From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V8 #80 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, July 11 1999 Volume 08 : Number 080 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Re: U-2 accident record released. Re: That Aurora Budget Line/ B-2 Competition Funding ? Visual illusions while observing the sky FWD: (UASR) Stealth discussion [new subject] FWD: (UASR) more Stealth discussion [new subject] FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? Re: FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? Aurora Pix. Re: FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? Jim Barnes, R.I.P. Aurora budget line Air Force Special Platform Re: Aurora budget line Re: Aurora budget line *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 01:18:19 +0000 From: John Szalay Subject: Re: U-2 accident record released. At 03:50 PM 7/9/99 -0400, you wrote: >John Szalay already quoted the web address for the AFNS article, but for >archival reasons, and because AFNS articles can be reproduced without any >copyright concerns, here is the full article, Thanks for clearing that up, I was posting the complete articles relating to the Skunkworks products and I was "advised" by private mail that it might be a violation of copyright, by a well meaning sort. so I stopped , now I fell better. But I will keep a judgemental eye on what I post. ..... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jul 1999 19:40:44 -0700 From: Dan Zinngrabe Subject: Re: That Aurora Budget Line/ B-2 Competition Funding ? > >Some questions I have: > >* Has anybody seen the line items or a detailed list of expenditures for the > ATB / B-2 program in any year? Nope, and I sure have gone looking. There are allusions to total amount in some congressional briefing documents from the mid and late 1980s, but no line items. It's fairly safe to say that the bulk of ATB funding was dispersed amoung a number of smaller accounting items or programs during the ATB's "gray" development. The program itself was acknowledged to exist and some things were known about it, but the details of the program were kept back, as were expenditures during development (ie- "gray" program). > >* "Senior Ice" (Northrop ATB studies), "Senior Peg" (Lockheed ATB studies) > and "Senior CJ" (CJ for Connie Jo Kelly (not Clarence 'Kelly' Johnson)) > (Northrop ATB program) code words are associated with the ATB/B-2 program. > Has there ever been any other relation suggested between the "Aurora" line > item and the "ATB" program (besides Ben Rich's memoirs)? Not to the best of my knowledge, and once I again I spent quite a bit of time looking after reading Rich's book. It's interesting to note the Aurora name itself- several black R&D programs focusing on hypersonics carried a "dawn" nomenclature immediately preceeding the Aurora line item's appearance. Science Realm, Science Dawn, LORRAINE and TEAL DAWN(?IIRC) all preceeded the Aurora item. Of course, that could be mere coincidence :) > >* Maybe "Aurora" was the "Q"/"Tier 3" UAV, which was based on Lockheed's ATB > concept/competition entry ("Senior Peg")? The dates involved would not seem to indicate that. Tier 3 seems to have begun later in the 1980s. Some say it was started by Lockheed itself as a company project and later picked up by the AF, but thee is more evidence to suggest that it was developed to a rather ad hoc DARPA/AF spec initially as an ACTD. Aurora' s rather large (but not actually funded) budget for FY1986 would seem to indicate that it was a program late in it's development or possibly nearing procurement. > >* Everybody quotes the price for B-2A bombers between $500 million and $2.5 > billion each -- where do those numbers come from? (The GAO report in 1997 > quoted $45 billion (or $30 billion in 1981 dollars) for the whole program > (October 1981 to 2004), which would result in $2.1 billion (1997 dollars) > for each airframe.) Those costs seem to exclude the competition, but do > include construction of production facilities, CAD/CAM development, all > sorts of simulation and testing, RCS Model(s) as well as Static Airframes, > Modifications (to Block 10/20/30), Weapons integration (GAM/JDAM/etc.), > Whiteman AFB construction, pilot and maintenance training, IOC, spares, > etc. p.p. IIRC, the ATB was one of the first programs to use the concept of "flyaway cost". The flyaway cost was one way to make buying more AC seem attractive to congress. Basically the entire cost of a program over it's entire lifetime (10-20 years, including all Andreas mentions above and more) is divided by the number of aircraft bought. Buy more aircraft and you see some economy of scale. Buy less and the individual aircraft seem far more expensive on paper. > >* Can those numbers be traced back to line items, eliminating the "Aurora" > line item or connecting it directly with the ATB program? (e.g. $2 billion > appropriated 11/19/1987 for initial production of four B-2A aircraft. Because of the "flyaway cost" system described above you'd really need a very detailed breakdown of the costs involved in calculating the flyaway cost and work from there. A daunting effort to say the least! > >* Now that the B-2A is more or less a white program, those numbers should be > de-classified and it should be possible to say: In 1985 and 1986 x-billion > dollars were appropriated for such-and-such, see line item xyz. Wouldn't > that clear up any "Aurora" relation once and for all? They should be declassified, but apparently are not. It's possible that DoD figures that declassifying that information might compromise their ability to hide black funding in the future, which throws it into the "sources and methods of intelligence and counter intelligence" category, which makes it very difficult to get things declassified. DoD wants to deny any enemy information on advanced development projects (and many would argue, deny American taxpayers that info as well), and as everyone on this list knows budget information can tell you quite a bit about what's going on. Of course, a good mathematical model of the unclassified budget information can tell you a lot too, but.... > >* Maybe someone can do some research in that field (or maybe someone already > did)? Many have tried, few have suceeded :( dan _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ Have you exported RSA today? print pack"C*",split/\D+/,`echo "16iII*o\U@{$/=$z;[(pop,pop,unpack"H*",<> )]}\EsMsKsN0[lN*1lK[d2%Sa2/d0 Subject: Visual illusions while observing the sky Please excuse a somewhat OT question, but this seemed to be a promising place to ask. I've been asked to draft a section on visual illusions for a satellite observers' (people who watch artificial satellites) FAQ. Rather than reinvent the wheel -- and not being qualified as a wheelwright in the first place -- I thought I'd check to see if anything similar has already been done in the airplane-watchers' world. A discussion of saccades, the autokinetic illusion, loss of visual fixation, even simple "floaters" as a source of confusion while looking at the sky would be of interest. Can any of you skunkish folk recommend a good source? TIA ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 11:33:17 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD: (UASR) Stealth discussion [new subject] Major-General (?) Kenneth Israel was mentioned in relation to his admission that a stealthy "Air Force Special Platform" was in operation and that it was classified. I attach the story at the end. The Aereon Corp was developing massive LTA platform - ultra-stealthy, ultra-strong, in 1969. Similar a/ac have been flown from Fort Drum in Northern NY state. Oftentimes witnesses are hopeless in their descriptions of "massive" triangles which, in investigating well over 100 cases have proved, 90% of the time, to be misidentifications, Venus, passenger airliners at low level, stars, light aircraft, military jets and Police helicopters. That's just for starters. There are NOT that many bona-fide sightings in the first place, most of them are investigated horrendously badly, and the number of times people confuse hovering with low speed is amazing. In my book I note another admission taken from Senate hearings on UAV systems. One military official admitted (in 1993, off the top of my head) that Tier 3 "Advanced Airborne Reconnaissance System" had been designed for ultra low speed ultra-stealthy activity...... I have also talked to British Aerospace contractors who have seen a small flying triangle at the Special Projects Site at Warton. I have also spoken to ex-RAF personnel who have seen a similar craft hovering outside the facilities there early in the morning. Believe me, they can do these things and often without 'anti-gravity' technology. First we've got to improve our investigation techniques..... Tim M. >>>>>>>>>>> >From my own email list; "Dear All, for all you MMUFO doubters this just in.........; "From a mil-spotter..... An interesting snippet from Thursdays Daily Telegraph which may be of interest to some.......... A slip-up by American defence officials may have confirmed the existence of a new stealth reconnaissance aircraft. DARO, the American Defence Airborne Reconnaissance Office, issued a report in 1997 concerning unmanned aerial vehicles, or robot aircraft. The report makes a fleeting reference to a vehicle called the "Air Force Special Platform". According to Janes' International Defence Digest, DARO commander Major-General Kenneth Israel recently admitted that the report reference was to "a covert reconnaissance aircraft — in the classified world." Paul Beaver of Janes said: "It appears to be quite a large, delta winged manned aircraft that uses conventional jet power to cruise in excess of Mach 2. It could be the aircraft which has been dubbed Project Aurora, or another project called 'Senior Citizen'. Over the years there have been many air-to-air sightings of the plane, from the North Sea to North America and even as far afield as Turkey.'' In spite of the large number of in-flight sightings, no report has been published of sightings on the ground. "The project exists — and they must have built at least five or six prototypes," said Beaver. The so-called "black" programmes arouse intense interest among aero-space industry watchers, who go to extreme lengths to discover details about programmes like Aurora. Interested web-watchers can catch up with the detective story by visiting the FAS website at www.fas.org/index.html and also the Nasa Langley Research Centre Technical information web-site:larcpubs.larc.nasa.gov/randt/1994/2-FrontMatter.www.html. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Told y'all!!!!! Tim M." - -- 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 * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade (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, 10 Jul 1999 11:34:30 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD: (UASR) more Stealth discussion [new subject] Posted by : "Lynda Matthews" There's not alot to tell. It doesn't bother me really. One guy who frequently attends our meetings is called Neville Beckett. He occasionally writes for aviation magazines. He certainly has links with the first (1989/90) Hawk Low Observable Studies programme at BAe (nothing special - RAM treatments on hawk jets to reduce IR sigs etc.) and not to be confused with the High Altitude/Agility Low Observable - HALO ll) project noted in Jane's Military Aircraft. He has attended around 8 events now and has been seen with by many different researchers. He occasionally brings a "friend". He last appeared at our last Lancashire UFO Society meeting where Kathleen Anderson of NUFORC spoke - she was on holiday in the UK BTW. On this occasion he was carrying a Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) bag (!!) and asking his usual odd questions. He is most certainly a stealth expert and refuses to answer any questions about his work for BAe. I have also been sent blueprints for the Special Projects Site and somewhere I have a photograph of a woman who appeared outside my house, took photographs and jumped into the back of a blue unmarked van - this was in 1996. My phone regularly cuts out when I'm talking about these projects to colleagues. It has been checked out by British Telecom and they can't explain it. Yeah Yeah - I know what you're all thinking.....yet more bullshit. Actually I can't explain it myself and don't attempt to. It doesn't mean I'm right or know much more than the average Coronation Street viewer..... Who knows? You tell me! Tim M. - -- 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 * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade (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, 10 Jul 1999 13:44:44 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? ParaScope correspondent Alfredo Garcia recently snapped some amazing photographs of the USAF's top-secret "AURORA" aircraft. Are those loopy contrails produced by a Pulse-Wave Detonation Engine? < http://www.parascope.com/nb/articles/auroraPixB.htm > - -- 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 * TLCB * U.S. Message Text Formatting (USMTF) Program - ------------ Member: Thailand-Laos-Cambodia Brotherhood (TLCB) Mailing List TLCB Web Site: < http://www.tlc-brotherhood.org > Southeast Asia (SEA) service: Vietnam - Theater Telecommunications Center/HHC, 1st Aviation Brigade (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, 10 Jul 1999 17:40:30 -0700 From: patrick Subject: Re: FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? At 01:44 PM 7/10/99 -0700, Terry Colvin wrote: >ParaScope correspondent Alfredo Garcia recently snapped some >amazing photographs of the USAF's top-secret "AURORA" aircraft. Are >those loopy contrails produced by a Pulse-Wave Detonation Engine? > >< http://www.parascope.com/nb/articles/auroraPixB.htm > > Now Terry, I hate to be a party pooper here but you and Alfredo are presenting this sighting as "amazing photographs of the USAF's top-secret "AURORA" aircraft....." Alfredo himself states: So I proceeded to shoot it and got it on film. The craft was moving very fast as it was turning. This thing was hauling butt, as they say! "So this is what happened and how I happened to take pictures of the contrail. I think I did catch a PWDE propelled aircraft, maybe the Aurora undergoing a flight test! Who knows? Well there are no airplanes of any sort in the photographs. Further more Alfredo is so concerned about the exhaust trail, the "eye-lash" affect, and other cloud features he has neglected to point out the location of the aircraft in the photos. And rightfully so I suppose. There are no vehicles in these photos. Again I find it rather odd that this fellow stood there and watched what he clams is the complete track of the Aurora making a relatively close and long arc over a major portion of the sky he was viewing and with camera in hand, only photographed the exhaust contrails. He wondered to himself if he was watching the never photographed Aurora and he didn't take a picture? Every photograph you present here shows the contrail entering and exiting the photos, thus a vehicle cannot be seen in the photos. patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 20:56:49 EDT From: INFORMATION RESTRICTED Subject: Aurora Pix. Oh for gosh sakes, someone tell these guys who take these photos to stop trying to claim it as Aurora. I see that EXACT trail formation 10 - 15 time daily. Not only that, ninety to a hundred % of the time (of those 10 - 15) I see the passenger jet that produced it. After careful scientific analysis based on years of observing thousands of such trails, I think this one is from an American West jet outta Burpbank! That aside, where can I see these "soap on a rope" pix eveyone harps about? I haven't seen photos, nor have I seen the real thing ! I oughta jump on the fanatic wagon this year. Kurt Amateur Radio Stations KC7VDG / KK7RC Monitor Station Registry KCA6ABB Based In Nevada, United States Of America ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jul 1999 22:12:17 -0700 From: Dan Zinngrabe Subject: Re: FWD: (UASR) Aurora photographs? >ParaScope correspondent Alfredo Garcia recently snapped some >amazing photographs of the USAF's top-secret "AURORA" aircraft. Are >those loopy contrails produced by a Pulse-Wave Detonation Engine? > >< http://www.parascope.com/nb/articles/auroraPixB.htm > > Donuts-on-a-rope contrails are very interesting, but can be produced by a wide variety of conditions. After moving to southern California I often watched them form in traffic over the hills, apprently distortions of airliner contrails. Interesting, but definitely not a classified aircraft. IMHO, the contrail itself is not an indication of an unusual aircraft or a propulsion system, it is only one facet of a "sighting". If the observer was in a remote location outside of normal commercial airways and heard the "pulser" signature, I would find it much more interesting. Quite a bit of research is required to "validate" a sighting. ATC information, weather conditions, location, etc are all important in ruling out common things that can be mistaken for unusual aircraft. Take, for example, the "Artichoke". During 1994-1995 there were several sightings reported of an AC with a planform similar to that of the F-117 but with serrated trailing edges and larger dimensions, almost all in New Mexico. For quit a while it was thought that this was a new black AC undergoing flight test. It turns out that at the time there was at least one F-117 flying with an unusual RAM configuration that made the serrated RAM panels near the trailing edges of the aircraft black, and other parts much lighter in color- which would account for the "artichoke" planform. Two "sightings" were under the flight path of this particular aircraft flying out of Holloman in the early evening. It's now reasonable to say that these sightings were of the modified F-117 and not a new AC. Donuts-on-a-rope contrails are an interesting phenomena, and may or may not be linked to unsual propulsion systems- I wasted quite a bit of time researching and simulating different combined cycle powerplants in an attempt to match an engine to the "pulser" signature with not much to show for it but the obvious. There are many, many factors that influence the formation and deformation of contrails, and as such they are not reliable on their own as evidence of an unusual aircraft. But hey, they're nifty to look at. Dan _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ The software you were born with helps you follow thousands of different threads on the Internet, whip up gourmet feasts using only ingredients from the 24-hour store, and use words like "paradigm" and "orthogonal" in casual conversation. It deserves the operating system designed to work with it: the MacOS. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 17:31:35 EDT From: UKdragon@aol.com Subject: Jim Barnes, R.I.P. I thought list members should know that the high-time U-2 pilot died suddenly late last week, age 70. Jim Barnes was one of the originals, recruited by CIA from USAF in 1956. He flew with Dets C and B out of Japan and Turkey, and stayed on with the Agency throughout the 1960s. He transferred with the two U-2Cs to NASA Ames Rsearch Center in 1971, and flew for NASA for another 16 years. He flew a grand total of 5,862 hours in the U-2A/C/F/G/H/R plus ER-2. I doubt if anyone will ever match that. Jim was respected as one of the most technically accomplished and meticulous U-2 pilots. I spoke to him by phone only recently, and am shocked at his untimely passing. Regards, Chris Pocock Information is useless without Intelligence email: UKdragon@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 17:31:32 EDT From: UKdragon@aol.com Subject: Aurora budget line Sorry to disappoint Larry, David and others, but I'm with Andreas when he wrote: >> OTOH, it could also mean that the code name "Aurora" was just introduced for usage in 1985. The B-2 had just passed its second preliminary design review in 1984, and production was to start in 1985, so "Aurora" might have been a code for the B-2 "Production" effort. Work on AV-1 was apparently started in 1983 and the aircraft was finally rolled out on 11/22/1988, after 3.5 million manufacturing man hours >> I do happen to know the (former) USAF Colonel, mentioned in Ben Rich's book, who was managing black budget funding allocation in the Pentagon circa 1985. He repeated to me personally, the story in Ben's book that Aurora was a codename for B-2 funding. And yes, as Andreas also notes, the Ben Rich book has many errors. In this case, Ben had the timing wrong, and we're talking about production funding, not the earlier competition. As the said Colonel related to me, by 1985 they needed to keep ever larger sums of money hidden, as ATB production ramped up. So they started using new line items in different parts of the budget. Why Aurora? Something to do with a new type of dawn for combat aircraft capability, I think. Regards, Chris Pocock Information is useless without Intelligence email: UKdragon@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 17:31:34 EDT From: UKdragon@aol.com Subject: Air Force Special Platform Someone quoted from Janes: >A slip-up by American defence officials may have confirmed the existence of >a new stealth reconnaissance aircraft. DARO, the American Defence Airborne >Reconnaissance Office, issued a report in 1997 concerning unmanned aerial >vehicles, or robot aircraft. The report makes a fleeting reference to a >vehicle called the "Air Force Special Platform". According to Janes' >International Defence Digest, DARO commander Major-General Kenneth >Israel recently admitted that the report reference was to "a covert >reconnaissance aircraft in the classified world." I have been reliably informed that the Air Force Special Platform (AFSP) is the U-2 in SIGINT configuration. Remember, that role for the U-2 is still officially classified (ridiculous, ain't it?). I have the 1997 DARO report, and the context for the AFSP fits the U-2, IMHO. Incidentally, a recent security review has downgraded to (S )or (TS), those aspects of the U-2 that have been classified special access up till now. So maybe the AFSP nomenclature need no longer apply now. Regards, Chris Pocock Information is useless without Intelligence email: UKdragon@aol.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 15:27:14 -0700 From: patrick Subject: Re: Aurora budget line At 05:31 PM 7/11/99 Chris Pocock, you wrote: > >Sorry to disappoint Larry, David and others, but I'm with Andreas when he >wrote: > >>> >OTOH, it could also mean that the code name "Aurora" was just introduced for >usage in 1985. The B-2 had just passed its second preliminary design review >in 1984, and production was to start in 1985, so "Aurora" might have been a >code for the B-2 "Production" effort. Work on AV-1 was apparently started in >1983 and the aircraft was finally rolled out on 11/22/1988, after 3.5 million >manufacturing man hours >>> > >I do happen to know the (former) USAF Colonel, mentioned in Ben Rich's book, >who was managing black budget funding allocation in the Pentagon circa 1985. >He repeated to me personally, the story in Ben's book that Aurora was a >codename for B-2 funding. > >And yes, as Andreas also notes, the Ben Rich book has many errors. In this >case, Ben had the timing wrong, and we're talking about production funding, >not the earlier competition. As the said Colonel related to me, by 1985 they >needed to keep ever larger sums of money hidden, as ATB production ramped up. >So they started using new line items in different parts of the budget. Why >Aurora? Something to do with a new type of dawn for combat aircraft >capability, I think. > =-=-====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Not sure how others feel about this but this appears to be something akin to the Rosetta stone re the whole Aurora affair. From what I just read above, Chris has put the last nail in the coffin in debunking any existence of the Aurora as it is hypothesized. I would like to see some comments on whether anyone agrees with my assessment. Is this a dead issue? It appears he has removed from the examination table the lone piece of unsupported evidence. And who could argue that Pocock could do it if anyone could. I kind of hoped it flew myself but isn't it over at this point? patrick ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 20:17:44 -0700 From: Dan Zinngrabe Subject: Re: Aurora budget line >> >=-=-====-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- > >Not sure how others feel about this but this appears to be something akin >to the Rosetta stone re the whole Aurora affair. From what I just read >above, Chris has put the last nail in the coffin in debunking any existence >of the Aurora as it is hypothesized. That depends on what you think "Aurora" was. The whole line item thing merely gave a name to go with an aircraft rumored to be in development at the time, and there is considerable evidence to suggest that USAF/DARPA were spending inordinate amounts of money on flying hypersonic platforms from the late 1970s into the early 1990s. The line item itself never held much interest. There are odd aspects of thge story surrounding it, uncovered by Larry and John Pike, but I don't think that anyone would ever consider a classified line item in a budget as evidence of a classified program. After all, most of the secrecy surrounding black defense programs deals with the funding. The most interesting programs don't show up as line items at all, their funds are buried in other programs and places like the Dept. of the Interior budget. There are numberous Aurora hypothoses, the most common being that the "pulser" sighted across the southwestern US is the a hypersonic aircraft (which people have dubbed Aurora, for various reasons). Then there is the one dealing with a 2-stage to orbit spaceplane ("SR-75"), which seems to be a separate aircraft funded out of SDIO/BMDO, and while that is a hypersonic system, few people refer to it as Aurora. > >I would like to see some comments on whether anyone agrees with my >assessment. Is this a dead issue? It appears he has removed from the I wouldn't consider it a dead issue. There are still far too many questions to be answered regarding the whole US black hypersonics program, the SRT mission, SIOP, etc etc. Plenty of people thought that "Shamu" was a dead issue, a myth, until it turned up at the AF Museam. Dan _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ The software you were born with helps you write code into the wee small hours, find the bugs in your competitors' products, and create fake demos for the first six months of a project. It deserves the operating system designed to work with it: the MacOS. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V8 #80 ******************************** To subscribe to skunk-works-digest, send the command: subscribe in the body of a message to "majordomo@netwrx1.com". 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