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The Staff of SOH
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Please see the most recent updates in the "Where did the .com name go?" thread. Posts number 16 and 17.
Those interested in the A-12-Sr-71 might like to look at this article, very interesti
- Thread starter dharris
- Start date
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)
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 !
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
Charter Member
View attachment 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.View attachment 40654
Got these from this site, lots and lots of aircraft http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/default.aspx
Got these from this site, lots and lots of aircraft http://www.flightglobal.com/airspace/default.aspx
warchild
Charter Member
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...
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...
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
Charter Member
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..
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..
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!
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
Charter Member
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
SOH-CM-2025
Here's a good read on the secret history of UAV's in the USAF.
Article Link.
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.
Article Link.
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.
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!
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
Charter Member
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??
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??
..
dharris
Charter Member
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
Charter Member
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.
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...
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
Charter Member
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
Charter Member
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....
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....