove to the Pentagon and tried to track him down. Rebuffed again, Grassley left more determined than ever to get Spinney and his briefing. "A sense of excitement increased that really wasn't deserved. There was a sense that it was dynamite, and it really wasn't," said one of Spinney's fellow staff members who asked not to be identified. The staff member argued, as did Spinney's supervisors at the time, that the briefing in question looked at historical data and did not apply to the changes being wrought by the Reagan administration. Regardless, the secrecy pumped the situation full of significance. "The whole thing became bigger than Chuck. The whole Military Reform Movement -- Chuck's thing was the test case," said Thomas Christie, his former boss. Several weeks of hard politicking later, Grassley marshaled support to haul Spinney before a rare joint session of the budget and armed services committees. In a last-ditch effort to blunt publicity, Pentagon supporters scheduled the hearing for the dead zone of 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon. What happened next is part of Military Reform Movement folklore that everyone connected to it relishes telling. The hearing took place; Spinney presented all his spaghetti charts; the senators were chagrined at the numbers. The weekend came and went with only a smattering of news stories, and on Monday, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger gathered his staff for a morning meeting. As they congratulated one another for getting through Spinney's hearing with a minimum of news media coverage, somebody walked in and tossed a copy of Time magazine on the table. Jaws dropped. On the cover: a painting of Chuck Spinney and the words, "Are Billions Being Wasted?" "It stunned the building," said Christie. "They deserved it, though. I always argued, just let Chuck go over there and present his stuff." The pope, heads of state -- the cover of Time is rarely a platform for someone as mundane as Spinney. His wife, Alison, was on a business trip to Atlanta when the issue came out. She had been expecting it but couldn't restrain her shock at seeing Spinney's face on the rack at a grocery store. He hadn't wanted to do the cover, he said. Boyd talked him into it, arguing that the publicity would protect him from whatever retribution might follow the Senate hearing. Now that it was out, Spinney was enjoying the excitement. He delivered a copy to Boyd and stood by while the old colonel leafed through the magazine. Boyd flipped it into the corner. "Well," he said dismissively, "that's done." "He was making a point to me: Don't get a big head," Spinney recalled. "Once you get involved in this stuff, it's fun. And you have to be careful because the game itself is fun to play, and you can lose sight of the goal. Boyd always kept the goal in sight: to make it better for the soldier and the taxpayer." No free ride Today the Time cover is framed and hanging in Spinney's house, but a visitor would have to ask to see it, back in a small study off the kitchen. That cover brought Spinney about a year of celebrity status -- both in the media and in a less-admiring way at the Pentagon. His parking permit was yanked, he says. Now, Spinney makes the daily 15-minute ride to the office from his home in Baileys Crossroads, Va., on a free Pentagon bus. His phones, he believes, were tapped. He and Sprey say the military services planted a series of spies in Spinney's department to report activities to generals and to snoop through desks. Alison Spinney says she worried about her husband's safety. "When I realized they tap phones and do everything surreptitious just like in the spy novels I read, I realized there was no limit," she said. Even if that fear was imagined, Boyd's strategy of protecting Spinney with publicity seemed to pay off. Several months after his Senate hearing, Spinney got a downgrade on his annual performance rating. Certain he would be fired, Spinney lined up lawyers to file suit against the Pentagon. The news media rushed to protect their newfound darling and, after a blitz of stories, Spinney's superiors quietly upgraded his rating. Spinney, riding a scandal high, planned to follow through with the lawsuit anyway. Boyd demanded that he stop. Continuing to fight would ruin Spinney's underdog status and would be self-serving, he warned. But Boyd plotted one more twist: He leaked Spinney's upgraded rating to the news media, which followed with stories about the Pentagon caving in. "As Boyd used to teach us, you may never win, but you can't give the bastards a free ride," said Burton, the retired Air Force colonel. That attitude fed the reformers' sense of martyred justice. But over time, it worked against them. "It was all so shrill, unnecessarily so. It actually got in the way of providing solutions," said Chu, the group's former boss. Chu sat beside Spinney during the notorious Senate hearing and contradicted his assertions. Looking back, he said the reformers suffered from a combination of arrogance and naivete. Their attitude was, "If you just put us in charge, it would be so much better," Chu said. He wanted to tell them, "Calm down, stop throwing so much mud. Let's concentrate on a more empirical view of what is going on here. The bottom line: The reform community vastly overstates the valid criticisms of the department's efforts." The reformers also failed to give credit when the Pentagon tried to do the right thing, he said. For instance, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry wrote to Grassley Spinney and another concerned senator in 1995 that a number of "aggressive steps" would address some of Spinney's criticisms. The military had begun using commercial standards and products, Perry wrote, and was making a point of considering cost instead of simply ordering the best weapons system at any price. He noted that "historical evidence clearly shows that [the Defense Department's] record on cost performance, while far from perfect, is superior to other government and private-sector organizations that deal with systems of similar complexity." What the reformers never accepted, Chu said, is that the only way to change an institution as vast as the military is through "the constant, slow accretion of lessons learned. Patience, perseverance, attention to detail really pay off in the long run." Boyd's original inner circle featured people with a variety of qualities: Boyd's own eerie intellect, Sprey's austere precision, Burton's upright confidence. But in the end, only Spinney had the patience and doggedness that Chu described. Accomplishments The military reformers chalked up some accomplishments. Boyd and Sprey are credited with creating the Air Force's F-16, one of the most successful fighter planes ever. Boyd's theories about warfare helped shape the successful strategy of the Persian Gulf war. Burton waged a high-profile campaign to reconfigure the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle so soldiers wouldn't burn up inside, which HBO chronicled in the recent movie "The Pentagon Wars." And Spinney's analyses "were the final nail in the coffin" that enabled Congress to impose a freeze on defense spending in 1985, said Chris Koresnick, a top aide to Grassley, who co-sponsored the amendment. But the atmosphere of constant conflict wore on the reformers. "You don't know what it's like to be in a position like that every day, where practically everybody you deal with hates you and cannot stand what you're doing," said Sprey. "It's hell." He was one of the first to leave, quitting in 1986 to start the highly regarded Mapleshade jazz recording studio. Burton was maneuvered into retirement the same year, and Boyd left in 1988 to pursue his theories of conflict and engagement. Boyd died a year ago tomorrow at age 70. Spinney continued to refine his budgetary arguments and became a regular source of inflammatory quotes in the news media. Detective novelist Robert Coram has made Spinney a character in a book to be released this fall, in which a cop investigating the murder of a Lockheed Martin engineer spends a whole chapter listening to Spinney explain what's wrong with military spending. "I sent Chuck a draft of the chapter," Coram said, "and he said, `That's too weak. We can kick their asses harder than this.' " But along the way, Spinney lost much of his audience. Capitol Hill moved on to other matters. The Pentagon, insiders say, learned to look the other way. "He was, I think, attacked in the '80s and marginalized in the '90s," said a Navy officer. "He brings a message that nobody really wants to hear, so they try to ignore him." Pentagon staff members regularly avoid Spinney in hallways or on exercise machines in the gym. Some of them respect Spinney; they just don't want to be seen with him. "People are very, very careful talking," said one. "Frankly, you have to be very, very careful what you give Chuck, because it's going to be widely circulated." Twenty-five years ago, Christie, Spinney's former boss, started a weekly happy hour for reform-minded bureaucrats, military personnel and reporters. They still meet, every Wednesday night, in the basement of the officers' club at Fort Myer in Arlington. Many in the rotating cast of attendees are now retired. Some are in the bureaucratic rank and file, and sympathize with Spinney but would never make such a spectacle of themselves. Now and then, a few young military officers drop by. Grooming a next generation of reformers is something Spinney says he has resoundingly failed to do. But they are out there. "Without revealing any big secrets, there are others, and sort of marbled in through the organization," said Mike Burns, a former congressional aide and think-tanker who served as liaison between Capitol Hill staff members and reformers in the Pentagon. One young Navy officer who considers himself part of the next wave said he worries that the momentum of the old days will disappear with Spinney. "How do we really prepare for the future in a very uncertain time?" he asked. "I guess what it really calls for is a more vibrant military reform movement, both in uniform and out, and yet it is less vibrant." Spinney is not going anywhere just yet. He is so battle-hardened now that the absence of a nasty bureaucratic fight gets him down. "It's always amazed me," said his wife. "It's like pounding your head against the wall month after month, year after year. Friends ask me how he stays pumped up. Well, it's because there's always a fight. If there isn't a fight, that's when he gets depressed, when he mopes around the house." And every now and then, Spinney still latches on to a good one. In 1992, he wrote an essay criticizing the Navy's plan to update its F-18 Hornet fighter plane. Spinney argued that the proposed changes to the wing and engine were so great that they constituted a new plane. The Navy should test a prototype before commiting to the expensive production cycle, he argued. He was ignored. Last year, the Super Hornet went into initial production. Several months later, Spinney dug out the fact that the plane's wing caused an alarming dip or wobble during combat maneuvers. He spread word around the Pentagon, and when it was leaked to the news media -- not by him, Spinney swears -- he went into overdrive to keep the spotlight on the problem. Boeing has said it can fix the wing easily and cheaply, but has yet to do so. The Navy resents the negative publicity. Members of Congress are on the warpath, and Spinney is back on the hot seat. "It's my best operation in a long time," he said. "Boyd would be really pleased." Originally published on Mar 8 1998 - --------------FD65ADB4C4815F02E56CBB11-- ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V7 #12 ******************************** 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. 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