Those interested in the A-12-Sr-71 might like to look at this article, very interesti

[dharris]

http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/The-Real-X-Jet.html?c=y&page=1

[peter12213]

You just don't realise how much of a ground braking aircraft this was until you read that, I knee parts of the story but that article is very detailed and interesting! Kelly Johnson really was a genious of biblical proportions!

[Railrunner130]

I've read perhaps a dozen books on the Blackbird. It was certainly an amazing airplane that will never be duplicated in terms of high-tech, yet simple technology.

[warchild]

dont know.. When i was working on Razbams Convair, i did a lot of research into fish and Kingfish.. The likeness to yet another super top secret that cant be kept ( Aurora ) is remarkable.. Maybe they're still making them simple?? yeah, not likely, but one can always hope eh??
Pam

[dharris]

If you ever get a chance to read The Untouchables, and Sled Driver by Brian Shule some of the stories he relates are incredible. Well worth the time if you can find them. And no, your cannot have mine! lol

[Dexdoggy]

A fantastic read, many thanks for finding!

[Roger]

Great read! Thanks:ernae:

[Sundog]

If you're interested in more detail on how they got to the Oxcart program, Lockheed's Code One Magazine online is doing a four part series that covers the Convair side of it.

The first part is on the Super-Hustler (http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=67).

The second part, just posted, is on the FISH (First Invisible Super Hustler) (http://www.codeonemagazine.com/article.html?item_id=74).

I don't know if last two parts are on Convair developments or if the third part will be on the KingFISH and the last part the Blackbird. One of them will definitely be on the KingFish.

Thanks for the Air and Space link.

[warchild]

Welll, not to drag the topic off the sr-71, but both Fish and King Fish are top secret still today ( 45 years after they were canned?? ), sooo,, I dont neccessarily trust anything anyone has to say from the government until they declassify it.. till then, a mach 6 plane ( fish ) and odd behavior on the governments part will keep my suspicions quite active..

[lazarus]

One mission never talked of much for the YF-12A was ballistic missile interception. It was actually demonstrated with a B-47 lugging a brass board off the shelf test vehicle. They lofted off 3 or 4 at one of the early Discoverer vehicles in LEO in a dem-val program, mid 1960's. The planned version was for Alaskan based Boost-phase interception. Odd ,though, how some miss information keeps being perpetuated, little stuff that says "I did all the research for this article/book in 10 minutes with google" Nitrogen filled tires in the A-11/12/YF-12/SR-71 for flamability reasons- you will find nitrogen in any aircraft tire, as well as accumulators ect, as its dry,clean, and thermally stable- does not expand and contract much over a broad temperature range. Jon Stewart was interveiwing an author last night about a 1944 glider rescue operation in New Guinea- same thing. A' wild, Wilie e Coyote operation' with 'wooden flying coffin' gliders, snatched fron the ground with a 'hook and a rubber band dangling from another plane.' I'm thinking -"this is a revelation? - good thing he never saw the L-4/LST SKYLINE recovery trial photos- he'd have crapped!"
The KINGFISH studies were interesting, though. The F-117's grandpappy...
Edit.... this was one of the pages I remembered- Lockheed studies for strike and attack/Close air support Blackbirds. There were also studies to fit an M-61 Vulcan cannon, racks of FFAR's internally, anti-tank munitions, external 1MT H-bomb/fuel pods- loads of wacky stuff- Close air support in a Blackbird! some times you gotta think- I'll have what they're smoking!
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=3780.0%3Ball

[Railrunner130]

I'm convinced a lot of the "studies" related to the Blackbird were ploys for funds and aircraft production.

The CIA were the first to get into the program with the A-12. Because of being lightweight and only having one seat, it was the hotrod of the family.

The YF-12 interceptor version eventually amounted to the development of the radar for the F-14 and further development work for the SR-71. I don't think Lockheed was serious about building the YF-12 because an alert would've taken something like two hours to generate a flying airplane. If they had been serious, I think they would've spent much more time trying to reduce the launch time. They may have been trying to grab funding away from the multi-role F-111 program, but I'm not sure the dates match up to support this theory.

Lockheed also tried to horn funds away from the XB-70 program by revealing drawings for the bomber version. Again, I think they were after cash and not really looking to enter into the bomber business.

Oddly enough, in the 2004-2005 time frame the F-22 magically became the FA-22 in an attempt to gather more funding. I forget what project they were trying to grab funds from, but I suspect it was a continuation of the F-15E. Once that project was scrapped, so was the FA-22.

[RKinkor]

I wish somebody would model these. I have the Alphasim SR-71 but it would be nice to have the Fish and Kingfish as well. Also wish Hollywood could do a movie about Kelly Johnson.

[lazarus]

...A movie about Kelly Johnson...

One of the things that strikes me about aircraft development now is that there are no singular personalities ( besides Mr.Rutan, and he's a different animal all together) driving design teams and making the cognitive leap, and turning that into ;sometimes, revolutionary hardware in a timely( some times very rapid) fashion. Instead, its become concensus building (or lack of) gestalt entities with accountants as the brain stem, which seems to manifest as 20-30 year development cycles that often produce not much more than endless definition, parametric and feasibility studies. Even now, say at Lock-Mart, they're still coasting on ideas and techniques hammered out by Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich, with a lot of poorly thought out code and half-arsed kluges (the F-22 international date line debacle comes to mind) scabbed on.
25 years ago, when I entered trade school, there sat, of all things, Kelly Johnsons personal airplane, N329J, the twin Orpheus Jetstar prototype, as she was when she left Lockheed. Maybe it was just me, but I swear, you could still see the shadow cast by those giants, you could feel the greatness. A heady experiance to plop yer butt down in Tony Leviers left seat, know that this was where Johnson and Rich brainstormed gods know what, Jack Northrop, Don Douglas, and Bill Boeing caged rides- That airplane oozed history, for those in the know... or, maybe I'm just an incurable romantic under the acerbic facade...

[warchild]

and that is exactly why i believe that Fish and King Fish were taken to black ops and covered up. Originally designed as a missile platform, the A-11 was latched onto by the cia and became the A-12. Supposedly, the original A-12 is now what we call the A-11 and identifying either one as the other is acceptable as they are both correct. The Fish and King Fish took a slightly different route. Powered by J-58s the King Fish could only fly at mach 4, and without the B-58 the Fish seemingly had no way to get off the ground.. But i dont believe the government simply shrugged an oh Well too bad and let it go at that. All three designs were lightyears ahead of their time. One piece of evidence to support the Fish still existing is its unique contrail. Its pulsed at a specific interval, and as recently as within the last ten years, a photograph has been taken of the same type of contrail over the Atlantic ocean by a satellite, and displayed on one of Nick Cooks Television specials.. He implied it may be Aurora..
Pam

[lazarus]

The 'Doughnut on a rope' PDWE contrails... there is also the 'GASPIPE' (call sign) air traffic control conversations associated with some of those sightings, calling bizzare FL's and GS's out, or the North Sea sighting of the black delta taking gas from a KC-135. Theres alot of very strange stuff in the air. Burning swamp gas reflecting the planet Venus off a weather balloon!

[warchild]

According to the original convair designer who now works for lockheed ) they designed Fish to look like a UFO// Rounded everything.. This does not fit with the available three views or images and certainly not with the supplied propaganda.. But it does begin to match one other aircraft that has been speculated over for a very long time.. Project aurora is speculated to appear as something that is a blend of Fish and King Fish, and last reports on the King fish speculated about having ram/scram jets in combination with the J-58s. Of course this is all speculation and rumor, with the additional exaggeration or two thrown in to account for updates in technology to keep the tale current and the myth alive..

[lazarus]

The design evolved as the possibility to manage and reduce radar cross section became possible . In the B/W photo above, the boffins are setting up a KINGFISH RCS test article at Tonapah. Early on, from work done in Germany and the UK, the idea of directing radar energy away from the transmiting/recieving array was incorporated, and the engineers found that the faceted designs, though an aerodynamic nightmare, reduced the computational burden to a (just) manageable level, where as 'traditional' curved forms, were beyond the computatoinal capabilities of the day. Indeed, it was the late '70's before the state of the art and computing power progressed to the point that RCS could be calculated and managed with complex curved structures, though one derives superior RCS reduction with 'diamond' and 'W' faceted forms. From an aero-thermal and fabrication standpoint, the faceted forms amorleate the nightmares of fabricating structures from heat resistant materials- nickle and titainium alloys, boron, silicates,quartz and high temp phenolic's. The blunt, flat forms make it easier ( from impossible to merely difficult!) manage thermal distortion and heat re-radiation. Techniques like superplastic diffusion forming and stir welding used today for fabricating hard, high temp materials was still 30 years away; SPDF comming into use in the early '80's, and stir welding in the late 90's .
Sorry for Hi-jacking the thread... great conversation,though...:applause:

[warchild]

I wouldnt say hi-jacking, not exactly.. Its my perception and belief that the three planes are insepertably linked together.. The A-12 DID win the contest, but a U-2 had been shot down, causing an intelegence hole if i may call it that. there was a time when nothing was overflying russia. I can only imagine the horor this would be to the intellegence community. Speculating, I believe that work proceeded on the SR-71 ( RS-71 originally if it werent for a president transposing letters ) and it went black. In the mean time, work also possibly proceded on the Fish/KingFish, and kept in the shadows as a quick replacement for the sr-71 should anything have gone wrong. Gone wrong things did. The Russians ( according to the designer of the SU-27 whos name i cant remember or spell ) nknew about the SR-71 from almost its first overflight. They couldnt chase it and they couldnt shoot it down ( they did try ) so they just made notes of it all.. However, Time and ownership winning out, after thirty years of denial, the Americans finally admitted to the SR-71 and publicly retired it. Take the term retire with a grain of salt however.. Satallites cannot replace aircraft, because satallites are predictable. All you gotta do is cover what your doing under a sheet at the right time and no one would ever know,if it werent for aircraft, which are unpredictable. Part 2 in a brief second..

[warchild]

Having announced the retirement of the SR-71 the intelligence comunity would have been faced with a choice. Either create a new plane or, paint the sr-71 in new colors and send it up anyway as a "research" vehicle. Or they could have done both. Fish, or KingFish would have been waiting in the wings Leak a couple photos of a particularly unique contrail and let the world see a glimpse and the SR-71 is ready to go back to work with everyone thinking theres a whole new bird out there. I personally feel the SR-71 is still doing its job, and its able to do it thanks to the covert existence of the Fish and KingFish..

[dharris]

Thanks for all the additional information that is brought out on this thread. I am still learning new things and that helps us old folks! Any more info out there please add to this, don't worry about hi-jacking, this is great, thanks lazarus good info.

[warchild]

awwww.. dont go payin too much attention to me D. Too many years as a confirmed cynic and ex conspiracy freak wanna be have left me a bit off my rocker and slightly mad ::lol::..

[dharris]

Good to know I am in good company then!!

[lazarus]

Old folks! Heck I'm ony running 18 years behind you- off to fetch my walkerframe and carpet slippers then...Pam, just because they're not out to get you, doesn't mean there's NOT a conspiracy

[lazarus]

Back on/off topic. The roots of the A-11/12/KINGFISH are pretty funky, as well as the process that led to the A-11 and off into the successors to OXCART. It all started with the same design departure point as the U-2, the F-104. A-11's(OXCART) start point was a 68,000 lb,M=2.5/65000ft+ intercontenental, hydrogen burning Starfighter, the CL-400 SUNTAN- which never got off the drafting table, but attracted enormous Airforce funding, the major benifit of which was the construction of large scale liquid hydrogen production plants that made the Von Braun series of rockets possible, culminating with the Saturn V. Funny how this stuff all ties together. Suntan led to FISH/KINGFISH, itself an out growth of the Convair GEBO that led to the B-58, which piqued the intrest of the CIA and led to ARCHANGEL, then OXCART, and then to a project that was never de-classified, a M=22 OXCART successor called Project ISINGLASS. That ones a real enigma. A lot of funding was poured into that one, the few details that have filtered out are that it was a small, sharply swept deta form, airlaunched from a B-52. A Mach22 capable machine would also be able to reach orbit. It was also to be manned. Propulsion-wise, one could not pull that off with ramjets or rockets, and the SCRAMJET would have to wait untill computers with enough oomph to run heavy computational fluid dynamics came along in the '80's-the NASP program; though to this day, total SCRAMJET run times worldwide are something like 120 seconds. Which leaves the long postulated Pulse Detonation Wave Engine(PDWE)

[lazarus]

Part2 ISINGLASS

A Pulse Detonation Wave Engine is a supersonic pulsejet, with the same operating principles as the Argus plusejet in the V-1. A tube with a flapper valve on the inlet, with fuel injectors and ignitors in the middle, and a hole at the back. Valve opens, air goes in, mixes with fuel, lights off, the pressure rise slaps the inlet shut fom the back, hot gas goes out the back. One moving part, crude and simple. A PDWE is a ramjet version; it has to be accelerated to transonic velocity with a turbojet. It gets its extra kick from supersonic flow at the inlet, exploding instead of burning its fuel, and a supersonic travelling wave in the engine 'pipe'. The upshot of which is a (realitivly) cheap and easy SCRAMJET-theoreticly. It should also have a unique 'fingerprint'- doughnoughts on a rope contrail, and a 'BOOM-BOOM-BOOM' acoustic signature. The catch here is materials strong enough to stand exploding as its normal operating cycle, and light enough to fly. Might ISINGLASS be AURORA... Testors put out a model kit back in the late '90's, that suposedly is based on interveiws and sightings. Not to be dismissed lightly, as they scooped the U-2 with a kit in the 50's that caused a big security stink, as did the 'F-19' kit in the 80's, which, veiwed in profile, is a dead ringer for HAVE BLUE, the demonstrator that lead to the F-117. The sightings of a large, canarded XB-70 like aircraft predate by a year or 2 the 'doughnoughts on a rope' contrails, and reports of a fighter sized black dart like delta taking off from Tonapah/Groom Lake have been associated with the 'GASPIPE' callsign radio traffic... the b&w photo is a MDD study, reported to be derived from their ISINGLASS studies... is this AURORA?
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1602/1

Enough for tonight! Thanks for the stimulating discussion, all !

[dharris]

40655This thread gets better all the time, I hope admins don't mind the OT subject. Maybe OT stands for OPEN TOPIC! Found this interesting too, Northrop Grumman X-47B The Northrop Grumman X-47B is a demonstration Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle. The X-47 began as part of DARPA's J-UCAS program, and is now part of the United States Navy's UCAS-D (Unmanned Combat Air System Demonstration) program to create a carrier-based unmanned aircraft. Unlike the Boeing X-45, initial X-47A Pegasus development was company-funded. The original vehicle carries the designation X-47A Pegasus, while the follow-on naval version is designated X-47B.406540


Got these from this site, lots and lots of aircraft http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/default.aspx

[warchild]

No worries on the moderator.. check the avatar ::lol:;.. let me get some coffee in me and join back in.. Lazaus's post has put some interesting thoughts in my head.. But i need to be awake to pursue them.. in the mean time, theres a real mystery here.. Notice how the Revell model is a slightly advanced but otherwise dead ringer for KingFish...

I saw images of that canarded SR-71 and initially dismissed them as being a prank by some mischievous artist. The canards would ony add drag and were too mis-shapen to be of any practical use.. I suspect that at the moment, the SR-71 is still doing the job it was created for and that FISH/KINGFISH leapfrogged the SR-71 to be brought into the space race. After all, the SR-71 was designed for >3.0 mach at 70,000 feet, fish was designed for mach 6 at > 95000. Sputnik scared the hell out of the intelligence community ( more for the icbm that carried it to space than anything else ) and someone had to realize that 95000 feet was only a few thousand feet from near earth orbit.. Lets face it, the domination of near earth space would be a very big carrot for anyone, and they had the plane to do it. At least, that would have been the thought...

[RKinkor]

this thread has been absolutely great. the only problem i have is with the doughnuts on rope thing because I see alot of contrails everyday that fit that classification. I just wish that it could be true for the SR to still be flying, one of my big regrets is never having see it fly. Though I was fortunate enough to have helped restore the A-12 that was at MNANG museum here and to have met Ed Yielding when he flew with Northwest Airlines as DC-9 First Officer. Back to some of the other subjects in this thread somebody mentioned innovation earlier, there has not been an aircraft designed in last 20 to 30 years that has wowed me. The F-22 is a close contender though only because it is about the loudest plane I have ever heard.

[warchild]

there have been several contrail images that have been taken. The problem is that the majority of them, although demonstrating the distinct doughnut on a rope profile, are simply too short to determine anything except that they probably came from a pulse jet.. There is one hghly provocative image however, that was first publicly displayed on a Nick Cook television special. Nick Cook is a defense technologies writer for Janes Weekly and i can only assume he is rather informed, but the image had even him scratching his head. The image distinctly shows a doughnut on a rope contrail stretching from the internal united states to some distance ( one third to one half the way ) over the Atlantic ocean. Given even a simple mathematical approach, we can surmise that contrails, even in still air, will break down and dissipate within perhaps half an hour. During that time, the contrail dissipates in various stages where it break apart into nothingness.. The contrail in the photo was perhaps two or three thousand miles long, and was solid and fresh all the way back to its beginning. Whatever made that contrail was moving at a speed that is simply phenomenal. Thats where Fish and KingFish and their progeny come in. Remember, Fish and Kingfish were ( like the A-12 ) originally designed in 1957 - 1959, and yet, here we are fifty years later and they are still top secret designs, even though they had not been chosen for the recon/spy plane role.

Another thing that might be interesting to add, is that as a child i remember a certain popular science magazine that told about the military's up coming interceptor. That was in the early sixties. The plane was the A-12. However, However, with the commandeering of the A-12 by the CIA, that left the military without an interceptor, and the Russians able to launch an ICBM on an otherwise defenseless United states. They would have needed a plane that was fast enough to intercept a missile, and if it failed to do that, launch its own missiles against Russia.. The A-12 should have filled that role, but it didnt. Also, it wasnt fast enough. Thats where Fish and KingFish come into the scene..

[lazarus]

Moning all. Yes indeed, great thread. Nice to particiapate in an adult conversation on line, for a change! And a big bravo for the admins indugance... I've not had enough coffee yet to get the brain working, and I've a sick Caravan waiting for a reduction gearbox thats supposed to be here in a hour or so on the greydog- so back to work shortly... Doughnought on a rope contrails...you'll know if its a PDWE (GASPIPE?) as the sightings are acompanied by a distinctive , and loud, crockery-rattling 'BOOM-BOOM-BOOM..' sound- its been described as 'gods own bass drum' I expect this gives endless greif with accoustic impingement- read stuff cracking and breaking off from the racket. Its not an elegant soulution, like the SCRAMJET, which relies on total airframe/engine integration and postioning of shockwaves to 'focus' and 'contain' combustion and form the 'enigine' if you will, and could be described as an external combustion engine- I remember a artists concept and description as such for a 'W' shaped paper airplane like hypersonic with a 'external combustion' ram-rocket in a 1969-70 book- one of the pocket sized hardcovers-one of thoes color guide to things that were all artist illustrated, aimed at the adolescent market-it was in the elementary school library. I remember thinking-no way! That nuts....
back OnT for a moment-viz a viz flight simulation, There is a X-47 for FS9/10 (simvee?) and an 'Aurora' like model from the Ace combat franchise for FS- electrospere package?. rudimentary but fun. I knocked up a NRO skin for the 'AURORA'- I use 'em for AI. The X-47 is deck landable...I hope this doesn't over step any boundaries- they're both freeware files- I cannot remember the authors names right now, but thanks guys. Back to work..Ta for now!

[warchild]

The UCAVS are a completely different story.. Definately worthy of their own disccusion, but not really connected with the SR-71 or Fish.. Afraid i dont know very much about them though, except that I think they have been surrounded by some controversy within the military..

[Sundog]

Here's a good read on the secret history of UAV's in the USAF.

Article Link (http://www.afa.org/Mitchell/Reports/MS_UAV_0710.pdf).

There are books that go more in depth, but for a really good overview of the programs, this is very good at the right price.

[lazarus]

No bits on the bus...so I get time for more coffee! Actually, the UCAV/UAV starts to overlap with studies such as Prompt Global Strike(on time worldwide in 60 minutes, or we'll give you a bomb for free!) and DARPA's Falcon wave rider studies.
The 'AURORA' code name gained currency with the late '80's release of Office of Management and Budget documents with a line item 'AURORA' with a multi-billion dollar pricetag...

The early '90's sightings, and another spate of sightings in 2005 were unique in the number of witnesses, and the techincal observations and recordings from rather unlikely sources- the US geological service! Among these tales are the reports of unusual sonic booms above Southern California, dating back to mid and late 1991. On at least five occasions, the booms were recorded by at least 25 of the 220 US Geological Survey sensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters.

To quote a number of reports and articles...

Seismologists estimate that the aircraft were flying at speeds between Mach 3 and 4 and at altitudes of 8 to 10 kilometers. The aircraft's flight path was in a north north-east direction, consistent with flight paths to secret test ranges in Nevada. Seismologists say that the sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle than the 37-metre long shuttle orbiter. Neither the shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B were operating on the days the booms were registered.

Intercepted radio transmissions add further circumstancial evidence. Radio hobbyists in Southern California have monitored transmissions between Edwards AFB radar control and a high-altitude aircraft using the call sign "Gaspipe." Controllers were directing the Gaspipe aircraft to a runway at Edwards, using advisories similar to those given space shuttle crews during a landing approach. The monitors recorded two advisories, both transmitted from Edwards to Gaspipe: "You're at 67,000, 81 miles out" and "Seventy miles out, 36,000, above glide slope."

Sightings of unidentified high-performance aircraft have been made in the Southwestern United States and, later, in other parts of the United States and in Britain and Europe. Reports from outside the United States are difficult to reconcile with an experimental test program, and make more sense in context of the deployment of an operational aircraft.

In addition to reports of triangular high-performance aircraft, numerous reports mention peculiar contrails consisting of a string of pulses or rings, often referred to as a "string (or chain) of doughnuts".

Chris Gibson was in the Royal Observer Corps aircraft recognition team for 12 years up until 1991. Chris told Jane's Defense Weekly that while working as an oil-drilling engineer in the North Sea in 1989 he saw a strange wedge-shaped aircraft flying between two conventional F-111 fighter-bombers and a KC-135 Stratotanker.The renowned aviation source, Jane's Defense Weekly, has added its reputable weight to speculation about Aurora by alleging that the triangular shaped planes have been in service since 1989, after they had analysed information to hand for about three years. Jane's editor, Paul Beaver, has said "The evidence has grown overwhelming - all we need now is a photograph to prove that it exists."

Jane's analysts believe that the $1 billion aircraft which has now been dubbed Aurora could reach cruising speeds as great as Mach 8 - or 5,280 mph, which was more than 2½ times the official world record. Jane's technical editor, Bill Sweetman, reported that the so-called "hypersonic" Aurora operates mainly at night and incorporates the latest radar-evading "stealth" technology.

The Pentagon announced in 1990 that it was retiring its supersonic spy plane, the SR-7l, and would rely for its future high-altitude surveillance on orbiting satellites. Sweetman, an 'expert' (with a sometimes fanciful take and a vested intrest in selling books-his-for a living...) in high-technology aircraft, maintained the Pentagon story about satellite spying was a smokescreen.

A Mach-8 plane would be able to reach any point on the globe in less than three hours. Such a plane, fueled by liquid methane, would be of potentially greater use than high-resolution images from orbiting satellites that can take 24 hours to arrive over the subject, the Jane's report said.

Sweetman based his conclusions on pieced-together data, including the strange sounds reported above air bases in Nevada and California that were characterized as a "low-frequency, high-amplitude pulsing", multibillion dollar spending on classified research projects and the Gibson sighting of a wedge-shaped aircraft over the North Sea under fighter-bomber escort.

Sweetman believed the U.S. aerospace giant Lockheed, which produced the F-117 stealth fighter, is the most likely manufacturer of Aurora. "Lockheed's financial figures have indicated a continuing, large flow of income for 'classified' and 'special mission' aircraft," Sweetman reported.

Among the varied claims relating to Aurora are:

- Aurora is considered to be hypersonic, about 30-40 metres long, with a 75 degree dart shape and weight of around 70-80 tonnes, with a crew of two.

- Its primary purpose is long-range reconnaissance, with an unrefuelled range of at least 10,000 km.

- As a weapons platform, it may have potential for surgical nuclear strike or anti-satellite roles.

- It may be trans-atmospheric, or have a trans-atmospheric variant.

- Power plants may be pulsed detonation wave engines (theoretically capable of powering an aircraft towards Mach 10 at over 180,000 feet altitude). These engines have been studied since at least 1993. Laser detonation is posited as a means of maintaining precise control over ignition, which may occur externally, or, more conventionally, in a confined chamber. Alternatively, Aurora may use a combined cyclic engine. The latter could function as an air augmented rocket, a ramjet, a scramjet and a rocket. Methane could serve as fuel, or liquid or slush hydrogen, doubling as a structural coolant. Either power plant is possibly capable of producing the unusual doughnut-chain contrails reported in recent years.

- A small squadron of Auroras is rumoured to operate from Beale AFB, in California.

- Aurora may have a coating which can be made to change colours, or even render it invisible(!).

- And finally, the Northrop B-2 stealth bomber is seen by some as an expensive ($22.5 billion development costs) cover-up for development of Aurora, on the basis of suppositions concerning range, speed, stealth and payload disappointments in the production B-2s, notably concerning maintanance cost associated with Low-observable coatings, and maintaining profile and gaps to specifications when access panels are opened for maintenance.

A major fly in the ointment concerning the late '80's OMB budget line items however, was a 1990 interveiw with Ben Rich, in which he claimed that AURORA was a in-house skunkworks study for Lockheeds B-2 proposal-truth or disinformation?

There remain several seemingly insoluble technical issues with sustained hypersonic flight, notably sutable materials capable of surviving protracted periods at high dynamic and aerothermal loads, while keeping maintenance costs within the realm of reason- witness the maintenance requirements for the Rockwell Orbiter, the B-2, and F-22. A possible "hack' has emerged, however: the Plasma Aerospike. Postulated by Roy Braybrook in an Article in 2006, the Plasma Aerospike is a development of the Aerospike used by Lockheed in the Trident SLBM. After the missile breaks water,a telescoped pole with a small disc on the end ( a few inches wide) is deployed from the nose of the missile. This then triggers an oblique shock wave that the missile rides inside. The benifit to the Trident is the aerospike increases the fineness ratio of the missile, while keeping the physical package short and stubby to fit in the Ohio class missile submarines. The region behind the oblique shockwave experiences substantally lower dynamic loads, allowing for a lighter missile with a greater throw weight fraction(warheads on target) for its mass. Braybrook sugests that an Aerospike with a electric arc tip- an arc welder electrode, in essence-in a hypersonic application could be used to trigger a 'Plasma sheath' oblique shockwave , behind which an aerothermal environment equivalent to M=3 would exsist,for which, though not easy, we can build aerostructures for with exsisting materials and technologies. This technique, in theory, could allow speeds of up to M=40(!) with current material technology. There have also been a number of startling experiments in the UK at DERA using plasma and electomagnetic 'lensing' to bend radar, infrared,and VISIBLE light around test bodies, rendering the objects invisible to sensors and the naked eye- reports say that , in operation, it looks like a 'Klingon cloaking field from Star Trek',
so the plasma sheath could give a usefull hypersonic low observable benifit, as well as , at a stroke,nearly eliminating hypersonic aerothermal and drag considerations.
whew!

[warchild]

Whew! is right.. holy carp.. And this all started with three planes.,.. dayum.. What youve oposted above goes way byond my knowledge base.. But it did confirm some of my suspicions as being possibly correct.. I never thought about plasma sheeting. Thats brilliant.. Scary, but brilliant. So, the question for us then is where does Fish/Kingfish leave off and Auror/Gasspipe begin?? Or could they be the same plane?? I can only imagine that for the last question, once Lockheed hired the designer of KingFish, that his designs brought over with him from convair, would become the property of Lockheed, and they could proceed with its refinement. But thats pure speculation.. Twenty Billion to produce an invisible aircraft capable of being anywhere in three hours to launch its payload isnt that much to pay, but the idea that a vehicle such as that exists, is even scarier than the nuclear bomb, or the star wars project.

That designer did state in an interview that once his designs had been classified, that even he didnt have access to them.. Grist for the mill eh??

[warchild]

Sundog. Thats an awesome pdf. I've been reading it. I just gotta giure out how it shoehorns into the big picture and try and figure out which parts are disinformation.. It'll be fun :)..

[dharris]

This thread is going to be a classic. The flow of information and speculation is wonderful. Some of it fits things I heard about on the grapevine long ago and far away! Hey, if you are going to dream, dream big. Great info lazarus. Sorry about no parts, but you sure put your time to good use. I will have to digest this and then come up with the proper supposition theory so I can solve all of the worlds crisis's!!

[dharris]

A little update on the uav's back in the "60's, yep my I am old,lol http://www.vectorsite.net/twuav_04.html a good read. We heard about these when I was in VQ-1 back in the early 60's.

[lazarus]

One could say that the progression from U-2-SUNTAN-GEBO-KINGFISH-ARCHANGEL-OXCART-ISSINGLASS ect, shows how the research and process delelopment from one program makes the next possible. On the materials side, if one follows the progression backward, you end up in the 1930's when the engineers and metalurgists at Pratt and Whitney were pushing to break 700hp and 1000hp, resulting in the breakthrough 'Waspalloy' nickle alloys and processes to manufacture and work the material. Its an evolutionary, rather than revolutionary process, which sometimes gives the apperance of a 'revolution' when all the bits come together in the right way from an unexpected angle- Parsons steam turbine comes to mind- when his Turbinia went ripping through the 1897 Spithead naval reveiw, it was hailed as a miracle, a revoulution, a bolt fron the blue-when in fact it was a long process of hard work and a sound understanding of many different engineering disciplines of the day, that would have been impossible without the preceeding 100s of years of mathmatic, metalurgical, steam engineering, propellor design, industrial infrastructure, hull design, education system ect....Parsons genius was in combining disparate technologies in a way nobody had thought of yet- probably the mark of true genius.
I would guess that KINGFISH remained a development program, but the development 'tree' of technologies that had to be developed and demostrated before you could even begin to sketch out an airplane on a cocktail napkin are the actual KINGFISH legacy, one would not have happened with out the other.
My hypotheses, is that the SUNTAN-KINGFISH-ACHANGEL-OXCART-ISINGLASS development lineage led to a 1970-71 black program that saw a low production rate (hand made, like the U-2/A-11/12/SR-71) program at Burbank, that manifested as a FISH/KINGFISH composite, 707/Vulcan sized, long range, fairly conventional Mach2 SR-71 decended 'Fly-back' stage aircraft, kept inexpensive by utilizing exsisting/off the shelf items, and no weapons system per say- it is an intercontinental ranged launcher, for the hypersonic component- which is small ( fits inside a C-5 without disassembly) manned( sorry. Crewed), has 'theater' rather than global range,is exotic in only its propulsion system, a composite of a PDWE for hypersonic cruise, a cheapo J-85 for landing/ local training ,with a restartable, reuseable P&W XLR-129 rocket engine palletized for mounting with its fuel and oxidiser in the ventral payload bay at the expense of heavier operational payloads as an air-breather,when low earth orbital access is required. Its thermal protection system is a plasma spike. The craft will also, as a function of the PDWE, have a short service life, off set by low cost (relativley),simplified construction due to substantal savings in aerothermal loads,size and weight compared to a full on, Global range 'conventional' hypersonic aerospace craft. Payload would be in the 5000lbs range- enough for a recce payload, or a Trident/W-28 derived warhead/warhead bus. The program technology demonstrators were developed in parallel with a tactical strike/SEAD outgrowth utilizing KINGFISH/OXCART/CIWSRS/HOPELESS DIAMOND low observable methods that led to HAVE BLUE in 1977 , the BRILLIANT BUZZARD carrier aircraft in 1983/84, and the AURORA hypersonic system demonstrators , with service entry for SENIOR TREND(F-117) and BRILLIANT BUZZARD around 1986/87; AURORA following in 1989-90. Thats my guess.
Or it could have been burning swamp gas reflecting the planet Venus off a weather balloon while ball lightning chased a hallucinating Hunter Thompson across the desert...

[dharris]

Just wanted to thank the admins for letting this thread stay up. I know it is not flitsim oriented, but this group is very diverse and there is a lot of knowledge out there to tap. I think it is interesting that so many had a little piece of a greater picture that at the time did not seem that much, but as more and more people add what they know a bigger, more clear picture becomes available. Lazurus should has had alot of info that I was unaware of (he should watch out for a knock on his door some night, lol) he helped me to remember things I saw back in the 60's even that I had forgotten or just was to young to connect the dots, thanks alot for all the info.

[warchild]

In my mind these are most definitely flight sim related.. It was and is a relatively unknown drama thats been playing itself out over the years, behind the scenes. It's a major drama that started with just one plane and a couple of idea's. In the beginning, there was two planes, vying for a position in a government contract to become an ultra high speed, ultra high altitude missile platform that was capable of launching two to four nuclear missiles from the edge of space. And then Gary Powers was shot down and the entire world changed. The missile platform became a camera bed to replace the U-2. The competing aircraft in that competition were so advanced that rather than just being canceled, they went immediately into the black budget and became something else. They became the springboard that launched a very stealthy revolution in ideas, design and technologies that has given us other designs such as the f-117 and the F-22, and will ultimately result in an aircraft capable of total command and control of the air above our heads. Its an ugly dream; more of a nightmare really; too develop a plane with total control over near earth space. Fast enough to intercept missiles, invisible enough to park over any major city and wipe out an entire civilization.
Its the dream that's turned ugly though, not the planes or the men who designed them. The Blackbird, Fish and KingFish were only the beginning. The blackbird went on to become a front line tool, and ever present public face to the black op's cold war, that gets drug out whenever a smoke screen is needed to protect other projects. The fish and king fish?? It doesnt take much of an imagination to see their design components in other aircraft like the f-117, or the F-22, or even the humble little F-35. Nor, does it take much imagination to see king fish in those mysterious triangular aircraft that spur UFO research onward, or the fish in those odd sonic booms we hear from time to time.
We have lots of p-51's, Catalina's, Hellcats, you name it. They let us dream the dream of flight and live within our voluntary ignorance, but these three planes are where the dirt hits the road, and i believe they are important to know, understand and fly, if only to remember while we still can. In their pure form, these are truly incredible aircraft capable of things mankind could only dream of when they were conceived, and if mankind can survive their progeny, then maybe like the enola gay and bachs car, they will become educators, and relics of an ugly past, and be turned into something greater. A testament to the ingenuity and creativity of a very special breed of men who saw beyond the drafting board into a future and made it happen. These planes are very much needed in FSX, if only to remind us of those dreams and hopes, and those men and women who have been dedicated to them over all these years..
Pam

Ps. yup, it was the U-2 that started it all....

[RKinkor]

The Alphasim Virtavia SR-71 works great in FSX but we definitely need the others as well.One of the truly underutilized features of fsx is its high altitude capability. By the way I think the gentleman who modeled the SR for Alpha Virtavia is a member here, I hope because I want to thank him here now for doing such a good job:applause:. While I am passing around praise(this is odd for me usually more of a lurker too shy I guess) thank you Warchild and all the developers involved with P-61 for your wonderfull contributions as well.:applause:

[lazarus]

I'd like to echo Rkinkors and Dharris's comments as well.. thanking the indugences of the mods-D,did you do any time on the Mercator at VQ-1, or just the Malfunction Junction?
...a knock on the door in the middle of the night...hehe...you and I and Pam could all end up sharing a ride in the same black helicopter some night- and we haven't even got 'round to the REALLY exotic stuff yet- Black Triangles and anti-gravity and the realy weird stuff that went on in the video feeds from the first Hubble repair mission- the first; and only time NASA ever switched all the cameras to live, continuous feed. Pams comments in the her last post show, I feel, why so many of us are such rabid,life long aviation enthusiasts, Flightsim nutters, Modelers, or work in the industry despite the frustrations, long hours, dismal working conditions, lousy renumeration ect... its more than love...its almost religious. Walking into the hangar is like walking into a cathederal...the closest I've been to a religious experience.
And to legitimize the thread-viz a viz flight simulation...
A-11. Kazunori Ito
M-12/D-21(we forgot that one) Kazunori Ito
YF-12A. Kazunori Ito...FS2002/2004, 2D panels only. They should run in FSX.
It was probably seeing those 3 models that drew me into flight simulation.
SR-71. GMAX acadamy. That was the one that spoiled 2D panels for me. What a sweet VC, and something indefinable about that model that, for myself, captures the stance/feel of the mighty Habu.
Alphsim SR-71/Sr-71C- the humpback trainer version; too! Ditto on the flight model! To the Alpha sim allumnus slumming here ( SOH is not a slum, I just cant resist alliterations!) if Kaz Itos penchant for the odder by-ways of aviation drew me into flight simming, Alpha's work made me stay!:applause:
AURORA. nothing really good yet. The Electrosphere/ Ace combat one for FS- makes a good AI object- see page 2 of this thread. There is a pretty slick model for -shhh!-X-plane
BLACK TRIANGLE/Roswell UFO. a FS2002/4 model, based on the zillion sighting and photos of the Triangular, Black, big light in the middle/single small light at each tip UFO( its a black program)-cannot remember who did it- 2d panel with lots of fun features- looked great drifting along slowly, flashing and smoking,the sounds of Glen Miller drifting quietly from inside
http://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/index.html a very interesting site, with some great 'war stories' and insights into the re-activation program.

now to the weird stuff- an Anti Gravity hack-This line of inquiry was started by Dr. T.Townsend Brown. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Townsend_Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2djygtFe6I
Care to guess who Dr Brown ended up working for... Lockheed.
a lot of vitirolic debate, but, the practical application of the technology may be seen regularly... The B-2. More later, if the Moderator will indulge us...
Edit. Hey! footage of Dr.Brown before he went deepblack!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xd0GdaP920
Ta!
Laz.

[dharris]

Hi lazarus, nope, by time I got there in '64 we were flying the WV-2's and EA-3B's. Looked into the history of the Q and found the older aircraft and it was amazing that they survived the flights! I thought the WV-s were old, but durable. I flew many hours in them in AEWBARRONPAC the two previous years, loved them. Fourteen hour flights from Midway Island up over the Azores and back. Food was excellent. Too bad about the N.Koreans blasting down DeepSea 129....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EC-121_shootdown_incident some heads should have rolled. If the comm folks that were supposed to be monitoring the intercepts would have been at there posts instead of moving around away from their rooms it might have been different. Here is an interesting article on the NSA.....http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.bodyofsecrets.5.htm

[roger-wilco-66]

Hi,

awesome info in this thread! Thanks for sharing, expecially the article on the A-12 / SR-71!

Cheers,
Mark

[dharris]

A little more background on the shootdown of PR-21, at the bottom is the reference I was referring to above ....CRYPTOLOG EDITOR;s NOTE: This was originally printed as a letter to the editor in a previous issue of CRYPTOLOG.
ROOM 5--EMPTY

http://www.willyvictor.com/History/Korean_Shootdown/Korea.html

[warchild]

Theres a little known physicist on youtube who goes by the nickname of AlienScientist. For anyone who wants to delve into the heart of anti-gravity, I recommend spending a few hours viewing his videos. I guarantee that you will find what he has to say quite fascinating.. Some of his videos are older, and he states that but even then, each video links into the last in a clear and easily understood way. Here's a good place to start..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr_s28wIOzQ

So, off to morning coffee, and a smoke to start the day :) .. enjoy those videos.. The man definitely knows what he's talking about..

Pam

[RKinkor]

:isadizzy:my brain is officialy blown for today

[Ferry_vO]

For those wanting a Blackbird after reading this thread, the Virtavia version is now 50% off at PC Aviator:

http://www.pcaviator.com/store/product.php?productid=18597

Only $17.47 until the 30th!

[warchild]

Wee haa.. Thank you Ferry :) :) .. I dont suppose there would be any chance of Vertavia doing a KingFish would there???
Pam

[warchild]

As for Aurora. maybe it exists, and maybe it doesnt. What we DO know is that we have an awful lot of people telling us to not pay attention to the little man behind the curtain. Personally, i feel that Aurora is past tense. It existed as a stepping stone towards some thing that we havent done yet but will in the not too distant future.

Its not what someone says that counts, words are cheap and easy to roll off with unending eloquence. And pictures taken from a Kodak Brownie arent exactly the greatest either, but when NOAA's Geostationary satellite takes pictures, i tend to give them more credit, and so the question mark remains for me.. what was that 5000 mile long contrail??

No matter what though, yes, Aurora is finished. It was officially a project during the development of the B-2, and unofficially, a moniker applied by civilian spectators to a phenomena they had observed and speculated about, much as we have done here..

But two questions remain unanswerable..
Why are Fish and Kingfish still top secret ( after 50 years ) and what made that contrail???

[lazarus]

Morning all- I keep waiting for the mods to pull the trigger on this thread- but I suppose we are amusing.
First off, Dharris- I'd like to say thank you for your service, and all of our cold warriors here, and thank you to all of our uniformed members, past and present. I used to sleep a bit more soundly as a kid , knowing you guys were out there sitting on that GOLF,latter YANKEE that used to sit south of Hawaii aimed at the north west. It took stones like bocchi balls to go dragging your coat-tails under the noses of a lot of trigger-happy folks to keep tabs on what they were doing.Those of us who stood to back then found the 'Cold War' was often uncomfortably hot... for more information on the flying end http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/index.shtml
The Air Combat Information Group is doing a fine job of uncovering and saving the history of that age
Alien scientist rocks! He's a nack for conveying abstractions and ideas- nearly all university proffs could learn from this guy, if they didn't know every thing allready...
This the concepts and mechanisims sound like; and I hate to say it; because the guy is a bit sketchy- Bob Lazars descriptions of work being done at Groom Lake...
Like Bruce Dickensen- he comes of as a...well...moonbat...but there is truth there...
In truth,Townsend Browns work isn't really 'anti-gravity'- it just looks that way. Its a way to generate lift with out fixed or rotating airfoils. The mechinisim is sometimes called Biefeld-Brown (http://www.sim-outhouse.com/wiki/Biefeld-Brown_effect) effect, or 'capacitance effect'. The short form is, Dr Brown found that in a charged capacitor, the negative end will try to migrate to the positive end, generating force. The more juice one hammers into the capacitor, the more 'push' it generates. The axis of the capacitor from neagative to positive is the force vector. How does this relate to the B-2, and perhaps the OXCART successors?
as early as 1980, odd datums began to trickle out about a project going on at plant42-Palmdale- the ATB. one report noted a 'Dielectric' airframe, others mentioned 'charged leading edges'. As noted earlier, when the B-2 came into sevice, and details became avaliable, questions started being asked concerning, supposed range/payload/performance shortfalls-the air craft should not be able to go as far, carry as much, and fly as fast as was claimed based on published (grain of salt...) engine thrust, SFC, and drag figures. Hmmm. And yet, there it was... the best description of what may be going on, was from Bill Gunstone(AirInternational, Jan 2000)-and lets just say that Mr. Gunstone has been a very credible aerospace and defence analyst with a record of being right where every one else got it wrong, back to the 1950's -to paraphrase:

'I have numerous documents, all published openly in U.S., which purport to explain how the B-2 is even stranger.. far, far.. stranger.. than it appears. Most are articles published in commercial magazines, some are openly published US Patents, while a few are open USAF publications by Wright Aeronautical Laboratory and Air Force Systems Command's Astronautics Laboratory. They deal with such topics as electric field propulsion, and electrogravitics (or anti-gravity), the transient alteration of not only thrust but also a body's weigt.
Sci-Fi has nothing on this stuff.

The literature goes back to Faraday, but the idea of electrogravitics really took off in 1920s when an American physicist, Townsend T Brown, carried out extensive experiments. He may have been the first to recognise that a capacitor (a dielectric material sandwiched between positive and negative plates)
experiences a force tending to move it in the direction of the positive face. He found that the electrostatic charge induced a gravity field between the two plates. Soon he was making capacitors rotate on whirling arms,
and measuring the loss in weight of the capacitor with positive face turned uppermost.

In 1953, Brown demonstrated to the USAF a whirling rig of 50ft (15.2m) diameter, which at 150,000 volts (150kv) became a mere blur. The subject was immediately classified, and for the next 40 years, while 'black' research in this field made astonishing progress, it was not reported. Though private individuals continued to experiment, and to take out unclassified patents, not much surfaced. Exceptions were Electrogravitics Systems (Feb. 1956) and The Gravitics Situation (Dec. 1956), published for subscribers only by Aviation Studies (International). This was London-based 'think tank' run by two very bright young men, R G 'Dick' Worcester and John Longhurst. Unlike the established journals, they published reports and informed comment without the slightest regard for questions of 'security'.
The only time they were taken to court, they won their case and collected heavy damages.

I was fascinated to read those reports, but had no wish to reside in The Tower , so I refained from discussing clever aeroplanes with leading edges charged to millions of volts positive and the trailing edges at millions of volts negative. In any case, it all seemed a bit far-fetched, especially as it appeared that the gravity field could not
only propel aircraft to supersonic speed with propulsive efficiency greater than 1 but could also lift them independently to the atmosphere.

Various snippets appeared suggesting that electrostatic fields could not only do wonderous things in the field of propulsion, but could also reduce aerodynamic turbulence (at any mach number), reduce radar cross-section and even virtually eliminate sonic boom. Indeed, back in 1952, Dr M. Rose had noted in unclassified literature: "The positive field.. travelling in front.. acts as a buffer which starts moving the air out of the way. This.. field acts as an entering wedge which softens the supersonic barrier.." From 1985, the name P A LaViolette emerges as author of a shoal of interesting electrogravitics articles in professional literature.

The first Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber was rolled out on Nov. 22, 1988, and anyone with the slightest interest in the aircraft could not fail to have noticed the unbelievable leading edge, with deep profile coming to a knife-edge almost in line with the upper surface. In 1990, a NASA 'boffin' retired and perhaps foolishly talked to The Arkansas Democrat who did not understand his story and ran it under the headline "Ex-NASA expert says Stealth uses parts from UFO".

What really put the cat among the proverbial pigeons was a feature published in a March 1992 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology, entitled "Black world engineers, scientists,encourage using highly classified technology for civil applications". For the first time in open literature, this article explained how the B-2s sharp leading edge is charged to "many millions of volts", while the corresponding negative charge is blown out in the jets from the four engines. There is more: though the General Electric F118 engines can operate as ordinary turbofans,
in flight they act as flame-jet generators (Note-MagnetoHetrodynamic electrical generation-an energetic-read hot-conductive fluid-jet exhaust seeded with a salt works fine- moving through a coil, produces a whacking amount of juice), pumping out gas greatly diluted by fresh air, all at millions of volts negative. The word 'flame' gives a rather false picture, because in fact the jet comes out not very much hotter than the surrounding atmosphere.

Unclassified articles have described in some detail how the leading edge is divided into eight sections, each individually ionised. The section on each wing immediately upstream of the engines cannot be thus ionised,
because the air would then enter the engines and cancel out the negative charge in the jets. accordingly, this is where the Hughes covert strike radars are installed. They would not be able to 'see' forwards if they were
anywhere else.

Take-off trust of the F118-100 at sea level is given as '19,000lb (84.5kN) class' by Northrop Grumman and as '17,300lb (77.0kN)' by the USAF. These are startlingly low figures for and aircraft whose take-off weight is said
to be 336,000lb (152,635kg) and which was until recently said to weight 376,000lb (170,550kg). Aircraft usually get heavier over the years, not 20 tonnes lighter. Even at the supposed reduced weight, the ratio of thrust to weight
is a mere of 0.2, an extraordinarily low value for a combat aircraft.

The USAF has never said anything about B-2s speed. It has been tacitly assumed to be in the Mach 0.8 class, but according to extensive open literature, the four F118 engines equate to about 25 MW (megawatts) of electrical power at the take-off, but under the influence of the electrogravitic field the speed could soon become supersonic, the output of the air-diluted exhaust then rising to t least 100 MW.

Everyone who has heard a B-2 take off has been astonished at the quietness. Obviously the noise would not be in the same class as the F101 engines of the B-1B in full afterburner, but writers have used the words 'shocking',
'uncanny' and 'incredible' in describing B-2 departures. Another point to note is thet the channels downstream of the jetpipes appear to be carbon-fibre composite, which is incompatible with normal jet temperatures
(not because of the fibre, but because of the adhesive sticking them together).

Other writers have commented on the size of the B-2 wing and noted that its stealth depends on the huge black skin being made of RAM (radar-absorbent material). This, say the physicists, is 'a high-k, high-density dielectric ceramic, capable of generating an enormous electrogravitic lift force when charged'.

Hmmm. If any one lives near Whitman, has a Campbell Scientific Ltd. CS110 field meter, and wants to test this hypothesis...As a very bright guy who dabbled in physics at Princeton once noted...'The universe is not only stranger than we imagine; its stranger than we can imagine' ...though as Han Solo noted..' I dunno...I can imagine quite a bit!'
Now, I'm with you, Pam. Coffee and a smoke!

[lazarus]

Thanks for the HU Ferry, I may have to look into that...
Why is FISH/KINGFISH still classified- and what made the contrail- Because the technology 'cloud' that came from all that work was put to use, and though 'exotic'
it was really a suprisingly simple (compared to traditional hypersonic solutions) technology to translate into hard ware- IE the composit aircraft system posited earlier... and likely still flying out of Groom Lake...
A couple of interesting datums... Groom Lake is 'owned' by the Department of Energy.
When Bill Clinton wanted to know what was going on out there,he got told to go to hell and mind your own business! And, it stuck! How in the heck did the DOE end up with that kind of heat behind it...When you can tell the President to sod off, and make it stick...hmmm
Space Command...Why have a Space Command, unless you need to operate in space. The recconiasance satilite assets are owned and operated by the NRO, launched by Airforce missleers , BMEWS and SPACETRACK- tracking earth orbiting objects, operated by NORAD- so why even have such an organization?- the missons officialy conducted by Space Command are already done by other agencies-So what is it exactly that they are doing...some day, I'm sure, the story will come out- but I expect long after I'm wormfood!

[warchild]

pffft. wormfood indeed..
I can only speculate that groom lake is owned by the DOE because it is a nuclear test site and was before the DOD needed to build a test center there.. As for the space plane, its a matter of follow the money trail.. or in this case, the interest trail.. Like following a contrail to the plane it comes from simply by observing where it doesnt exist, we can elliminate all of the parties you mentioned above, which leaves us with very few parties to choose as interested parties. Specifically, i'm implying the military-industrial complex and the DOD.. The job of the DOD is to prepare for doomsday, and their budget reflects that, being the highest budget granted in the country.. With a continued philosophy of mutually assured destruction ( MAD ) They can be incredibly scary..
Anyway, lots of distraction so i can never get a clear thought out today. Perhaps tonight i'll be more clear and able to respond appropriately..

And yes.. Thank you to the Admins for trusting me on this. Its greatly appreciated..
Pam

[dharris]

a little fish told me.....http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0287.shtml

http://www.blackbirds.net/sr71/oxcart/successortou2.html

http://jpcolliat.free.fr/f12/f12-14.htm (http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/planes/q0287.shtml)

[warchild]

hmm, liftingbodies? Ram jets?? ( scram jets? ).. I cant say much about the power plants, but the parasitic delta lifting body design resurfaced just a few years after fish was cancelled in an orbiter precursor called dynasoar. I havent done much study in relationship to that project, but i do know that it led to the orbiter, which itself could be viewed as a parasite seeing it requires a complete set of rockets to get it into space, and then glides back down ( like a brick or so i hear ) Kingfish, by the numbers, was inferior to the sr-71 in all except one way. it was practically invisible.
I would ask a question. If your invisible, whats the rush?? You dont need all that speed, if you cant be seen, and lower speeds equates to less fuel being used.Less fuel means more money is available for other projects.. But the F-117 is such a break in design from the Kingfish.. yes, it has components, even some that Kelly Johnson originallyscoffed at. but And the B-2, though it also uses many of the same design features as the Kingfish ( internal engines, angled edges etc ) Is also a complete break from the Kingfish. In fact, the only place i can see anything coming close to an application straight from the fish/kingfish stable, is in the space plane/intercepter. we've got the X-37B, japan has a design on the boards that looks like a science fiction version of kingfish, and china has a parasite design on the boards that resembles the original fish configuration.. Of course, these are all just appearances and i have no proof that they are real.. Still, here we are with two secret planes, that have been kept secret all these years, and a whole lotta things related or not, that raise several unanswered questions..


Japan 41220



41221china

[magoo]

An engrossing article. Thanks for posting!

[dharris]

Speaking of flitsim models, ahemmm to keep this in models, I was looking at simviation in the concepts section and there is a treasure trove of models from William Ortis of Lionheart Creations lots and lots of really new and different sims.
FS2004 F-136B Orbital Defense Interceptor concept jet fighter (http://simviation.com/1/browse-FS+Concept+Aircraft-109-4) even has a pulse ramjet thingy. Now we are back on topic, so you guys with all the far out and really interesting information can continue with what we had. This is great stuff.

[centuryseries]

If your invisible, whats the rush?? You dont need all that speed, if you cant be seen, and lower speeds equates to less fuel being used.Less fuel means more money is available for other projects..

Timely intelligence information. Back in the 1960's air to ground transfer of real-time data was a thing of science fiction, in fact it wasn't until the mid 19902 when the SR was brought back that the SR-71 sported a working datalink.

Although datalinks had been used on the TR-1 for some time the SR-71 was starved of development funding even though the technology was around in the mid-late 80's.

[lazarus]

Oh yah- Bills F-136! I keep intending to haul that out and finish the cockpit off. Aero-Diamond lens vehicles- another candidate for the doughnought on a rope machine!
Why have a highly supersonic/hypersonic, long range capability- you hit it right on the head-
Timely intell, thats key, worth any cost. The ability to penetrate heavily contested air space- to this day, anything going M-3+ at FL100+ is UNINTERCEPTABLE. Paitriot, GRUMBLE,GLADIATOR-sorry Almaz, Raytheon, no soap. You cannot shoot it down. Even ABM system are SOL, unless you can blind side 'em- but they've( the hypersonic) got to come in dumb. As long as the RHAWS is working, you can out maneouver 'em- the angular rate changes too quickly for the missile to keep a high altitude hypersonic inside its engagement envelope. And to forstall the 'but you can shoot down a re-entry vehicle (ballistic missile)' rejoinder- yup, but its comming more or less straight at you, very low angular rate, and its hard. Better to get a Ballistic missile when its boosting, going nice and slow- point ABM defence- use a nuke and make sure. They should have kept LGM99 Sprint.
An obvious mission for a hypersonic-especally in the age of unstable despots with theater nuclear forces and the risk of a regional conflict escalating rapidly-Pakistan rolled up their nuclear TBM's in the last 2 border disputes with India and some of the local commanders were very close to(no encoded permissive action locks on the weapons!) 'turning the key', for instance- is warfare prevention-really!-its capabilities noted above, the ability to loiter, and a kinetic kill( no warhead ) weapon could give you the ability to -with good intell-reach any point on the globe in no more than 90 minute, much less if your loitering near by, and take away their toys-stomp on missile sites, air defence, C4I, mechanized forces, airfields- you can go at it with sticks and clubs if you want to, boys, but you can't start world war 3. I'd recommend Larry Niven and Jerry Pournell's novel "Footfall' for a description of exactly the weapon system-smart chaps and great writers, those guys. The concept is called 'Rods of God' or 'Flying Crowbars'. The NATO air campaign in the Balkans was a pretty convincing demonstration of this strategy, when procecuted vigourously.
Hmmm. you know, maybe this thread,ifwe wish to procecute it vigorously,should be moved over to Historical wings... this kind of stuff is a hobby horse I like to beat, and I have a tough time shutting the heck up- so I get to feeling guilty about eating up space in the Sim thread...

[dharris]

Paaleeesssee don't shut up! You are doing just fine. If for whatever reason this has to be moved, send me $5 and a cup of joe and I am fine with it, whatever the group wishes. This is already more than I had hoped for. Great info, everone. Thanks.

[lazarus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsnkmpJhzlo

Sort of on, but more off topic, but an illustration of A) the aerothermal loads involved in hypersonic flight using 'conventional' technologies;and
B) the difficulties involved in producing a system that might be able to zap a high altitude hypersonic target- Technical;as well as political considerations scuppered SAFEGUARD- the radars were limited in the number of targets that could be illuminated at once, and the missiles had a tough time countering maneovering targets. Still, Sprint to this day remains the highest performance missile ever made-an astonishing technical achievement-note, at the end of the clip, the missile is glowing white hot! 100G's acceleration. 100ft over the silo, it was moving at mach1. 11seconds later,
MACH10:jawdrop:.

[warchild]

Dont shut up.. If i'm asked to move it I will, but until then, its in a good place.. And too, we havent accomplished our goal of getting someone to model KingFish for us yet :;lol::

Lets face it. The more we discuss this the more interesting, intriguing and compelling it becomes.. Ad yes, I agree about immediate intel but i was asking my questions from the point of view of a washington bean counter.. Still, perhaps i should continue playing devils advocate??

[lazarus]

Fair enough, Pam:wavey:
Play this while your reading, though, and...Trust No One!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDZBgHBHQT8
The Beltway bean counter angle. As always, that end is about empire building- the Holiest of holy relics in DC. Lets just do a quick tally of agencies that all do roughly the same thing....State Department( intel gatherer), Treasury Department(intel gatherer), Central Intelligence Agency, Defence Intelligence Agency, Naval Intelligence Office, National Recconaisance Office , Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, DOD, HSS, DOE, ect,ect... Then the shadowy-quasi-national-semi private agencies like
TRW, SANDIA, RAND, EG&G (Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc), Haliburton, GD Defence, Lock-Mart, Northrop-Grumman, and the other players in the defence-industrial-entertainment complex(a Mulderisim...)... Hmmm. One can hide a giant empire, and a great deal of money in all that. On the up side, we do get some cool hardware out of it, the conspiracy theorists have grist for the mill( that would be myself!) and It employs a heck of a lot of people. The down side is a State exsisting inside a State, with too much influence and money, adverse socio-ecomonic impact (too many guns, the whole 'end of the world' thing) Or is it something Really sinister... and who is going to model KINGFISH. Lionheart hasn't done anything really weird lately...Bill?....

[dharris]

Cmon lazarus, let's be fair and not forget to mention the irs, after all they have all the personal intel to use as leverage. And as an aside to flitsim building, BILLY,BILLY, BILLY, build us a kingfish, paallleeezzzee!

[warchild]

So far, in this thread we've covered enough detail for someone to create a true Tom Clancy-ish type mission and the models that go with it.. From the King Fish, to the Fish and its descendants, to the venerable sr-71. And we havent even scratched the surface.. Well, maybe we've scratched it, but i dont think we've broken through it yet.. If we had, we would have all had a little visit payed to us by the men in the black sedans.. yup, these would make some fantastic models, and even more fantastic missions..
Pam


PS.. I definitely take Mulders POV..

[warchild]

you mean that to this day, nothing is PUBLICLY known that outperforms Sprint..
Well, gee, I wonder what could be used to counter maneuvering missiles?? :173go1:

::chuckles::







Sort of on, but more off topic, but an illustration of A) the aerothermal loads involved in hypersonic flight using 'conventional' technologies;and
B) the difficulties involved in producing a system that might be able to zap a high altitude hypersonic target- Technical;as well as political considerations scuppered SAFEGUARD- the radars were limited in the number of targets that could be illuminated at once, and the missiles had a tough time countering maneovering targets. Still, Sprint to this day remains the highest performance missile ever made-an astonishing technical achievement-note, at the end of the clip, the missile is glowing white hot! 100G's acceleration. 100ft over the silo, it was moving at mach1. 11seconds later,
MACH10:jawdrop:.

[lazarus]

OW OW OW .... the IRS is our friend...OW OW OW.....not so rough guys!
But really. One of the great things about the IRS...well, the only great thing, and most insidious, is that data base. That one , the Office of budget and Management and access to information laws , are one way to 'follow the money trail'
Men in Black...thats a been a very strange, and very long running disinformation program. By the way, if you've not seen the X-files episode 'Jose Chung's from OuterSpace" you've missed out on one of the finest crafted 60 minutes of television in the last 20 years...
Back to fs modeling... I've been smacking My noggin againt GMAX,BLENDER, FSDS, Sketch-up for donkey's years... I must have a blind spot when it comes to 3D modeling programs, never been able to come to grips with 'em. Some Day. Now, would a model like a KINGFISH be a somewhat easier project because of the flat plane aspect? Maneouvering missiles. AAMS do, but once you want to push them up to Mach4+, they've got to end up flying ballistic profiles at high altitude, and be aimed a point in space where the target is going to show up, you hope! Big SAMS(long range), ABMS, and ICBMS are pretty much stuck following a ballistic path, they can maneouver a bit, but it tends to be a matter of a few degrees, done well ahead of time. The tactic to defeat SAMS, if you see it, is to keep turning into it, forcing the SAM to increase its rate of turn untill the the flight control system exceeds its maximum rate, or the airframe over stresses. The catch is seeing the SAM early enough. ECM is crucial- either jamming the uplink(long range), or(terminal phase) feeding off-sync signals that reset the range gate so the warhead does not detonate at the right time, or presenting 2 different radar centroids, which force the tracker wander from centroid to centroid, either causing the tracker to exceed maximum rate and 'tumble' or, usualy, split the difference between the radar centroids and fly through the middle, (hopefully) well outside its warhead blast radius. The catch is, you have to be able to see, that is detect the firecontroll ahead of time. Sprint and Spartan compensated by using a nuclear warhead that killed its target with high energy radiation- fried the warhead's electronics.

[warchild]

For some perhaps, for others like myself with limited skills, a nightmare waiting to devour the timid...

[lazarus]

3D modeling?:icon_lol: Yah. For me right now, the best part of GMAX or FSDS is it feels sooo good when I stop!

[RKinkor]

I was thinking that Mr. Piglet would be a good choice but he had that computer crash and now he is working on a PT-19.

[dharris]

Pam, lasarus did you ever read the book "Body of Secrets" by James Bamford? Interesting to say the least. Here is the synopsis about the Liberty attack and coverup including the Ec121 elint overhead most likely VQ-2......http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.bodyofsecrets.7.htm

[warchild]

I had personally not read it before this.. Those were some very dark years for me and the names mentioned in the article became household names listened too over and over and over again every night as the news bludgeoned us with the middle east crisis ( at least one of them. there seem to have been several ). If it werent for having lived through it, i would most likely find that period very interesting, but i must ask, what does it have to do with the SR-71 Fish or KingFish?? Perhaps i'm being an idiot and just not seeing the obvious here, but i'm not seeing a connection, and we do need to ensure that we stay at least somewhat on topic.. :)

Pam

[dharris]

The connection as I see it is that even back in the late 50's and 60's we were alot more advanced electronically than most folks realize. On January 26, three days after the Pueblo's capture, an aircraft as black as a moonless night slowly emerged from its steel hangar at Kadena Air Base on Okinawa. With stiletto-sharp edges, windscreens like menacing eyes, a skin of rare titanium, and engines pointed like shotgun barrels, the CIA's secret A-12 was at once threatening and otherworldly. Beneath the cockpit canopy, dressed in moon boots and space helmet, Frank Murray pushed forward the throttles to the mid-afterburner position. Fuel shot into the engines at the rate of 80,000 pounds per hour and fireballs exploded from the rear of the shotgun barrels. In the distance, a flock of birds flapped for safety. Looking at his control panel, Murray saw that he had reached decision speed and all was go. Ten seconds later he pulled gently back on the stick and the A-12's long nose rose ten degrees above the horizon. Murray was on his way to find the Pueblo.
By January 1968, CIA pilot Frank Murray was a veteran of numerous overflights of North Vietnam. But following the capture of the Pueblo, he was ordered to make the first A-12 overflight of North Korea. An attempt had been made the day before but a malfunction on the aircraft had forced him to abort shortly after takeoff. Following takeoff on January 25, Murray air-refueled over the Sea of Japan and then pointed the plane's sharp titanium nose at the North Korean coast."My first pass started off near Vladivostok," he recalled. "Then with the camera on I flew down the east coast of North Korea where we thought the boat was. As I approached Wausau I could see the Pueblo through my view sight. The harbor was all iced up except at the very entrance and there she was, sitting off to the right of the main entrance. I continued to the border with South Korea, completed a 180-degree turn, and flew back over North Korea. I made four passes, photographing the whole of North Korea from the DMZ to the Yalu border. As far as I knew, I was undetected throughout the flight." (Actually, NSA Sigint reports indicated that Chinese radar did detect the A-12 and passed the intelligence to North Korea. No action was taken, no doubt because of the plane's speed, over Mach 3, and its altitude, 80,000 feet.) [1] On May 8, while the Pueblo crew was imprisoned near Pyongyang, CIA pilot Jack Layton flew another A-12 mission over North Korea. (Although he did not know it, this was to be the last operational flight of the CIA's prize A-12. The fleet of the spy planes was to be scrapped for a newer, two-seat version being built for the Air Force, the SR-71.)

Murray's film was quickly flown to Yokota Air Base in Japan, where analysts determined that North Korea was not building up its forces for any further attacks. Also it was an aside to the nsa talk. Will limit my replies to keep it more on topic