Really Top Secret Projects (Ben Rich remark to Jim Goodall)

flateric

flateric

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I don't know if that known well...ugh...I saw a Discovery Channel documentary recently, something kidda The Real Flying Saucers.
Well-known author of 'American Stealth Fighters and Bombers' (and owner of giant aerospace photographic collection) Jim Goodall appears (in a role of museum curator) citating his very good friend Ben Rich words later said to him ten days before Rich passed away - something like 'Guy, we have such a things there in a desert you even can't imagine nearest 15 <or 50?> years.' That makes me enthusiastic about long life of Paul's forum.

[topic title edited by overscan]
 
Re: Ben Rich phrase to Jim Goodall

I heard pretty much the same thing from Jim the last time I talked to him myself. I was doing some research and eventually got into contact with Jim, Bill Sweetman, and Jay Miller.
 
Could this have to do with U.S patent # 3.066.890 (12.4.1962)
by Nathan Price - Lockheed - for a Supersonic Discwing aircraft ?
 
Can someone check out if one happy to have first edition of Rene Francillion's 'Lockheed aircrafts since...' - in preface author mentioning that among other Lockheed achievments is a 'manned hypersonic aircraft'...this sentence was eliminated from the second edition, and author refused to comment this action AFAIK.

More of 'really secret' stuff - a fact is that during JSF flight tests hangar owned by Lockheed (or Boeing -?) team at Edwards had two areas secured by curtains from X-35 servicing area, and some active work had been heard behind them. Most of company and base JSF staff was not allowed to cross the line. But Edwards...not a perfect place to hold a secrets, while you have another 'secret remote location' so that's strange to me.
 
Aviation Week had an article where they talked to "people" within Aerospace companies, and I think that was where the quote that what they have flying around in the desert is at least 50 years ahead of what we see in the 'white' world came from.
 
Ah, but there is all of "South Base" at Edwards which is off-limits to those without appropriate clearances (only times I've been there were specific visits related to work I was doing at the time on TSSAM, which was "Black" and SAR (Special Access Required) at that time.
 
Very interesting stuff
Black Projects at Groom Lake: Into the 21st Century
By Peter W. Merlin
http://www.dreamlandresort.com/black_projects/black_projects_history.html
 
elmayerle said:
Ah, but there is all of "South Base" at Edwards which is off-limits to those without appropriate clearances (only times I've been there were specific visits related to work I was doing at the time on TSSAM, which was "Black" and SAR (Special Access Required) at that time.
Click to expand...

I thought it was the North area that had the classified stuff? ???
 
Damn, this stuff is interesting. And the thing is, is that for many projects we will never know the truth. What's so advanced that they would keep something classified for 25+ years? My feeling is that a project or mission should be declassified after either A. the participants leave military service or B. the tech is no longer really relevant to the current technological trend.

I remember The ufoligist Stanton Friedman; who is a former nuclear physicist getting UFO sighting documents from the NSA and all but 8 WORDS were blacked out! Sometimes secrecy goes to-far. Once soemthing becomes DECLASSIFIED is STAYS declassified. Declassification of a certain aircraft or subject over a certain age should not have the ENTIRE page blacked out!

Sorry for my rant! It just ticks me off sometimes! :mad:
 
Well if you remeber the two part documentary on the JSF, just prior to the maiden flight of the Lockheed X-35, the narator mentions the Chief Test pilot as having flown the F-117 & F-22 Stealth Fighters and other still classified black projects !.
 
OK, we are talking of 7 to 12 secret manned programs. If you will take a pencil and will write all the programs being declassified since, say, 1990, we have good chances to see them before our departure to the better world.
 
A warning about any stuff on the Discovery or History channel and the like that is in any sense groundbreaking or controversial. I watch these programs a lot. However, I have found that any program which covers topics I am familiar with to be full of sensationalism and speculation. There was a recent program for example, on underground Chicago that was a near-joke.

Kim Margosein
 
The gross inaccuracy of info on those stations' programs reduces the credibility of everything else they provide any info on, IMO.


Kim Margosein said:
A warning about any stuff on the Discovery or History channel and the like that is in any sense groundbreaking or controversial. I watch these programs a lot. However, I have found that any program which covers topics I am familiar with to be full of sensationalism and speculation. There was a recent program for example, on underground Chicago that was a near-joke.

Kim Margosein
Click to expand...
 
"so advanced that they would keep something classified for 25+ years? "

Perhaps just the sheer amount of taxpayers money, wasted for a project,
that fall through completely ? ;D
 
Ok, do you remember Fish and Kingfish? How long were they classified? What do we know now of Goodrich inflatable Oxcart entry?
 
flateric said:
Ok, do you remember Fish and Kingfish? How long were they classified? What do we know now of Goodrich inflatable Oxcart entry?
Click to expand...

Not much more than "that's one hell of a lot of hot air". :D
 
flateric said:
Can someone check out if one happy to have first edition of Rene Francillion's 'Lockheed aircrafts since...' - in preface author mentioning that among other Lockheed achievments is a 'manned hypersonic aircraft'...this sentence was eliminated from the second edition, and author refused to comment this action AFAIK.
Click to expand...

Maybe it was an embarrassing mistake? Or a printing error and the author simply didn't bother to comment?

You have to remember that it took the fall of the Soviet Union for us to find out some things about 1940s fighter technology.

Hmm...... who know maybe someone will invent a super weapon capable of smashing computers at a distance and such technology will become important then?

flateric said:
Ok, do you remember Fish and Kingfish? How long were they classified? What do we know now of Goodrich inflatable Oxcart entry?
Click to expand...

I figure 90% of whats classified is known to both sides espionage services but is kept secret from the public as a pretense to there being secret advances. Another 99% are things which we don't really care about like minor production details and would only save a competitor a couple of years worth of work. Probably another 50% of the remainder are things like ballpoint pens that work in space. About 9% of whatever remains are things like time machines or antimatter drives and perpetual motion machines that anyone with a bit of knowledge could tell you don't work, never worked and will never work (but are being kept secret because higher ups lack common sense and have a tendency to kleptomania).

So what does that leave us? Pouring over the flights of fancy of low level designers from forty years ago and imagining those things which could have been and some things that could be. Anything else belongs to the "Above Top Secret" forums if you ask me.
(of course you fellows seem to be a bit saner so this discussion is worth it)

That said: aviation will advance.
 
Avimimus said:
I figure 90% of whats classified is known to both sides espionage services but is kept secret from the public as a pretense to there being secret advances. Another 99% are things which we don't really care about like minor production details and would only save a competitor a couple of years worth of work. Probably another 50% of the remainder are things like ballpoint pens that work in space. About 9% of whatever remains are things like time machines or antimatter drives and perpetual motion machines that anyone with a bit of knowledge could tell you don't work, never worked and will never work (but are being kept secret because higher ups lack common sense and have a tendency to kleptomania).

So what does that leave us? Pouring over the flights of fancy of low level designers from forty years ago and imagining those things which could have been and some things that could be. Anything else belongs to the "Above Top Secret" forums if you ask me.
(of course you fellows seem to be a bit saner so this discussion is worth it)

That said: aviation will advance.
Click to expand...

Oh sure, go and suck all the fun out of it. ;)
 
Hmm...... who know maybe someone will invent a super weapon capable of smashing computers at a distance and such technology will become important then?
Click to expand...

They already have, it goes by the acronym of E.M.P. ;)
 
I gather most recent black research is subsonic or low supersonic UAV strike RECCE stealthy oriented. Beyond that "quien sabe".

vis viva
 
Jemiba said:
"They already have, it goes by the acronym of E.M.P. "

Wrong, the acronym is "MS" for Microsoft and the weapon is
called "Vista", able to disable computers worldwide from Redmont/USA ! :mad:
Click to expand...

Make sure you get the latest patches so you can have "the best experience we can give you" when your USB goes south. :mad:
 
Avimimus said:
flateric said:
Can someone check out if one happy to have first edition of Rene Francillon's 'Lockheed aircrafts since...' - in preface author mentioning that among other Lockheed achievments is a 'manned hypersonic aircraft'...this sentence was eliminated from the second edition, and author refused to comment this action AFAIK.
Click to expand...

Maybe it was an embarrassing mistake? Or a printing error and the author simply didn't bother to comment?
Click to expand...

Not a mistake or printing error! Keep those copies if you're lucky to have one!
 
My copy of Francillon Mod 1 is next to the rottweiler's water bowl.
 
LowObservable said:
My copy of Francillon Mod 1 is next to the rottweiler's water bowl.
Click to expand...
Security measure, I guess? Can you use some soft sedatives to scan the preface? =)
 
flateric said:
Ok, do you remember Fish and Kingfish? How long were they classified? What do we know now of Goodrich inflatable Oxcart entry?
Click to expand...
Or was it Goodyear? Memory serves worse when you 33...
 
A long-standing mystery...
 

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A manned vehicle that can not only reach Mach 6 but cruise there... that is a quite big claim.

Still, isn't there quite a few years of gap between SR-71 and Have Blue?

If we look at the Lockheed X-33, it might provide some clues about what technologies they possessed. Mainly, the metal thermal protection system, of which Paul Czyscz commented in a vein that "McDonnell had similar stuff back then but of course nowadays the materials are more refined".

I have a hunch that cruising at Mach 6 with air breathing engines is actually a harder problem than re-entry. I don't believe such craft existed and Francillon was mistaken. As for why, perhaps there were some programs or rather just proposals that were hypersonic were misleading him. Mainly the X-24C L301 comes to mind. But I don't really even know how secret that was then.
 
I met Francillon on one occasion and asked him about the deletion of this item from the second and subsequent editions.

He said that he'd taken it out because he'd forgotten who told him about the M6 project - but then siad he'd been "encouraged" to forget.
 
Yes, operational manned Mach 6 aircraft is such a thing you really easy to forget who told you about it...
 
LowObservable said:
I met Francillon on one occasion and asked him about the deletion of this item from the second and subsequent editions.

He said that he'd taken it out because he'd forgotten who told him about the M6 project - but then siad he'd been "encouraged" to forget.
Click to expand...

I also had a discussion with him around mid 1994 about the redacted info.
He basically told me that "some things are better left unsaid".

But he also mentioned to me several things which I will enumerate here
(remember this was around 14 years ago):
- Logic tells us that they (Lockheed) have not been inactive.
- The SR-71 has been out there for a long time.
- Have you heard the Goldwater quote?
(Referring to the SR-71 ride that Barry Goldwater was given
and what Kelly Johnson said to Goldwater afterwards:
Goldwater asked Kelly what the next step would be. Kelly
replied "Mach 6", according to SR-71 pilot Abe Kardong.)
- Sometimes such quotes are very educational!
(he gave me two more examples of where subtle quotes are helpful about
understanding this kind of thing, or where the breakthrough fact
was disclosed during a speech. These examples were:

1. The interview of the Mikoyan Design Bureau chief for the
Naval Institute Press book on MIG. The MIG chief indicates that
contrary to popular expert opinion, the MIG-25 was not designed to
counter the XB-70 or the SR-71, but was originally designed to
counter the A-12 OXCART. It seems the subtle breakthrough occurred
when the MIG chief previously hinted that the MIG-25 had been
designed before the A-12 first flew!

2. Long ago, Rene F. had gotten tips that the U.S. had operated a
U-2 from an aircraft carrier. He had gotten this rumor from Lockheed
people but Lockheed wouldn't confirm it.

Some time later, during a speech, Kelly Johnson happened
to mention that they had even operated a U-2 from an aircraft
carrier. One of his Lockheed sources happened to be near
Rene during the speech. He looked at Rene, and said, well there
you have your confirmation. The old man said it!)
 
Stephane Cochin (Stratosphere Models) discusses here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/space-modelers/message/65311
if some information trails in Lockheed Horizons article on hypersonics tech may be a clue to Renй Francillon's 'manned Mach 6 vehicle'
mentioned in first edition 'Lockheed Aircrafts...'
 
Yes, FDL shapes were created for *slightly* higher M than M=6...
 
How do you test covertly a platform that flies at M6.0? I mean, the thing probably takes entire countries to turn (as opposed to the SR-71 that only takes an entire state to turn), and there must be a strong signature in some parts of the spectrum associated with it (IR? sound?). I know that there are vast restricted areas available to the airforce (Nevada, north sea...), but it still seems like people would have noticed by now. Don't get me wrong, I do believe there is a black hypersonic surveillance out there, but it's mind-boggling that the only clues of its existence are "doughnut-on-a-rope contrails" and seismograph recordings.

The other question is: how good is technology if you don't use it? I mean, we can't be entirely sure, but no hypersonic plane has been used in the past major wars the US has been involved in (Desert storm I & II, OIF, OEF...). Even the F-117 was used to drop bombs in Panama!
 
AeroFranz said:
How do you test covertly a platform that flies at M6.0?
Click to expand...

You push it through a Stargate and test fly it on some other planet. Otherwise, the Soviets would simply pick it up on their missile launch detection satellites.

but it's mind-boggling that the only clues of its existence are "doughnut-on-a-rope contrails"
Click to expand...

This has always annoyed the hell out of me. "Donuts on a rope" are *not* evidence of advanced propulsion systems. I've *watched* jetliners make such contrails many times.
 
AeroFranz said:
How do you test covertly a platform that flies at M6.0? I mean, the thing probably takes entire countries to turn (as opposed to the SR-71 that only takes an entire state to turn), and there must be a strong signature in some parts of the spectrum associated with it (IR? sound?). I know that there are vast restricted areas available to the airforce (Nevada, north sea...), but it still seems like people would have noticed by now.
Click to expand...

There are some places where just about anything can happen without anyone noticing it.
Is 127,000 square kilometers big enough to turn a Mach 6.0 air vehicle?

www.saafwdc.asn.au/pastoral/woomera-access.pdf

AeroFranz said:
The other question is: how good is technology if you don't use it? I mean, we can't be entirely sure, but no hypersonic plane has been used in the past major wars the US has been involved in (Desert storm I & II, OIF, OEF...). Even the F-117 was used to drop bombs in Panama!
Click to expand...

Such technology is often best kept underwraps until a real war least the enemy develop a countermeasure. There are still many people in the IDF-AF upset at Ariel Sharon for deploying their SEAD/DEAD system against the Syrians over the Bekka in '82.
 
AeroFranz said:
How do you test covertly a platform that flies at M6.0? I mean, the thing probably takes entire countries to turn (as opposed to the SR-71 that only takes an entire state to turn), and there must be a strong signature in some parts of the spectrum associated with it (IR? sound?). I know that there are vast restricted areas available to the airforce (Nevada, north sea...), but it still seems like people would have noticed by now. Don't get me wrong, I do believe there is a black hypersonic surveillance out there, but it's mind-boggling that the only clues of its existence are "doughnut-on-a-rope contrails" and seismograph recordings.

The other question is: how good is technology if you don't use it? I mean, we can't be entirely sure, but no hypersonic plane has been used in the past major wars the US has been involved in (Desert storm I & II, OIF, OEF...). Even the F-117 was used to drop bombs in Panama!
Click to expand...

The A-12 was flown covertly for years with great success. It's not as hard as you would think.
 

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