From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V8 #10 Reply-To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com Sender: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Errors-To: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Precedence: bulk skunk-works-digest Sunday, February 7 1999 Volume 08 : Number 010 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Darkstar and Beyond Russian Plasma Stealth? XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) Re: XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) Re: What was used in Desert Fox Re: What was used in Desert Fox Re: Re: Upcoming Air & Space article on Oxcart Re: Darkstar and Beyond B-1B and START EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir Re: EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir [none] Re: Re: EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir Oxcart in A&S Re: Oxcart in A&S Re: Darkstar and Beyond Re: XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) Re: Oxcart in A&S *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1999 19:17:00 -0500 From: "Frank Markus" Subject: Darkstar and Beyond Darkstar has been cancelled. The Washington Outlook page of the current (2/1/99) issue of Aviation Week confirms what has already been reported here. But it adds that it Pentagon officials "will" start a new classified stealth recon program. The new vehicle would be an even larger UAV that will be able to carry more, stay up longer and fly higher. Both Boeing and L-M (who built Darkstar) are being told to retain the people who worked on Darkstar for the new project. I believe that this is a partial answer to the perennial question: What is the Skunk Works working on now? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 19:09:10 +0900 From: "James Matthews" Subject: Russian Plasma Stealth? I don't know whether this has been mentioned or not, but there's an EXCELLENT article in the Decemeber Air International. Haven't been following all the convo, so if this has been mentioned...sorry :) Later, James. ========================================== E-mail matthews@tkb.att.ne.jp ICQ: 7413754 http://home.att.ne.jp/gold/tomcat21/index.html http://hyperion.advanced.org/18242/ ========================================== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 08:13:06 -0800 From: Erik Hoel Subject: XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) Mike Ravnitzky [mailto:mikerav@ix.netcom.com] writes: > > Something really confusing (and I worked as an aeronautical engineer) is > how the XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber achieved its lift and its > aerodynamic characteristics at high mach numbers. Anyone care to > explain, if it isn't too off base? I too would be very interested to hear the answer to this one. > Did the XB-70 and SR-71 have any common roots or genealogy, even indirectly? On a related note, here is something I learned recently in the book XB-70 Valkyrie: The Ride to Valhalla (Remak and Ventolo, MBI, 1998). The following is what I gathered from the book: There apparently has been some suspicion that Kelly Johnson was somehow involved in the demise of the XB-70 as it was seen as a competitor (of sorts) to the A-12 (and possible B-12). Richard Bissell, head of CIA, told Kennedy that transforming the A-12 into a bomber was possible. Kennedy replied "Could Kelly Johnson convert the spy plane into a long-range bomber?" Bissell told him that Johnson apparently was planning to do this conversion. Kennedy then asked "Then why do we need the B-70 program?" Bissell said to talk to General LeMay. The long and the short of it according to the authors is that the B-70 program may have been killed in a political move by the CIA to advance its own status by attaching itself to the Skunk Works. As a sidebar, once Bissell was ousted after the Bay of Pigs, Kelly Johnson was quite worried that McNamara would kill the Blackbird program in a cost-cutting frenzy. The book also highlighted how Kelly Johnson helped the B-70 program (paraphrased from his log): - - 3/12/62 Information on a sealant (and a can of the stuff) was sent to Wright Field to the program director of the B-70 (Gen. Ascani). - - 12/5/62 Johnson notes that "We are helping the B-70 all we can, because they are in real trouble on tank sealing and wiring and other things." Johnson apparently wrote Gen. Ascani a letter promising his assistance after verbally indicating the same on numerous other occasions. - - 8/14/64 Johnson noted that Ed Dawson (NAA) visited to discuss hydraulic problems on the B-70. Johnson was amazed that NAA never build a hydraulic mock-up, and that they were trying to solve the same problems that the Skunk Works addressed in 1961. Dawson was also shown a copy of a letter that Johnson wrote to Gen. Ascani in 1961 that highlighted these problems. In any event, Remak and Ventolo's book is quite good (from my own layman's perspective - the experts on this list will probably have other opinions). You can find it at B&N or Amazon for $16. Erik - -- Erik Hoel mailto:ehoel@esri.com Environmental Systems Research Institute http://www.esri.com 380 New York Street 909-793-2853 (x1-1548) tel Redlands, CA 92373-8100 909-307-3067 fax ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 4 Feb 1999 14:50:36 -0800 From: Larry Smith Subject: Re: XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) Mike Ravnitzky [mailto:mikerav@ix.netcom.com] writes: >> >> Something really confusing (and I worked as an aeronautical engineer) is >> how the XB-70 Valkyrie Mach 3 bomber achieved its lift and its >> aerodynamic characteristics at high mach numbers. Anyone care to >> explain, if it isn't too off base? Erik Hoel responds: >I too would be very interested to hear the answer to this one. Until they determined that compression lift (or what we call waveriding today) would enable the XB-70 to meet its range goals, they had been working on applying exotic energetic fuel technology, from the USAG HEF (High Energy Fuel) and Navy ZIP fuel programs, to give the XB-70 the range it needed. These fuels are fuels that have higher energy or heat release capability than the hydrocarbons that are usually used. It's interesting that NASA is studying some of these fuels again today for SSTO rocket/airbreathing applications. Ayway, the question is how waveriding achieves a higher lift-to-drag ratio. The answer is that waveriders achieve this by designing the lifting surface, such that a shock wave caused by the lifting surface as it travels supersonically through the air, ATTACHES itself to the LOWER SURFACE of the lifting surface. Since the shock wave is attached to the lower surface of the lifting surface, that means that as air flows through the shock attached to the lower surface, it will be pressurized to a higher level than the air that flows over the upper surface, which doesn't flow through a shock. Since lift is the sum of pressure forces on the lower surface minus the sum of pressure forces on the upper surface, there is a higher pressure on the lower side of the lifting surface than on the upper, due to the shock being attached to the lower surface and not the upper surface. The other condition that is important is the word ATTACH. The shock must be attached to the lower surface. This means that the curvature of the leading edge of the lifting surface must support, what supersonic aerodynamicists call, the shock attachment conditions and NOT the DETACHED shock conditions. The difference between the two conditions is the curvature of the leading edge. If the leading edge is fat, or has a lot of curvature, the DETACHED conditions apply. If the leading edge is less fat, or less blunt, and more sharp, the ATTACHMENT conditions apply. We need the ATTACHMENT conditions for a waverider. What attachment does for the design is to trap the high pressure air on the underside of the lifting surface and not allow it to leak around the leading edge of the lifting surface to the upper surface, which would occurr if the leading edge shock were detached. If you allow the leak, papers have mentioned losing up to 25% of the lift. The XB-70's wingtip negative dihedral or turndown, at cruise, is probably another attempt to also block off another path for the high pressure air on the underside of the wing, to leak around to the upper surface, namely across the wing tip. So that's basically it, as far as the XB-70 is concerned, because it flies at a relatively low Mach number. However, at higher Mach numbers, the sharper leading edge can cause heating problems because at High Mach, you really would like more rounded or blunt leading edges so that the heat isn't focused in such a small volume (like on the Space Shuttle where the leading edges are all blunt). But, in that case, due to its higher L/D, a waverider can go to a higher altitude, where the density of the air is lower. Since reentry heating is a function of air density, waveriders can have reduced reentry heating rates, as long as the lift is adequate to support its mass. Larry ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 99 04:55:35 GMT From: betnal@ns.net Subject: Re: What was used in Desert Fox On 2/3/99 6:39AM, in message <36B85FA8.9C906A7A@ix.netcom.com>, Dave Bethke wrote: > Gavin Payne wrote: > > > > I read on the USAF news list that AF are getting $52million to replace the > > 90 cruise missiles used. > > That's about 580,000 each, a real bargain from what is usually quoted. > > > -- > Dave > That's probably the cost to convert some more of the already existing missles to conventional warheads. Given the missile is out of production, it's almost inconceivable that they could restart the production line (if tooling even still exists) and build new ones for that price. Art ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 00:35:49 -0500 (EST) From: Sam Kaltsidis Subject: Re: What was used in Desert Fox > > Gavin Payne wrote: > > > > > > I read on the USAF news list that AF are getting $52million to replace the > > > 90 cruise missiles used. > > > > That's about 580,000 each, a real bargain from what is usually quoted. > > > > > > -- > > Dave > > > > That's probably the cost to convert some more of the already existing missles > to conventional warheads. Given the missile is out of production, it's almost > inconceivable that they could restart the production line (if tooling even still > exists) and build new ones for that price. > > > Art > We still have about 1,100 AGM-86B (Nuclear) ALCMs in inventory, which can be converted to AGM-86C CALCMs pretty easily and inexpensively. The over half a mil a piece figure doesn't sound right, the conversion cost should be significantly less than that (10K to 100K tops would be my best guess). What's interesting is that the USAF stated that they would prefer to start a new production run, because they are reluctant to give up the remaining Nuclear ALCMs, at least this is what I inferred from an article in a recent issue of AW&ST. Sam ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 99 06:14:05 GMT From: betnal@ns.net Subject: Re: Re: Upcoming Air & Space article on Oxcart On 2/3/99 2:33PM, in message , JNiessen@aol.com wrote: > To all on this list, > > I've taken the liberty of writing Air & Space a three-page letter outlining > all the many errors in Bill Burrows' piece on the A-12. I'll post it on the > list this weekend. In summary, however, suffice it to say Burrows should have > taken his assignment a little more seriously. > > Jay Miller > Go get 'em, Jay. (Now how come my issue didn't arrive?). ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 99 06:15:52 GMT From: betnal@ns.net Subject: Re: Darkstar and Beyond On 2/3/99 4:17PM, in message <000001be4fd3$afa3e480$3376fea9@gateway9100>, "Frank Markus" wrote: > But it adds that it Pentagon officials "will" start a new classified > stealth recon program. The new vehicle would be an even larger UAV that > will be able to carry more, stay up longer and fly higher. > I believe that this is a partial answer to the perennial question: What is > the Skunk Works working on now? > You know what's funny? Wasn't it a vehicle like this that was canceled and replaced with Darkstar? What goes around comes around... Art ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 12:36:17 -0000 From: Gavin Payne Subject: B-1B and START B1 crews were telling me last summer that the START treaty still prevents them from carrying cruise missiles and they obey this to the extent that they've fixed fuel tanks in the bomb bays so they can't fit them in etc. Does anyone know what the Russian side of this agreement was? Was the Blackjack operational to be included? Gavin ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 10:32:59 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir A dated article but a tidbit on the alleged sabotage of Gary Powers' U-2. Terry - ------------------ Ramparts, Vol. 11, No. 2, August, 1972, pp. 35-50 Q. Do we still use U-2s for reconnaissance? A. No, and SAC doesn't fly the B-52s anymore either. Now the plane they use is the SR-71. It has unbelievable speed and it can climb high enough to reach the edge of outer space. The first time I came across the SR-71 was when I was reading a report of Chinese reaction to its penetration of their airspace. The report said their air defense tracking had located the SR-71 flying at a fairly constant pattern at a fairly reasonable altitude. They scrambled MIG-21s on it, and when they approached it, the radar pattern indicated that the SR-71 had just accelerated with incredible speed and rose to such a height that the MIG-21s just flew around looking at each other. Their air-to-ground communications indicated that the plane just disappeared in front of their eyes. I might tell you this as a sort of footnote to your mentioning of the U-2. The intelligence community is filled with rumor. When I got to Turkey, I immediately ran into rumors that Gary Powers' plane had been sabotaged, not shot down. Once I asked someone who'd been in Istanbul for quite a while and he told me that it was reported in a unit history that this had happened. The history said it had been three Turks working for the Soviets and that they'd put a bomb on the plane. I didn't read this history myself, however. - -- Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean@primenet.com > Home Page: < http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/8832 > Sites: Fortean Times * Northwest Mysteries * Mystic's Cyberpage * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.seacoast.com/~jsweet/brotherh/index.html > Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade Long Binh, Can Tho, Danang (Jan 71 - Aug 72) Thailand/Laos - Telecommunications Center/U.S. Army Support Thailand (USARSUPTHAI), Camp Samae San (Jan 73 - Aug 73) - Special Security/Strategic Communications - Thailand (STRATCOM - Thailand), Phu Mu (Pig Mountain) Signal Site (Aug 73 - Jan 74) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 Feb 1999 12:47:26 -0500 From: Joe Donoghue Subject: Re: EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir At 10:32 AM 2/5/99 -0700, Terry posted: >A dated article but a tidbit on the alleged sabotage of Gary Powers' U-2. > >Terry > >------------------ >Ramparts, Vol. 11, No. 2, August, 1972, pp. 35-50 > > Q. Do we still use U-2s for reconnaissance? > > A. No, and SAC doesn't fly the B-52s anymore either. B/S story about SR-71 and MiG-21s snipped > > I might tell you this as a sort of footnote to your mentioning of the > U-2. The intelligence community is filled with rumor. When I got to > Turkey, I immediately ran into rumors that Gary Powers' plane had been > sabotaged, not shot down. Once I asked someone who'd been in Istanbul > for quite a while and he told me that it was reported in a unit > history that this had happened. The history said it had been three > Turks working for the Soviets and that they'd put a bomb on the plane. > I didn't read this history myself, however. > About on a par with Terry's usual UFO postings. I suppose the bomb was timed to go off just as the 14 SA-2s were going off in the sky over Sverdlovsk. I doubt any Turk, except maybe a VIP on an escorted tour ever touched any of the Agency U-2s in Turkey. And, the ill-fated flight launched from Pakistan, not Turkey. Joe Donoghue ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 20:42:45 -0000 From: Gavin Payne Subject: [none] Lets hope our thoughts are with Jordan right now, regardless of any previous political decisions they've made in the past. I remember meeting the King's son and brother at RIAT Fairford a few years ago, such nice people. Gavin Payne, England. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 15:48:00 EST From: Jasper0007@aol.com Subject: Re: The Prince was at RIAT 1998, i walking beside him as he mentioned he wanted to meet Prince philip without any Cars to drive him to him, so he walked the whole length of the taxi-way mingling with the crowd, avery nice chap by the looks of it! Richard ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 13:30:35 -0800 (PST) From: Wei-Jen Su Subject: Re: EXCERPT: U.S. Electronic Espionage: A Memoir On Fri, 5 Feb 1999, Joe Donoghue wrote: > > U-2. The intelligence community is filled with rumor. When I got to > > Turkey, I immediately ran into rumors that Gary Powers' plane had been > > sabotaged, not shot down. Once I asked someone who'd been in Istanbul > > for quite a while and he told me that it was reported in a unit > > history that this had happened. The history said it had been three > > Turks working for the Soviets and that they'd put a bomb on the plane. > > I didn't read this history myself, however. > > > About on a par with Terry's usual UFO postings. I suppose the bomb was > timed to go off just > as the 14 SA-2s were going off in the sky over Sverdlovsk. I doubt any > Turk, except maybe a VIP on an escorted tour ever touched any of the Agency > U-2s in Turkey. Robert Gilliand told us that he spoke with Gary Power after the incident and Power said that he saw the explosion of the missile that shoot him down... So, if it is a coincidence to trigger the bomb in the plane with the missiles... who knows :) May the Force be with you Wei-Jen Su E-mail: wsu@cco.caltech.edu "Mathematical theories from the happy hunting grounds of pure mathematicians are found suitable to describe the airflow produced by aircraft with such excellent accuracy that they can be applied directly to airplane design." Theodore von Karman ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 6 Feb 1999 13:10:06 EST From: JNiessen@aol.com Subject: Oxcart in A&S To all subscribers, the following letter was sent to George Larson, editor of Smithsonian Air & Space in response to their recently published Oxcart article written by William Burrows: Dear George, As the author of three books describing the history of the Lockheed A-12 thru SR-71 family, including the official history of the Skunk Works for Lockheed, I read Bill Burrows Oxcart story in your February/March '99 issue with considerable interest. I respect Bill's work. His A-12 story is well written and generally on the mark, but it does contain several significant historical and technical errors which I would like to correct for the record as follows: (1) Project Gusto, a tailless, all-wing design with two turbojet engines mounted on either side of the cockpit tub, was indeed a proposed successor to the U-2, but it was not the project name for what became the A-12. The project name for the A-12, as noted in Bill's title, was Oxcart...period. (2) The B-58B was not the Super Hustler (that name officially was reserved for a follow-on non-derivative which technically had little to do with the B-58 as we know it). However, two specially modified B-58Bs were to have been utilized to transport and launch Convair's submission for the CIA's proposed U-2 replacement, Fish and later, Kingfish. Contrary to Bill's statement that Kingfish was a derivative of the F-106, it was in fact a totally original design that had nothing to do with Convair's delta wing fighter family (F-92, F2Y, F-102, and F-106; Convair's fighters were historically designed and developed at the company's San Diego, California facility; Fish and Kingfish were developed at Convair's Ft. Worth, Texas facility). Additionally, again contrary to Bill's assertion, though some discussion was held calling for Kingfish to self-launch, virtually all of the final studies submitted to the Agency for review were air-launched. And finally, Bill's statement that "ram-jet technology was unproven" is untrue. Ramjet technology not only was proven, but operational in the form of the Boeing IM-99 Bomarc and the Lockheed X-7, to name just a few. Even the French were working on proposed production ramjet-powered fighters including the Leduc interceptor family and the Trident. (3) Bill is simply wrong in stating that there is no consensus of opinion in the Skunk Works over the A-11v/s A-12 designation controversy. I was privileged to review the various extant documents on this subject in Skunk Works files and I can tell you without equivocation that the A-12 designator was the only designator ever applied to the actual hardware as first flown in 1962. And "Kelly" never referred to the final hardware configuration by any designator other than A-12. I reviewed drawings of all base Archangel studies from the A-1 through the A-12 and there was nothing that would cause anyone to confuse the A-11 with the A-12. They were markedly different designs. Additionally, I have in my possession copies of declassified documents covering "Kelly" Johnson's rationale for using the A-11 designator in President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 speech wherein the aircraft (which, incidentally, was actually one of three YF-12As) was unveiled to the world. "Kelly" noted, without any ambiguity, that he had asked Johnson to use the A-11 designation in order to confuse foreign intelligence bureaus and consequently distance them from the CIA's highly- classified A-12. (4) Jet engine designators in the post-Korean War era are written without a hyphen. J-58 and J-79 should be J58 and J79. (5) I believe Bill misstated himself when describing the intake/combustion process of the J58 and its associated by-pass pipes. He stated that "hot air (going to the afterburner) arrived at the same speed as the air flowing into the inlet". That would imply the air was moving at supersonic velocities. Impossible. (6) The Convair B-58, contrary to Bill's statement, utilized articulated intake spikes to control airflow to its four General Electric J79 engines. They were not fixed. (7) the photo at the top of page 71 is inaccurately captioned. The A-12 line- up was at Groom Lake, Nevada (i.e., Area 51), not Nellis AFB, Nevada. Groom Lake is positioned northeast of the Nellis AFB test range, but is not part of it. (8) There is no such thing as an M-12. The two purpose-built D-21 transports were officially designated M-21s. When the M-21 and D-21 were mated, the combination was referred to as an MD-21. In your article, Bill makes short shrift of a truly amazing chapter in the A-12/SR-71 history. No operational missions were flown using the MD-21 as a launch aircraft. The fatal accident to which Bill alludes took place during the fourth attempted launch from the M-21. Bill Park was the pilot and Ray Torick was the launch control officer. When the D-21 was released from its dorsal launch pylon, it yawed and immediately came in contact with the M-21's vertical tail surfaces. The damage was severe and the M-21 soon was out of control at Mach 3. Park and Torick ejected and were recovered from the Pacific Ocean. Unfortunately, Torick had drowned while awaiting rescue. Park was uninjured. As a result of the accident, however, the MD-21 program ended right then and there. All further D-21 launches (sixteen, altogether) were undertaken utilizing the services of two specially modified Boeing B-52Hs. Because the B-52s were subsonic, a special booster rocket was developed to accelerate the D-21 up to ramjet ignition speeds. Bill should have done more research...and Air & Space should have run this article through a more professional fact checking process. In an attempt to set the record straight, the above letter will be placed on the Skunk Works web site. Sincerely, Jay Miller ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 06 Feb 1999 17:40:58 -0600 From: G&G Subject: Re: Oxcart in A&S JNiessen@aol.com wrote: > > To all subscribers, the following letter was sent to George Larson, editor of > Smithsonian Air & Space in response to their recently published Oxcart article > written by William Burrows: > Bill should have done more research...and Air & Space should have run this > article through a more professional fact checking process. Jay, did you happen to notice that A&S listed your SR-71 book in their list of suggested reading on p.86 (Credits) of said issue??? Oh, the irony... :) Greg Fieser %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% %% %% Reality is for People Who %% %% Can't Handle Simulation %% %% %% %% habu@cyberramp.net %% %% gdfieser@hti.com %% %% %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 04:54:16 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: Darkstar and Beyond At 06:15 AM 2/5/99 GMT, you wrote: >> > > You know what's funny? Wasn't it a vehicle like this that was canceled and >replaced with Darkstar? What goes around comes around... > > Their goal is a vehicle that will go Mach 3 at 100k feet. patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 05:58:48 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: XB-70 (was: Pressure recovery in the SR-71 inlet) > >So that's basically it, as far as the XB-70 is concerned, because it >flies at a relatively low Mach number. > >However, at higher Mach numbers, the sharper leading edge can cause heating >problems because at High Mach, you really would like more rounded or blunt >leading edges so that the heat isn't focused in such a small volume (like >on the Space Shuttle where the leading edges are all blunt). But, >in that case, due to its higher L/D, a waverider can go to a higher altitude, >where the density of the air is lower. Since reentry heating is a function >of air density, waveriders can have reduced reentry heating rates, as long >as the lift is adequate to support its mass. > =---=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=---=-====-----== So Larry....... Does this mean the plane was designed to not out run the shockwave or rather designed to fly slow enough to not cause the shockwave to detach? What speed are we talking? Did any of this have anything to do with "the accident"? Were the chase pilots cognizant of this shockwave? Any other planes ever designed to use this effect? Seems like transport airport could avail themselves of this technology. patrick cullumber ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1999 07:42:09 -0500 From: "James P. Stevenson" Subject: Re: Oxcart in A&S Jay, It appears that you know the author. I cannot conceive of writing a book on the U-2/SR-71 or for that matter many of the other Lockheed aircraft without running it by you first. I would do so with the specific purpose of avoid such well deserved criticism. Jim Stevenson > To all subscribers, the following letter was sent to George Larson, editor of > Smithsonian Air & Space in response to their recently published Oxcart article > written by William Burrows: > > Dear George, > > As the author of three books describing the history of the Lockheed A-12 thru > SR-71 family, including the official history of the Skunk Works for Lockheed, > I read Bill Burrows Oxcart story in your February/March '99 issue with > considerable interest. > > I respect Bill's work. His A-12 story is well written and generally on the > mark, but it does contain several significant historical and technical errors > which I would like to correct for the record as follows: > > (1) Project Gusto, a tailless, all-wing design with two turbojet engines > mounted on either side of the cockpit tub, was indeed a proposed successor to > the U-2, but it was not the project name for what became the A-12. The project > name for the A-12, as noted in Bill's title, was Oxcart...period. > > (2) The B-58B was not the Super Hustler (that name officially was reserved for > a follow-on non-derivative which technically had little to do with the B-58 as > we know it). However, two specially modified B-58Bs were to have been utilized > to transport and launch Convair's submission for the CIA's proposed U-2 > replacement, Fish and later, Kingfish. Contrary to Bill's statement that > Kingfish was a derivative of the F-106, it was in fact a totally original > design that had nothing to do with Convair's delta wing fighter family (F-92, > F2Y, F-102, and F-106; Convair's fighters were historically designed and > developed at the company's San Diego, California facility; Fish and Kingfish > were developed at Convair's Ft. Worth, Texas facility). > > Additionally, again contrary to Bill's assertion, though some discussion was > held calling for Kingfish to self-launch, virtually all of the final studies > submitted to the Agency for review were air-launched. And finally, Bill's > statement that "ram-jet technology was unproven" is untrue. Ramjet technology > not only was proven, but operational in the form of the Boeing IM-99 Bomarc > and the Lockheed X-7, to name just a few. Even the French were working on > proposed production ramjet-powered fighters including the Leduc interceptor > family and the Trident. > > (3) Bill is simply wrong in stating that there is no consensus of opinion in > the Skunk Works over the A-11v/s A-12 designation controversy. I was > privileged to review the various extant documents on this subject in Skunk > Works files and I can tell you without equivocation that the A-12 designator > was the only designator ever applied to the actual hardware as first flown in > 1962. And "Kelly" never referred to the final hardware configuration by any > designator other than A-12. > > I reviewed drawings of all base Archangel studies from the A-1 through the > A-12 and there was nothing that would cause anyone to confuse the A-11 with > the A-12. They were markedly different designs. Additionally, I have in my > possession copies of declassified documents covering "Kelly" Johnson's > rationale for using the A-11 designator in President Lyndon Johnson's 1964 > speech wherein the aircraft (which, incidentally, was actually one of three > YF-12As) was unveiled to the world. "Kelly" noted, without any ambiguity, that > he had asked Johnson to use the A-11 designation in order to confuse foreign > intelligence bureaus and consequently distance them from the CIA's highly- > classified A-12. > > (4) Jet engine designators in the post-Korean War era are written without a > hyphen. J-58 and J-79 should be J58 and J79. > > (5) I believe Bill misstated himself when describing the intake/combustion > process of the J58 and its associated by-pass pipes. He stated that "hot air > (going to the afterburner) arrived at the same speed as the air flowing into > the inlet". That would imply the air was moving at supersonic velocities. > Impossible. > > (6) The Convair B-58, contrary to Bill's statement, utilized articulated > intake spikes to control airflow to its four General Electric J79 engines. > They were not fixed. > > (7) the photo at the top of page 71 is inaccurately captioned. The A-12 line- > up was at Groom Lake, Nevada (i.e., Area 51), not Nellis AFB, Nevada. Groom > Lake is positioned northeast of the Nellis AFB test range, but is not part of > it. > > (8) There is no such thing as an M-12. The two purpose-built D-21 transports > were officially designated M-21s. When the M-21 and D-21 were mated, the > combination was referred to as an MD-21. In your article, Bill makes short > shrift of a truly amazing chapter in the A-12/SR-71 history. No operational > missions were flown using the MD-21 as a launch aircraft. > > The fatal accident to which Bill alludes took place during the fourth > attempted launch from the M-21. Bill Park was the pilot and Ray Torick was the > launch control officer. When the D-21 was released from its dorsal launch > pylon, it yawed and immediately came in contact with the M-21's vertical tail > surfaces. The damage was severe and the M-21 soon was out of control at Mach > 3. Park and Torick ejected and were recovered from the Pacific Ocean. > Unfortunately, Torick had drowned while awaiting rescue. Park was uninjured. > As a result of the accident, however, the MD-21 program ended right then and > there. All further D-21 launches (sixteen, altogether) were undertaken > utilizing the services of two specially modified Boeing B-52Hs. Because the > B-52s were subsonic, a special booster rocket was developed to accelerate the > D-21 up to ramjet ignition speeds. > > Bill should have done more research...and Air & Space should have run this > article through a more professional fact checking process. > > In an attempt to set the record straight, the above letter will be placed on > the Skunk Works web site. > > Sincerely, Jay Miller > - ----------------------------- James P. Stevenson (301) 254-9000 ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V8 #10 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "majordomo@netwrx1.com". 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