From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V8 #37 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, April 4 1999 Volume 08 : Number 037 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Czech ELINT system said to help in F-117 shootdown F-117 photos Re: F-117 Loss is Over-Hyped F-117 GAO Report URL Re: F-117 photos Re: The stealth excuses begin Re: Stealth debate (longish) *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 21:37:32 -0600 From: "Allen Thomson" Subject: Czech ELINT system said to help in F-117 shootdown http://www.vts.tass.ru/ has a 1999-04-02 headline from ITAR-TASS that reads "Yugoslav Anitaircraft Defenses Shoot Down US F-117As [plural] with the Aid of the 'Tamara' Passive ELINT Station Working together with Russian Mobile SAMs." [PVO Yugoslavii sbivayet amerikanskiye F-117A s pomoshch'yu passivnoy stantsii RTR "Tamara", deystvyuyshchey sovmestno s rossiyskimi mobil'nimi ZRK] Unfortunately, the text is in the for-pay section, and the price of a minimum one-month subscription is $200; outside my budget, but the headline looks interesting. I'd be a bit careful with ITAR reporting, since they've been leaning heavily to the Yugoslav side of things -- many NATO aircraft and cruise missiles downed -- since the current campaign began. The Tamara stuff might or might not be true. "Tamara" is an ELINT system with claimed counterstealth capabilities developed in Czechoslovakia in the '80s. It's been on the market for some time. See http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1997/11/F.RU.971112141550.html (Iraq trying to buy Tamara) http://www.hri.org/news/agencies/omri/95-07-31.omri.html#01 (Indicates earlier suspicions that Yugoslavia has Tamara) http://www.cdi.org/ArmsTradeDatabase/Regional_and_Country_Information/ASIA/P ersian_Gulf/IRAQ/)Czech_Republic_US_Says_Tamara_System_Overrated.txt (DoD thinks Tamara not all that good) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 20:41:51 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: F-117 photos Regarding the F117 that was shot down last week. I have to wonder... I attended the Miramar air show last summer and got a few pictures of F117's. For reasons I do not know, the F117 gets a very high degree of security at air shows: ftp://talbot.dyndns.com/Miramar/PIC5095.gif You can pretty much inspect the B1 as much as you like: ftp://talbot.dyndns.com/Miramar/PIC5098.gif And this picture taken at Edwards Air Force Base of a B1: ftp://talbot.dyndns.com/SanDiego/EdwardsA/PIC00590.JPG Here's a picture of an F117 at Edwards Air Force Base. Like Miramar, the crowd is kept away: ftp://talbot.dyndns.com/SanDiego/EdwardsA/PIC00593.JPG The B2 is a very tough airplane to get a good static display shot of, only fly-bys: ftp://talbot.dyndns.com/Miramar/PIC5070.gif - Warren - --- http://talbot.dyndns.com - --- In addition to the debates surrounding the interpretation of the evidence for anomalous vehicles in our atmosphere, controversy has also resulted from basic issues of logic and scientific epistemology, or the process by which scientific knowledge accumulates in an internally consistent, logical framework. After extensively analyzing the validity of skeptical arguments, we have come to the conclusion that they are inconsistent with the accepted epistemological framework. - -- 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: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 20:09:38 -0800 From: patrick Subject: Re: F-117 Loss is Over-Hyped Terry there are some minor factual errors I will offer corrections for only so the incorrect items don't go on to become part of the accepted body of knowledge. - ----------------------------------------------------------------------------= - ---------- At 05:24 PM 4/1/99 -0700, Terry Colvin wrote: >>From J. Orlin Grabbe's page, << http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ >: >> >>F-117 Loss Is Over-Hyped >>by Jim Boyd >> >>Hi Orlin, >> >>This story from the London Times [story below] is a bit over-blown. The U.S. >>military was not "stunned" by the loss of a single aircraft in an intense >>deployment. The U.S. military loses 50 or so combat aircraft per year to >>accidents (not counting helicopters), and has lost about 10 F-117s in >>accidents--about 16% of the total produced. --------There have been only 8 lost. 792, 815 and 822 due to pilot error. 785, 793 and 801 and due to improper assembly. 824 landed on fire. 806 crashed in Yugoslavia-------- >>The F-117 entered service in 1983. It was designed in 1977, using the >>MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF RADAR STOLEN FROM THE RUSSIANS, dating to the early >>1970s.=20 - ------Not true. It was published openly in Russia and only much later translated to English at UCLA and found its way then to the LADC------- >>The F-117's stealth technology is 30 years OLD, and is based on >>shaping, not exotic materials. Thus, its loss to the Russians (via their >>Serb allies) is not nearly as devastating as it would have been had the >>stealth technology been based on advanced materials, like the newer manned >>and unmanned reconnaisance aircraft used by the Air Force. The Air Force has >>at least three highly secret recon planes that have never been shown in >>public. One is super-sonic stealth. >> >>The F-117 is an extremely simple aircraft. It was designed before powerful >>computers were available. All of its guts were taken from existing (in 1980) >>aircraft parts. The cost is typically quoted at about $60 million per F-117. --------published figures quote 49 million per aircraft-------- >>That is CHEAP for an aircraft made in such small numbers. If you add up the >>amount of damage inflicted by its two exremely accurate 2000-lb=20 bombs, >>figure that it needs no fighter escort and no electronic jamming escort, and >>that it has an extremely low loss rate -- then the $60 million is damned >>cheap. >> >>Also, the F-117 program is about 25 years old, and any program that old will >>have leaked like a rusty bucket by now. Many hundreds of engineers design >>such a plane, hundreds of technicians build it, and thousands of Air Force >>personnel have serviced it over the years. I seriously doubt that it has any >>secrets remaining. >> >>There is an element of bitter jealousy in Europe concerning the superiority >>of American weaponry and technology. I noticed this in the reporting of the >>Gulf War, and it shows in this article. >> >>The technologies we see on TV -- F-15E, JSTARS, AWACS, F-117, laser-guided >>bombs, cruise missiles, etc. -- are 20 years old. >> >>The United States is ABSOLUTELY invincible on a conventional battlefield. >>Our biggest risk is non-conventional warfare. >> >>I enjoy your website. >> >>March 30, 1999 >> >> >>------The article referenced above follows: >> >>US military stunned as Yugoslavs shatter myth of invincible Stealth >> >>AMERICA'S military confidence has suffered a knock with the downing of an >>F117 Stealth fighter, a plane which came through repeated bombing raids >>during the Gulf War unscathed to attain the status of myth. >>President Clinton said he was relieved the plane's pilot had been snatched >>to safety by a US rescue team, but the televised images of =A328 million worth >>of military high technology smouldering in a field 30 miles west of Belgrade >>represented a massive propaganda coup for the Yugoslav Government. >> >>The pilot, believed to be Captain Ken Dwelle, was picked up by rescue troops >>backed by HH-60 Night Hawk helicopters and a number of fixed-wing aircraft >>within six hours of bailing out in his ejection capsule, which is itself a >>technological masterpiece costing $3 million.=20 ------ejection capsule? No such thing exists. The design is the classic blow the canopy, hold tight to your ACES II ejection seat and out the open top you go. Remember this a subsonic aircraft.-------- >>The black, bat-winged, >>radar-evading Stealth fighter is venerated as one of the most=20 advanced >>weapons in the US arsenal. >> >>Yet, while none has been downed in combat before, there are long-standing >>concerns about its reliablilty, since no fewer than six out of a total force >>of 59 F117s have crashed. - -------There are no long standing concerns. There was a fuel line that exhibited failed welds which leaked fuel and caused an inflight fire. All 117's were given new fuel lines without further incident. When assembled and flown properly it is very reliable.------- >>Whether the plane was a victim of mechanical failure, pilot error or hostile >>fire remained unclear last night, but Pentagon officials made no secret of >>their shock at the loss of the air force mascot. The subsonic F117, with a >>lone pilot armed with two, 2,000lb laser-guided bombs, has a composite skin >>and surfaces designed to reflect and absorb radar, diffusing its image on >>radar screens. The air intake vent is above the wing, to avoid infrared >>detection from the ground. >> >>In 1991, F117s flew 1,788 missions against key Iraqi command and weapons >>targets, striking central Baghdad and clearing the way for the B52 bombers. >> >>Not a single F117 was lost in Iraq, leading to a mood of complacency about >>the plane's abilities among some military planners that was rudely exploded >>on Saturday night. >> >>Critics of the aircraft point out that it is not easy to manoeuvre and, ---------This is an archaic line of criticism that can be traced back to the intial flight and crash of 785. With improper connection of the imputs to the flight computer the plane took off and wobbled badly and crashed. The term "Wobbly Goblin" was coined after this incident.=20 In fact the plane is quite manouverable considering its mission is that of a bomber. The flight computer is capable of being programmed for 30, 45 or 60 degree turns. In reality the computer can exhibit a glitch and has been known to roll the aircraft. The plane is rated for 10 seconds of zero g flight although outside loops are forbidden. Pilots are tasked every 6 months to go out and exercise some zero G flying at their own discretion in order to maintain familiarity with the aircrafts manoeuverability.----------- >>while hard to detect, the F117 is far from invisible. The plane's makers >>boast that its sophisticated anti-detection system reduces the 43ft wingspan >>to an object the size of a bumble bee, but it only takes a single loose bomb >>bay door to make the plane look like a flying barn, in the words of one >>weapons expert. Even before Saturday's downing there were doubts about the >>mechanics of the F117, after a crash at a Baltimore airshow in 1997 which >>was caused by a defect in a wing support. - -------Again not true. A number of fasteners were not reassembled in the wing spar attachments the last time that particular airplane had been disassembled in a normally scheduled maintnance teardown. All other planes in the fleet were examined and none were found to have this problem.-------- >>Developed 25 years ago by Lockheed Martin in a secret Californian weapons >>facility known as Skunk Works, the F117's existence was only formally >>admitted in 1988 when it was used for the less than heroic job of dropping a >>bomb to frighten Panamanian troops before the US invasion. --------It was the AF itself who bad mouthed the Panama mission.=20 In a political ploy, they placed doubts in the press as to the effectiveness of the mission in order to sway Congressional opinion into approving the B-2. A secondary factor was the mission was controlled by an Army general who changed the actual target several times after the planes took off from Tonopah thus creating some confusion amongst the pilots. This mission actually foretolled the accuracy of the 117 in pickling its bombs. Thanks, patrick cullumber ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 00:58:36 -0800 (PST) From: Wei-Jen Su Subject: F-117 That's it! I got it... James is a secret agent... or a least a double agent to confuse all of us... hehe... Just kidding. Poor James. Bad channel to say Stealth doesn't work ;) Just a little bit of bad joke... About the F-117 mishaps... well, I was very upset about the news also. But, if they rescued the pilot, found what went wrong and send more F-117 to bomb with no more F-117 got shut down. So, probably Stealth still works, there is not a anti-Stealth radar, etc... May the Force be with you Wei-Jen Su (Recently recluted by Section 31) E-mail: wsu@cco.caltech.edu "But airplanes are like peoples. They tend to gain weight as they get older." Ben Rich ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 11:05:32 +0200 From: Christoph Subject: GAO Report URL GAO Report URL: (NSIAD-97-134, June 12, 1997 (235 pages). Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air Campaign.) http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=gao&docid=f:ns97134.txt ( .txt format, 572KB ) http://www.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=gao&docid=f:ns97134.txt.pdf ( .pdf format, 858KB ) .PDF-version recommended as report contains images Christoph ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 03:48:36 -0700 From: patrick Subject: Re: F-117 photos At 08:41 PM 4/3/99 -0700, you wrote: >Regarding the F117 that was shot down last week. I have to wonder... > >I attended the Miramar air show last summer and got a few pictures of >F117's. For reasons I do not know, the F117 gets a very high degree of >security at air shows: > Again, no mystery, no folklore, no conspiracy, no subterfuge. It is printed in AF documents available to the public regarding security of aircraft. The list begins with AF One and works down the hierarchy. When it mentions specifics about the F-117 it specifically states "this is a touch sensitive aircraft". They spend many manhours and dollars resurfacing the RAM on this airplane. It is very labor intensive. Theoretically the plane you see at an airshow on sunday afternoon should be ready to depart on a world wide mission the following day. If the aircraft comes back from the airshow with hearts and initials and various other holes and gouges made by kids and adults poking at the RAM to see what it is made of then it would have to go in for major repair work. patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 09:51:14 -0400 From: "James P. Stevenson" Subject: Re: The stealth excuses begin I wrote: >>Modeling is not reality. I am quite sure that these models work. I am >>also sure that the pole test results were most successful. I feel >>confident that the scientific method was applied to these models, etc. In response, Dan wrote: > Then you are basically saying that stealth technology works. The > reason the Us leads is not that the US is better at simulation, but > that the US has gone much farther than others in validating and > refining those models. It's that HUGE investment that the > classification system is protecting. All of the information necessary > to build nuclear weapons are in the public domain, yet not too many > nations have yet developed the infrastructure necessary to produce > and refine those devices to a state suitable for deployment. > Though, of course, if an individual or group had sufficient > confidence in the models, and could obtain the fissile material, we > would all be caught by surprise. No. I am not saying that because the models and simulation work, stealth works. But the fact that you can infer from my statements that I am saying stealth works indicates part of the problem. Are you saying If models work and simulation works, therefore it will work in the real world. If that were true, we could forget flight test altogether. I might add, that the F-22 program wants to be deep into production before they have finished significant stealth testing. What I am saying is that there is no substitute for real-world testing which has not been applied to any of the stealth programs before production decisions were made. >>What was not done, however, was the application of the scientific method >>against the production aircraft. Production decision were made well in >>advance of that. >> >>I am not interested in seeing the models that the Air Force or Northrop >>or anyone else has. I want the Air Force to explain why the Australians >>can spot the B-2s 1,800 miles away; why others have tracked the B-2 with >>bi-static radar; and why the Russians claim they can track it. > > EASY! Most stealth aircraft are vulnerable to bistatic radar, however > the effective deployment of bistatic radar systems is another thing, > and they are realatively easy to counter through means other than > stealth. They require infrastructure that is often vulnerable to > attacks in both the physical and digital worlds. In any case, very > few nations have the money, technology, or time to implement a > bistatic radar system capable of detecting and tracking a B-2 befroe > the B-2's sucessor, whatever it may be, come online. > > And the Austrialians probably tracked it with an over the horizon > radar system. I suggest you look into these before going further-- > while they're good at tracking targets within specific areas far > away, they are useless for targeting, and if one vectored fighters > into the general area of a B-2 using OTH, the fighters would be > unable to track the B-2 with radar or IR. > You can't shoot a B-2 down with OTH. > > AND, I've never heard of anyone advertising current or next > generation stealth aircraft as being "essentially invisible" to > bistatic or OTH radars, and it's a moot case in any point. they may > know you're there, but they can't hurt you. It makes no sense to develop a program for which there is any easy or inexpensive counter. Stealth is such a program. You don't need to look into over the horizon radars; just look at what was conceded before the A-12 was ever built. The Center for Naval Analysis said that the Russians could vector fighters to within five miles of the A-12. One can easily see the A-12 from five miles. The rest is up to the pilot and his guns or missiles. The A-12 Avenger II was a generation newer than the F-117. >>But even if you don't accept any of this, the point is that there is no >>E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E that the F-117 worked any better than anything else that >>flew above 10,000 feet and at night. > - during the Gulf War, after the majority of the Iraqi air defences > were destroyed. There is also no evidence that it "worked" (what does that mean in this context?) any WORSE than anything else. That's right. Many on this chat list are claiming that stealth works. I am not claiming that there is evidence that it did not. I am merely stating that there is no evidence that it did. > > And there is no evidence that mutally assured destruction did or did not work. > There is no evidence that the internet could survive a nuclear attack. That is exactly the point. - -------------------------------------- James P. Stevenson jamesstevenson@sprintmail.com Author, "The Pentagon Paradox : The Development of the F-18 Hornet" Available at Amazon.com at this web site: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1557507759/qid%3D921852978/002-87 71310-1228648 "The $5 Billion Misunderstanding" A history of the Navy's A-12 stealth aircraft. Available Spring of 2000 from The Naval Institute Press Http://www.usni.org ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 10:55:50 -0400 From: "James P. Stevenson" Subject: Re: Stealth debate (longish) >>Well, if it had additional data, and could not conclude that the F-117 >>did any better than other aircraft, where is the evidence that stealth >>worked? > > Where is the evidence that it did not? Zero losses is zero losses. You are arguing that it did work. I don't have to prove a negative. >>>>I agree. That is exactly why one cannot state that the F-117 was >>>>successful due to stealth. >>> >>> Which has little or nothing to do with the GAO report. >> >>I don't understand your point. > > If one cannot state that the F-117 was successful due to stealth > based on the GAO report, according to your own logic, it cannot be > stated that it was unsucessful either. Thus, if you cannot prove that god exists, I cannot prove he does not? You are making the positive assertion. The proof is up to you. > >> >>>>It does not disprove stealth nor does it prove it. >>> >>> Exactly. You said : >>> "You are getting excited over nothing. Stealth doesn't work so if our >>> enemies want to throw their money away like we have on something of no >>> additional value, let them do it." >> >>Let me qualify my statement. There is not evidence that stealth works. > > There is no evidence that it does not, and a subnstatial amount of > physics, as Larry pointed out, that indicates it does. Depending on whether you begin with an observation or an hypothesis, you next proceed to analysis/synthesis and then test. This process was avoided with respect to the production process on stealth aircraft. Take the F-22 for example. The F-22 weapon system is based on three pillars: stealth, reduced vulnerability to radar; supercruise, the ability to cruise faster than the speed of sound for extended ranges order to transit the battlefield more quickly and reduce the time of a potential enemy firing solution; and integrated avionics, designed with more software lines of code than an Aegis Missile Cruiser to reduce the pilot=B9s workload and fire beyond-visual-range missiles without a visual identification. The F-22 began violating the scientific method at the prototype stage and it continues to violate it. The YF-22 was not really a prototype since it failed to demonstrate stealth, the production engine, or the new avionics integrated within the tight confines of the F-22 aircraft. It demonstrated only one new aspect, the ability to supercruise. It even failed to demonstrate that, according to Col. Joseph Shearer, Deputy Director F-22 System Program Office. "Though supercruise was not demonstrated per se," Shearer said, "enough YF-22 flight test data were collected to indicate the aircraft was capable of sustaining supersonic level flight without afterburner." Asked his definition of supercruise, Col. Shearer replied through a spokesperson that it meant flying supersonically in military power. I grant you that there are others that argue that supercruise was demonstrated. For example, Col. Al Piccrillo, ATF program manager, said Shearer was incorrect. Both the Northrop/McDonnell Douglas YF-23 and Lockheed/General Dynamics/Boeing YF-22 demonstrated supercruise with both prototype engines. But cruising faster has to be combined with persistence. Just like miles per gallon and fuel tank size are two significant inputs to automobile endurance, the two largest inputs to aircraft persistence are specific fuel consumption and fuel fraction. Fuel fraction is the weight of the fuel divided by the gross weight of the aircraft. Some of the seminal analysis on supercruise was done by retired Air Force Col. Everest Riccioni at Northrop. Riccioni determined that in order for a supercruise aircraft to have the adequate persistence, an ideal fuel fraction is 0.38 and 0.35 was an absolute minimum. As testimony to Riccioni's 0.38 figure, Lockheed director of flight test Richard Abrams claimed weight gross weight and fuel weight figures of 22,000 pounds and 58,000 pounds respectively for the YF-22. This equated to a fuel fraction of 0.379 close enough to the Riccioni ideal. Ironically, the F-22 has one of the lowest fuel fractions in the U.S. Air Force inventory. The Air Force wants to go into F-22 production with only four percent of the total flight test completed, concurrency reminiscent of the Cold War. Indeed, it wants to obtain production commitments with only 183 hours of flight test out of a planned total of 4,337. This is only 26 hours more than the total 157 hours on the combination of YF-22 and YF-23 DemVal aircraft for which the government and contractors have already spent $6.4 billion. Furthermore, the Air Force wants production commitments prior to any flight testing on two of the F-22=B9s three pillars--avionics and stealth. In fact, the flight testing on radar cross section alone will not be completed until the introduction of the ninth test aircraft which is not scheduled to fly until the year 2001. Even at that, according to an Air Force System Program Office presentation, it will not completely test to the radar cross section specification. The F-22 will have in its production version, 1.7 million lines of software code. As testimony to this level of effort, a good programmer can produce three lines of debugged software code per day, Thus the F-22, when it is completed its flight test, will have over 2,000 man years of software code effort. Aircraft number one has 300,000 lines of code and the current plane to migrate up to the 82 percent level with 1.4 million lines of code in aircraft No. 9. The development test and evaluation (DT&E) phase will not include code for dropping the JDAM munitions. Congress put a cap on the cost of the F-22 in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1998, November 18, 1997. It "imposed cost limitations of $18.688 billion on the F-22 EMD program and $43.4 billion on the production program." However, it did not specify a quantity of aircraft to be procured. This means that if the program acquisition unit cost (PAUC) increases, the quantity of aircraft will decrease because the money authorized is a constant. In August 1998, the Air Force was planning how announce that it would exceed the EMD cost cap by over $1 billion. Dividing the fixed amount authorized by Congress for EMD and production with the previous money spent on Concept Formulation and DemVal, the F-22 program unit cost will exceed of $190 million. Adding the $1 billion EMD overrun will add approximately $3 million to the program acquisition unit cost. Making production decisions before substantial completion of flight test has been historically justified because "the Russians are coming." Yet, in making them prior to the completion of testing, the military runs the risk that the hard tooling of the production aircraft or the aircraft themselves will have to be changed. Even without the pressure of the Soviet threat, there is a tendency to lock in production commitments so that the program has a better political potential. The best example of this is the F-18E/F. In spite of 25 years of two flying prototypes, (the YF-17 and the F-18A/B/C/D), the F-18E/F--an airplane justified in large part for its increased range--developed a wing drop problem almost from the beginning, (see "Testing the Super Hornet: A Status Report," Aerospace America, June 1998). The Navy was 2,500 flight hours into its flight test program before it said that it had solved the problem. As a result, the Navy was successful in gaining approval to enter production before the flight test program was over. The production aircraft would incorporate the fix for the wing drop. Yet as the F-22 approached the December 1998 183 flight test hour mark, the point at which the Air Force wanted to gain a production commitment for the Raptor, the F-18E/F wing drop problem re-emerged. The production fix functioned more poorly than the interim fixed used to gain the production approval. As a result, the Navy almost lost an F-18E. The fix was not something for nothing, either, in a low level range comparison, an F-18C flew further than the F-18E, defeating in large part, the justification to build the F-18E in the first place. There is no unamimity within the Department of Defense as to whether or not we really need the F-22. According to the Director of Investment, Ron Garant: "The A-12 and ATF are a lot of 'me too' for the nonstrategic community. If these programs are continued, they will break the backs of TACAIR in both the Navy and Air Force. All three of these programs suffer from having been born in the undisciplined world of compartmented programs where money is no object and the realities of the world are never a consideration. . . . "To put all of this in historic perspective, we need only look at what drove the Egyptians to stop building pyramids. It was not a conscious decision based on analysis of need." It was, according to Garant, because the pharaohs ran out of money." And the need for stealth in the first place is also subject to debate. "The story that you had to have stealth to defeat the Russians was created in OSD," said former Navy Secretary John Lehman. "It was created in DDR&E [the office of the Director of Defense Research & Engineering] from Bill Perry=B9s time and PA&E [Program Analysis & Evaluation] went along with it. If the Navy were allowed to say how it wanted to defeat the Russians, I would have proceeded with the SEAD [suppression of enemy air defenses] mission just like we did in Libya and Iraq. . . . "Look, Libya and Iraq had the best air defenses the French and Russians had to offer. Downtown Tripoli was more heavily defended that any target in Russian and we went in and out of there without being shot down. We would have done the same thing in Russia. So there=B9s the proof that we didn=B9t need stealth." > There was a great deal of physics that said gun-assembly atomic > weapons would be effective and reliable. Without validating that > model, it was put into use in combat. That type of atomic weapon was > never tested. I missed your point. >>> I can't infer what you are saying about the GAO reports. Are you saying >>> that the GAO reports are inaccurate" > > It was niether accurate or inaccurate,as far as your assetions. It > neither proves or disproves wether a particular weapons system > "worked at 10,000 fett and at night", and in fact it points out that > making such judgements based on their data, and their report, would > be foolish. > > All that report gives is numbers without meaning in this case. There is no evidence that any aircraft that flew above 10,000 feet at night did any better than any other aircraft. See Lehman's comment above. >> >>No. I am saying that the GAO report makes the point that there is no >>evidence that the F-117 did any better than any other aircraft flying in >>the same altitudes and at night. > > And it also does not show that it was any worse at anything than any > other aircraft under the same conditions. That is true. But you appear to be saying that stealth works. There is no evidence that it works. According to Lehman, it's not even needed. >> >>One can reasonably infer that there is no evidence that the F-117 did no >>better than any of the other aircraft flying above 10,000 feet and at >>night from the GAO report or the Title V report. > > And there is absolutely no significance to that statement. The significance is that if you pay extra for stealth and you don't need it, don't spend it. >>>>According to my interview with one of the authors of the GAO report, >>>>there were other aircraft that flew into areas of equal or greater >>>>threat. >> >>> "Threat" is another ill-defined term. Attacking a SAM site is >>> considered to be attacking an "area of great threat", but so is >>> attacking an Anthrax plant with no AAA defenses. Threat is a very >>> subjective term. >> >>As far as I know, no aircraft has been shot down by the anthrax >>bacillus. > > And thus, it is not a threat? So it isn't effective at killing pilots? Stealth is an alleged defense against surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. It is not designed as a defense against anthrax. >>> >>> Even then, yes, cruise missiles did fly into similar areas, at some >>> points over 10,000 feet and at night, and even got shot down. In >>> fact, every one was destroyed. >>> Nonetheless, in this case cruise missiles fit your analysis. they are >>> aircraft flying over 10,000 feet at night and in areas of "high >>> threat", yet they were shot down, and every one failed to return home. >> >>I am not sure what you are saying. Are you claiming that every cruise >>missile flying above 10,000 and at night got shot down? > > Every one was destroyed, wasn't it? And quite a few DID get shot down. When you provide the data or show me where to look, I can comment on it. > >>I am separating the stealth treatment of the airframe from the avionics >>stuffed inside to drop the bombs. I am not interested in discussing the >>avionics. There is some evidence on the bomb dropping capability >>although it is far less successful than advertised. > > Then you seem to think that the aircraft's purpose is to be > "essentially insivble" to radar. No, it's purpose is to drop bombs. > An aircraft is only effective if it can do it's job, the F-117's job > is to drop bombs. Stealth is only a means to an end, to help make > sure that the bombs get there. As far as I am concerned, I have been responding to the assertions on this list that "stealth worked" not that the F-117 did a good job in dropping its bombs. If my assertion is correct, that there is no evidence that stealth worked any better than non-stealth aircraft (or that there is no evidence that it did) then the next discussion may be how well the F-117 worked as a platform dropping bombs. However, I am not discussing that issue. >>A simple observation hardly constitutes analysis. In this case, it takes >>none. All one has to observe is that there are assertions and there are >>observations. Put the two together and what do you see: that all >>aircraft that flew at night above 10,000 feet did not get shot down. >>Conclusion: there is no evidence that stealth works. > > I seem to remember an AC-130 getting shot down in the first nights of > the war, and it operates at above 10,000 feet and at night. But what altitude was it operating at when it got shot down? > > I do not see how those figures relate to the effectiveness of stealth > aircraft or technology. If anything, they show the effectiveness of > stealth aircraft in beheading the Iraqi C3I and AAA systems in the > early stages of the war, and paving the way for other aircraft to > conduct their missions in a reduced AAA threat environment, leading > to fewer overall losses. > If I accept your premise, then it also shows the same thing for all other aircraft operating above 10,000 feet at night. >>>> >>>>Those same databases also make it equally difficult to prove that >>>>stealth worked. >>> >>> But massive databases of data collected both on EW ranges and in the >>> real world indicate that stealth does work. . . >> >>The data from EW ranges is irrevalant. Real world data is all that >>counts. The history of flight test and weapons test is filled with >>successful test results only to go into combat and discovered that the >>data in combat was a mismatch with the data in test. Look at the GAO >>report. It talks about the mismatch between stealth claims before the >>Gulf War and the results. The GAO report highlights those mismatches. >> >>> it does reduce the >>> signature of the aircraft significantly, making it hard for an >>> adversary to track and destroy an aircraft before it reaches it's >>> target. >> >>Prove it. > > Got a good microwave? This throwaway comment is lost on me. - -------------------------------------- James P. Stevenson jamesstevenson@sprintmail.com Author, "The Pentagon Paradox : The Development of the F-18 Hornet" Available at Amazon.com at this web site: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1557507759/qid%3D921852978/002-87 71310-1228648 "The $5 Billion Misunderstanding" A history of the Navy's A-12 stealth aircraft. Available Spring of 2000 from The Naval Institute Press Http://www.usni.org ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V8 #37 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "majordomo@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