From: owner-skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com (skunk-works-digest) To: skunk-works-digest@netwrx1.com Subject: skunk-works-digest V8 #88 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 Tuesday, August 3 1999 Volume 08 : Number 088 Index of this digest by subject: *************************************************** Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (2 of 2) FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (1 of 2) RE: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 Machrianish, and [really] Mary. Re: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. Re: FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (1 of 2) RE: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 Re: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. RE: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. *************************************************** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 19:20:33 -0700 From: INFORMATION RESTRICTED Subject: Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... What is this number? Kurt > Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 19:20:33 -0700 From: INFORMATION RESTRICTED Subject: Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... What is this number? Kurt > Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 00:46:45 -0400 (EDT) From: Mary Shafer Subject: Re: RAF Bandits....England re visited... It's my membership number in the Denizens of Doom, an on-line bikers' club founded in the early days of rec.motorcycles. The "KotFR" stands for "Keeper of the Fastest Ride", a title conferred on me after 47 bikers, most in full leathers, showed up for a tour of Dryden on their way to a weekend camping trip. It has nothing to do with the Department of Defense. Mary Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com "Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end...." On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, INFORMATION RESTRICTED wrote: > What is this number? > > Kurt > > > Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com > ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 21:48:10 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (2 of 2) - ----- (from The Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 1.8.99) THE OUTER LIMITS Rohrabacher's beef is that a vast number of American tax dollars are being spent on commercial aerospace projects - especially in the space field - that already have a direct, but hidden, equivalent in the black world. "If we have a functioning technology in a black program, we should not be spending billions of dollars on a similar program that's visible to the public," Rohrabacher says. A likely example of this duplication, he maintains, is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's X-33 program. The X-33 is a demonstrator vehicle being built by Lockheed Martin for a satellite launcher that will take off like a rocket and land like a plane. If it works as advertised, its operating costs will be a fraction of the Space Shuttle's, which it is due to replace. Last year, Rohrabacher wrote to Clinton requesting that the administration declassify secret projects that perpetuate this overlap in spending. The project which overlaps with the X-33, he believes, is "Aurora", a black program of mythical proportions to a hard-core of "watchers" who scour budget books, as well as the skies, for evidence of topsecret defence projects. Aurora is perceived to be a "family" of very fast high-flying aircraft, the most sophisticated of which can effectively fly through space in the same way that the X-33 is designed to. It was first spotted in 1987 as a mysterious line-item, consuming several billion dollars in that year alone, in the reconnaissance section of the air force's budget request. Several eople claim to have seen it since the late '80s, the best apparent sighting coming from a trained Royal Observer Corps "spotter" who saw a huge wedge- shaped aircraft overflying the North Sea oil-rig on which he was working in 1989. If Aurora exists - and Congressman Rohrabacher is fairly sure it does - it can most likely cross the Atlantic in something under 45 minutes. As yet, Rohrabacher has had no response to his letter to Clinton and, if history is anything to go by, he may have a long wait. The trail now led west, to the vast expanses of Nevada and the mythical nexus of black world aerospace development - the US Air Force's Groom Lake testing facility, otherwise known as Area 51. For the past 45 years, Area 51 has been a test centre for topsecret aircraft such as the U-2, the Blackbird and the Stealth Fighter. In more recent times, it has also become a mecca for UFO watchers convinced the US Government is testing captured alien spacecraft there. One of the first individuals I met on the road to Area 51 was Bob Widmer, a former head of design at General Dynamics Convair, now in his 80s. Late in the '50s, Widmer worked on an extraordinary spyplane design for the CIA that was codenamed "Fish". In the end, Fish lost out to its rival, Lockheed's Blackbird, but for a reason that has never been altogether explained, the details of Widmer's design remain top-secret, long after the Blackbird fleet was consigned to air museums across America. Could it be that Fish, whose general characteristics sound resoundingly familiar today, was actually a secret prototype for the Aurora? We may never know. Widmer was forced to burn almost all the plans for Fish and was told by the CIA to take the details of the project to his grave. And few Americans have ever disclosed their black world activities. Area 51 is encased within a closed-off piece of government land the size of Switzerland, so gazing into it is impossible unless you're prepared to scale some of the peaks on public land - the nearest of which is about 40km away - that give a restricted view on to its desolate runway, scattered hangars and buildings. occasionally, watchers see something strange hovering over the base, but Groom Lake, which is 160km north of Las Vegas in the midst of the desert, is the kind of place where you see what you want to see; where one man's UFO is another man's Stealth Bomber. >From pieces of the puzzle painstakingly gathered by black world investigators such as Alaskan Mark Farmer, for whom the study of classified programs is an all-consuming hobby, we know enough about the realworld activities of Groom Lake not to have to credit extra terrestrials for what happens there. "They do business differently at Area 51," Farmer says, speaking from his vantage-point near the base. "Out here we enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens under the US constitution. But if you pass that borderline, all that ends." There is substantial evidence that the US Air Force has tested something like Aurora at Area 51 in recent years and that it is now working on a new generation of stealth aircraft there. Stealth technology was originally developed late in the '70s as a means of shielding aircraft,from radar, but it is now moving into a whole new realm of sophistication. Before he retired last year the US Air Force's head of acquisition, Lt-Gen George Muellner confirmed they were experimenting with technology to make aircraft invisible to the human eye. one method is to coat them with a "smart skin", not dissimilar to the liquid-crystal displays used in laptop computers, that would mimic the plane's background, chameleonstyle. From above, the aircraft would blend into the ground or the sea; from below, it would take on the same colour as the sky, making it all but disappear into the ether. Muellner justifies the need for black programs on the grounds it is still a dangerous world, despite the demise of the Soviet Union. "The technologies that are developed in the black world need to be continued to be matured, and when the time is right brought forward in the form of weapons systems to maintain our technological edge," he says. The Pentagon, unlike other national defence institutions, has never been constrained by what scientists say is technologically possible or impossible - and it has the resources to turn its dreams into reality. Given Area 51's recently acquired infamy (thanks to its starring role in the blockbuster movie Independence Day) it is likely that America's most sensitive military technologies are now being tested at some even more discreet location deep within the closed-off Nevada complex. If the truth is out there, it's probably way too distant now for anyone to tell whether it's a flying saucer or their tax-dollars out for a spin. (end of part 2) - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 21:47:56 -0700 From: "Terry W. Colvin" Subject: FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (1 of 2) - ----- (from The Sunday Mail (Brisbane) 1.8.99) THE OUTER LIMITS In America, money is no object when it comes to defense. But when $35 billion goes missing and strange things appear in the sky, questions must be answered. Aviattion expert and sceptic NICK COOK followed a trail from Washington to Nevada and ended up asking : Is it a bird ? Is it a spyplane ? Or is it a UFO ? AS A defence journalist working in Britain, you know when you're getting dangerously close to something the Ministry of Defence would really rather remained under wraps, because you'll almost certainly get a call from the Ministry's D-Notice Committee telling you so before you rush to print. The D-Notice system is a fairly gentlemanly affair and relies on a certain amount of goodwill on both sides. Chances are, a retired rear admiral or air vice-marshal will gently pull you aside and explain patiently how your story will endanger national security, or the lives of serving British military personnel, or both. The system is voluntary, but it lets you know where you stand before things get heavy and unpleasant under the Official Secrets Act. The essential point is that you're in no doubt where the line is - and you step beyond it at your peril. Cross the Atlantic and it's a very different story. In the United States, deeply secret defence programs are protected under a regime known as the "special access" system. Special access programs - SAPS, to use the jargon - - are graded white, grey and black, according to their degree of sensitivity. White programs are relatively straightforward, usually involving hardware and technology which might be ultra-sophisticated, but which in essence has nothing secret about it. Grey programs usually relate to a non-sensitive platform, such as an aircraft or a ship, whose innards the Pentagon wants to protect from scrutiny. But the third category, the black program, is in a league all of its own, because it is an "unacknowledged" project. This means someone, somewhere has deemed that its very existence must not be revealed or admitted to. The lore of the "black world" has it that there are certain military projects from which even the President is excluded because he does not have the "need to know". When you enter the black world, it can be a pretty mind-bending experience. Three years ago, I was granted a rare interview with Jack Gordon, the head of the Lockheed Martin "Skunk Works", at the company's top-secret facility on the edge of the high desert in Palmdale, California. The Skunk Works, named after the foul- smelling chemicals used in the construction of its first secret aircraft back in the '40s, has built just about every black plane that's ever been acknowledged, and clearly a whole lot that haven't. While we chatted, Gordon let slip that he had worked on 15 "real flying aircraft" in his career, addling hastily that he could only talk about 12 of them. When pressed on the missing three, he skilfully moved the subject along. When the interview concluded, I was escorted back through the tight security of the windowless building and out into the bright California sunshine. On the way, however, I'd seen a diagram on a wall that proudly charted the lineage of every Skunk Works plane since the first one, America' s first operational jet fighter, built in 1944. Past the U-2 that secretly overflew Itussia between 1956 and 1960, past the SR-71 Blackbird, the fastest plane ever built, and today's F-I 17A Stealth Fighter, there was something called "Astra". Astra was depicted as a sleeklooking beast, but more importantly, it was right at the top of the family tree. The thing is, officially, the Skunk Works has built nothing since an unmanned, somewhat sedate-looking spyplane called DarkStar that had rolled out of the factory the previous year. When I showed interest in Astra, I was given the black world equivalent of the bum's rush: a shrug of the shoulders and a polite reminder that the interview was over. Three weeks later, and only after persistent questioning, I was told that the depiction on the chart was a mistake and that Astra was really a high-speed airliner project that had been studied in the '70s and very quickly cancelled. My first reaction in the face of such obfuscation was to laugh. But the ling effects of the black world are subtle and insidious. Occasionally, in the small hours of a sleepless night, I wonder whether I didn't just imagine the whole thing. It is this fine line between fact and fiction, as well as dream and reality, that defines the character of the black world and gives it its ethereal shape. Unsurprisingly, it has given rise to a whole host of conspiracy theories over the years, ranging from Pentagon mind-control experiments to alien cadavers stored in freezers at secret locations across the country. While there seems to be no end of people, many of them weaned on '90s X-Files culture, who accept these yarns at face value, the US defence and intelligence community is not beyond putting its own spin on them from time to time. Two years ago, the CIA admitted that it had encouraged reports of flying saucers in the '50s and '60s to obscure flight trials of its then top-secret U-2 and Blackbird spyplanes. The overall effect is undoubtedly the desired one: when you enter this environment, you step into a looking-glass world where down is up. As aviation editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, a large part of my brief has been to report on the cutting edge of Pentagon defence technology. In Billion Dollar Secret, a documentary shot last year for British television, I wanted to take this one step further - to see to what degree the UFO myth was rooted in very real black world technology. The result was an east-west journey from Washington DC to a top- secret US Air Force base in Nevada that probably owes as much to Hunter S. Thompson as it does to Mulder and Scully. My journey began in Washington because although entry points into the black world labyrinth are few and far between, here - as is the case almost everywhere in the world - money can open doors. In a bizarre contradiction that is so often a characterisfic of the deeply classified environment, the most secret thing about it - the cash that is its lifeblood - is calculable thanks to good ol' American government accounting procedures. Every year, the Pentagon submits its fiscal request to Congress in the form of several budget books that itemise just about every nut and bolt of defence equipment the armed forces are likely to need over the coming 12 months. When you add up all the line items, however, the total does not match the grand total of the overall budget request, which today hovers around $270 billion. Subtract the total for the line items from the grand total and you find a discrepancy of around $35 billion. It is this sum that makes up the black budget and, to put the figures into perspective, it almost exactly equates to the total British defence budget. During the Cold War, there were few dissenting voices on Capitol Hill over the rationale for the black budget, but lately more have been making themselves heard. This is in part because the size of the black budget, as a proportion of an overall defence budget that has been shrinking in real terms for more than 10 years, has been increasing under the Clinton administration. One of the more vociferous campaigners against blackbudget secrecy has been Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Republican chair of the House science committee's influential space and aeronautics subcommittee. (end of part 1) - ----- peter "Mr. Joly himself is not unusual, he's very well-spoken, very well-dressed, he eloquently stated his own case, he's not your typical Martian," Groskaufmanis said. - -- 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 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 14:15:29 -0400 From: "Frank Markus" Subject: RE: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 - -----Original Message----- From: owner-skunk-works@netwrx1.com [mailto:owner-skunk-works@netwrx1.com]On Behalf Of Mary Shafer Sent: Sunday, August 01, 1999 6:31 PM To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com Subject: Re: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 [Vast omissions] Plus, they paid for star map updates, which we couldn't afford, so now we're almost current (the stars drift just enough that a new star map update is needed yearly for precision navigation). [Still more important stuff cut] There is a nice irony in the thought that NASA cannot afford star map upgrades! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 03 Aug 1999 09:44:13 -0700 From: Steve Apthorpe Subject: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. Machrianish, and [really] Mary. One thing that has always puzzled me is about sightings at Machrianish [sp]. Yes it is remote and secure, but certainly not in the same sense as Groom Lake. As regards 'Aurora' type aircraft (it may have originated as an erroneous name from a budget listing, but it has now come to signify 'black, hypersonic programs.') there would be no operational reason to land outside of CONUS, let alone the considerations of security and ground support. Having said that, there have been suggestions that 'Senior Citizen' is a special ops transport (possibly V/STOL), and would therefore operate in the field. Machrianish is/was a spec ops base (I think SEALs, possibly those who protect(ed) Holy Loch) so it is at least feasible that a Spec Ops transport may have been tested at Machrianish. (I'm not saying it was tested there, I'm not even saying 'Senior Citizen' exists/ed, I'm just saying it is a more logical explanation of rumoured activity at Machrianish). > Mary wrote: > That's Boscombe Down, home of the Empire Test Pilot School ... Correct, however the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) only train test pilots they do not perform any of the testing flying at Boscombe Down, DRA [or whatever they are calling A&AEE these days, I lost track after emigrating], have their own test pilots. > ... It's not very far from Stonehenge, by the way. Hmmm, yes Stonehenge is about 2 miles west of the airfield, but why did you connect the two? (can't remember any Druid flight trials in recent times). I sincerely hope that you are not eluding to the 'infamous' [ie 'It didn't happen, sorry to disappoint the 'true believers''] crash of 1994 [yes I do know a bit more, which I can post if appropriate]. If this is your inference, I hope your tongue was planted firmly in your cheek as you were typing, or I'll expect you to be posting support for that bilge from Mr 'Stealth came from the aliens' Craddock ;-) Mind you, it was your lot [ie NASA] who faked the moon landings, as we all now know to be 'fact'....;^) Steve ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1999 18:36:57 -0700 From: Dan Zinngrabe Subject: Re: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. >Machrianish, and [really] Mary. > >One thing that has always puzzled me is about sightings at Machrianish >[sp]. Yes it is remote and secure, but certainly not in the same sense >as Groom Lake. As regards 'Aurora' type aircraft (it may have >originated as an erroneous name from a budget listing, but it has now >come to signify 'black, hypersonic programs.') there would be no >operational reason to land outside of CONUS, let alone the >considerations of security and ground support. > >Having said that, there have been suggestions that 'Senior Citizen' is a >special ops transport (possibly V/STOL), and would therefore operate in >the field. Machrianish is/was a spec ops base (I think SEALs, possibly >those who protect(ed) Holy Loch) so it is at least feasible that a Spec >Ops transport may have been tested at Machrianish. (I'm not saying it >was tested there, I'm not even saying 'Senior Citizen' exists/ed, I'm >just saying it is a more logical explanation of rumoured activity at >Machrianish). There was a very small SEAL contingent there during the 1980s, but it's pretty much gone now. Their mission was primarily harbor infiltration. And, from Trader's (Paul) last report on his SENIOR CITIZEN research, it seemed like the program never entered procurement- which makes it unlikely that it ever visited the UK. A black SpecOPs a/c would most likely be tested at Groom, China Lake, and Eglin (home of Hurlburt Field). > >> Mary wrote: >> That's Boscombe Down, home of the Empire Test Pilot School ... > >Correct, however the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) only train test >pilots they do not perform any of the testing flying at Boscombe Down, >DRA [or whatever they are calling A&AEE these days, I lost track after >emigrating], have their own test pilots. > >> ... It's not very far from Stonehenge, by the way. > >Hmmm, yes Stonehenge is about 2 miles west of the airfield, but why did >you connect the two? Because us Yanks would never know how to find Boscombe Down on a map otherwise :) 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: Tue, 03 Aug 99 04:41:26 GMT From: betnal@ns.net Subject: Re: FWD: (FT) Sunday Snail Skunkworks Article (1 of 2) The Skunk Works, named after the foul- smelling chemicals used in the construction of its first secret aircraft back in the '40s... Not going to comment on the rest of this, but the Skunk Works was named after the place where they made Kickapoo Joy Juice in the Lil' Abner comic strip.. Art ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 01:12:59 -0400 (EDT) From: Mary Shafer Subject: RE: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 It was more the format than the star positions that we needed to have generated. It's not like entering tables from the ephemeris or anything. Rather, they go in some special format, not immediately obvious to casual inspection. Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com "Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end...." On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Frank Markus wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-skunk-works@netwrx1.com [mailto:owner-skunk-works@netwrx1.com]On > Behalf Of Mary Shafer > Sent: Sunday, August 01, 1999 6:31 PM > To: skunk-works@netwrx1.com > Subject: Re: NASA taking ownership of SR-71 > > > [Vast omissions] > Plus, they paid for star map updates, which we couldn't afford, so now > we're almost current (the stars drift just enough that a new star map update > is needed yearly for precision navigation). > [Still more important stuff cut] > > There is a nice irony in the thought that NASA cannot afford star map > upgrades! > > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 01:30:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Mary Shafer Subject: Re: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. Stonehenge and Boscombe Down are firmly connected in my mind because we drove by the former to get to the latter for a special tour. As we went by Stonehenge we got our first look at the Lightning that we got to watch in the pattern at Boscombe Down. We also got to see British Army troops out on exercises, complete with all sorts of hardware, including a team in camouflage with some sort of smallish rocket launcher or similar weapon tucked into the hedge right beside the pull-out where we stopped to figure out exactly where we were. We all dealt with this rather uncomfortable situation by mutually ignoring each other except for one fellow who came over and took our AA map back to the team for a few minutes, returning it with the route carefully marked, all with a minimum of conversation. (I should mention that we also invariably ended up in West Germany, going from Frankfurt-am-Main to Braunschweig and back, just in time for Autumn Reforger and the BAOR equivalent, both of which brought the autobahns to a slow crawl all along the route.) The arrangement between Boscombe Down and the Empire Test Pilot School is essentially identical to the arrangement between the Air Force Flight Test Center and the USAF Test Pilot School or Naval Air Warfare Center and the USN Test Pilot School. I didn't think there was any other way to do it, as no self-respecting organization would rely on students to do their test flying. I certainly didn't meant to imply that ETPS was anything more than a tenant organization. Mary Shafer DoD #0362 KotFR shafer@ursa-major.spdcc.com "Some days it don't come easy/And some days it don't come hard Some days it don't come at all/And these are the days that never end...." On Tue, 3 Aug 1999, Steve Apthorpe wrote: > Machrianish, and [really] Mary. > > One thing that has always puzzled me is about sightings at Machrianish > [sp]. Yes it is remote and secure, but certainly not in the same sense > as Groom Lake. As regards 'Aurora' type aircraft (it may have > originated as an erroneous name from a budget listing, but it has now > come to signify 'black, hypersonic programs.') there would be no > operational reason to land outside of CONUS, let alone the > considerations of security and ground support. > > Having said that, there have been suggestions that 'Senior Citizen' is a > special ops transport (possibly V/STOL), and would therefore operate in > the field. Machrianish is/was a spec ops base (I think SEALs, possibly > those who protect(ed) Holy Loch) so it is at least feasible that a Spec > Ops transport may have been tested at Machrianish. (I'm not saying it > was tested there, I'm not even saying 'Senior Citizen' exists/ed, I'm > just saying it is a more logical explanation of rumoured activity at > Machrianish). > > > Mary wrote: > > That's Boscombe Down, home of the Empire Test Pilot School ... > > Correct, however the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) only train test > pilots they do not perform any of the testing flying at Boscombe Down, > DRA [or whatever they are calling A&AEE these days, I lost track after > emigrating], have their own test pilots. > > > ... It's not very far from Stonehenge, by the way. > > Hmmm, yes Stonehenge is about 2 miles west of the airfield, but why did > you connect the two? (can't remember any Druid flight trials in recent > times). I sincerely hope that you are not eluding to the 'infamous' [ie > 'It didn't happen, sorry to disappoint the 'true believers''] crash of > 1994 [yes I do know a bit more, which I can post if appropriate]. If > this is your inference, I hope your tongue was planted firmly in your > cheek as you were typing, or I'll expect you to be posting support for > that bilge from Mr 'Stealth came from the aliens' Craddock ;-) Mind > you, it was your lot [ie NASA] who faked the moon landings, as we all > now know to be 'fact'....;^) > > Steve > ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 3 Aug 1999 08:14:18 +0100 From: "Gavin Payne" Subject: RE: Machrianish, and [really] Mary. > Correct, however the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) only train test > pilots they do not perform any of the testing flying at Boscombe Down, > DRA [or whatever they are calling A&AEE these days, I lost track after > emigrating], have their own test pilots. > The DERA are the people you mean. They own Boscombe Down. Although new technology is tested there its not the place where they'd test completely new aircraft, just new ideas for existing aircraft. DERA themselves just make adjustments or add things to existing aircraft. BAe have several airports where they test new aircraft (the primary aircraft contractor for the RAF). Boscombe is a fairly secure place as I've found as many a time. You can park at the end of the runways, only big CCTV systems bring the MOD police in as soon your even think about getting a camera out! Gavin ------------------------------ End of skunk-works-digest V8 #88 ******************************** 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