ATB: B-2 evolution and competitors

[Apollo Leader]

The plaque adjacent to the Senior Peg picture appears to be using the same image, but mirrored. So whose office is this? What's the story of this screen grab? I assume this is a former Skunk Works employee's home office.

 

[aliensporebomb]

I sure wish someone had made a screen grab properly instead of photographing their computer screen. Still quite intriguing.

 

[robunos]

The plaque adjacent to the Senior Peg picture appears to be using the same image, but mirrored. So whose office is this? What's the story of this screen grab? I assume this is a former Skunk Works employee's home office.

I think that's just a reflection of the picture on the polished surface of the plaque . . .

cheers,
Robin.

 

[flateric]

The plaque adjacent to the Senior Peg picture appears to be using the same image, but mirrored. So whose office is this? What's the story of this screen grab? I assume this is a former Skunk Works employee's home office.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/this-is-a-weird-one-a-lockheed-saucer.41583/

 

[Whisperstream]

The plaque adjacent to the Senior Peg picture appears to be using the same image, but mirrored. So whose office is this? What's the story of this screen grab? I assume this is a former Skunk Works employee's home office.

I think that's just a reflection of the picture on the polished surface of the plaque . . .

cheers,
Robin.

Yes, that's exactly correct. The brass plaque is reflecting the Senior Peg artwork. More interesting is that the famous Larry McClain quote "For it is the lot of some men to be assigned duties about which they may not speak..." has been altered to reference women instead of men. A bit of a clue as to the recipient.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Comparing these two, it seems to me the upper design is a lot more like the B-2 (early diamond config) in shape with the planform alignment on the wing leading and trailing edges and more compatible with ASPA/ATB requirements.

Comparing the size of the tail on the lower design, the angle of the shot is magnifying the apparent tail size on the upper design and concealing the true angle.

So the upper design is possibly a later development? Family resemblance is clear.

Incidentally the top pic was apparently first published in Popular Communications March 2005 (copy for sale on Ebay here if anyone is keen to scan a better copy)

 

[quellish]

At this point I am betting that the top, smaller aircraft is the earlier HAVE PEG that Lockheed developed before the ASPA competition and requirements. Lockheed started work on a bomber before Northrop was invited in.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

What are you basing the size comparison on? The apparent cockpit window?

I'd like to see a larger scan of the first design.

 

[quellish]

What are you basing the size comparison on? The apparent cockpit window.

I'd like to see a larger scan of the first design.

Tail, facets, exhaust, overall configuration.

And having now seen a photo of ATA-B, I am certain this is not that.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Ooh. ATA-B photo.

I always imagined ATA-B as essentially an F-117 stretched in length (due to the published dimensions).

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Note that unlike the unofficial drawings, the tail fins are forward swept.

 

[quellish]

Ooh. ATA-B photo.

I always imagined ATA-B as essentially an F-117 stretched in length (due to the published dimensions).

Stretched in all dimensions, but length more than others. You would not easily be able to tell it from an F-117 unless you looked at landing gear, etc.

 

[djfawcett]

Ooh. ATA-B photo.

I always imagined ATA-B as essentially an F-117 stretched in length (due to the published dimensions).

Stretched in all dimensions, but length more than others. You would not easily be able to tell it from an F-117 unless you looked at landing gear, etc.

Where did you see a picture of the ATA-B? I did not know a drawing or rendering had been released.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Here's my totally unsupported theory.

This image is actually Lockheed Senior Peg / ATB design. It's taken from a misleading angle like the first F-117A - in this case from close above the rear, above the articulating tail on its pylon (described as like a Stegosaurus tail protruding from the top of the rear diamond).

The actual size of the tail is much more like this:

and the wing sweep is much closer to a B-2 than it looks.

I distorted the hell out of the image to show roughly what I mean.


This would then make the "it looks like the same aircraft" comments more understandable:

 

[Apollo Leader]

Note that unlike the unofficial drawings, the tail fins are forward swept.

Just my opinion the leading and trailing edges of the v-tail appears to have their edge alignment parallel with the the trailing edge of the wing as opposed to the leading edge up front so still a swept back design. The highly swept tail depicted in The War Zone render and in some other previous depictions are probably incorrect, but until more pictures or drawings are ever released not to mention confirmation on where either of these two designs fall in the ATA-B/Have Peg/Senior Peg/ATB/B-2 design story things will remain speculative.

 

[Sundog]

Don't have any idea of the provenance of this pic of course, but in its lack of detail it brings to mind this:

That was the first image released by the USAF of the B-2. They purposefully omitted the exhausts, since they were still classified at the time. Which was why AvWeek pissed them off when they flew over during the roll out and took pics.

 

[Dew]

Incidentally the top pic was apparently first published in Popular Communications March 2005

Back-issue PDF available here (image is of worse quality, but puts it in context; ~pg.59-60)

 

[flateric]

Don't have any idea of the provenance of this pic of course, but in its lack of detail it brings to mind this:

That was the first image released by the USAF of the B-2. They purposefully omitted the exhausts, since they were still classified at the time. Which was why AvWeek pissed them off when they flew over during the roll out and took pics.

He was talking about Lockheed image provenance.

 

[flateric]

Don't have any idea of the provenance of this pic of course, but in its lack of detail it brings to mind this:

or this

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I believe according to Jim Goodall, he was given photos by Ben Rich, but the Air Force position is that Lockheed SENIOR PEG and SENIOR PROM designs aren't declassified so he was refused permission to publish them in his recent book on Lockheed Skunk Works.

 

[SOC]

I believe according to Jim Goodall, he was given photos by Ben Rich, but the Air Force position is that Lockheed SENIOR PEG and SENIOR PROM designs aren't declassified so he was refused permission to publish them in his recent book on Lockheed Skunk Works.

...which is mildly amusing, given that Steve Pace, Bill Yenne, Yancey Mailes & Tony Landis, and Peter Merlin all published books, most if not all of which were published prior to Goodall's Skunk Works book, which contained pictures of SENIOR PROM (the various shots of the ALCM carried underwing of a C-130), SENIOR PEG (the pole model image), or both. Some of them credited the images to LMSW via Goodall, but at least one credited them to Tony Landis. Did the others slip through the cracks somehow, or were they given some manner of permission I wonder.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I assume the status is the same for SENIOR PEG.

 

[Aeroweanie]

For the bomber design, Scherrer revived the idea of a stealthy flying wing; like BSAX, the bomber would have to fly high and long distances, which the flying wing’s aerodynamic efficiency enabled. Scherrer again argued that facets would doom the plane aerodynamically, wrecking the lift-to-drag ratio. His managers, nevertheless, once again refused to fund wind-tunnel tests of a curved airfoil. Facets had won Lockheed the F-117, and the company was not going to mess with success. To Scherrer, it was “clear to me that the faceted ATB [bomber] was doomed because the Laws of Physics would not bend to fit Company policy.”8 Scherrer finally gave up and quit Lockheed in frustration in June 1979.

In September 1979 Dick left Lockheed and went to work at the Northrop Corporation as a design consultant on their entry for the Advanced Technology Bomber. There, he refined the planform, airfoils and internal arrangement of what became the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit after Northrop won the US Air Force competition. (He was a good friend of mine)

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Its always great when people share their personal knowledge. Thanks @Aeroweanie.

 

[Hydroman]

I did not know Dick became a Northrop consultant and I know Dick was a brilliant aero-engineer. When I hired into Northrop's ASD in 1986, I had a feeling the ATB would be a flying wing, just had no idea of the configuration until I saw the full-scale mock-up. I had three uncles who worked for Northrop back in the day, two of them on the XB-35 and YB-49 periodically.

 

[Whisperstream]

I believe according to Jim Goodall, he was given photos by Ben Rich, but the Air Force position is that Lockheed SENIOR PEG and SENIOR PROM designs aren't declassified so he was refused permission to publish them in his recent book on Lockheed Skunk Works.

...which is mildly amusing, given that Steve Pace, Bill Yenne, Yancey Mailes & Tony Landis, and Peter Merlin all published books, most if not all of which were published prior to Goodall's Skunk Works book, which contained pictures of SENIOR PROM (the various shots of the ALCM carried underwing of a C-130), SENIOR PEG (the pole model image), or both. Some of them credited the images to LMSW via Goodall, but at least one credited them to Tony Landis. Did the others slip through the cracks somehow, or were they given some manner of permission I wonder.

I have yet to see any evidence that the SENIOR PROM and SENIOR PEG images that have been making the rounds all these years are actually classified. Perhaps Lockheed Martin considers them proprietary. I don't know. Much, if not all of the HAVE BLUE material was declassified on December 31, 1990, and perhaps the SENIOR PROM stuff was, too. Ben Rich apparently gave some photos to Jim Goodall in the early to mid 1990s.

After Rich died in 1995, his family donated his papers and photos to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Apparently, everything had to be examined by Air Force Office of Special Investigations/Special Projects (AFOSI/PJ) so anything sensitive could be removed before the collection was made available to the public. Eventually, the Los Angeles Times announced that the collection finally available to researchers. As it stands now, the Ben Rich Collection at the Huntington contains a substantial amount of SENIOR PROM material.

The February 14, 2005, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine ran an article that included a few SENIOR PROM photos and at least one image tentatively identified as SENIOR PEG (or at least as an ATB model). The following year, Air Force historian Yancey Mailes and NASA photographer Tony Landis published F-117A Stealth Fighter Photo Scrapbook (Specialty Press, 2006), which included some of the SENIOR PROM images and a photo of the SENIOR PEG pole model. That book has recently been republished (Detail & Scale Aviation Publications, 2023). As noted above, these SENIOR PROM and SENIOR PEG images have been published numerous times over the past two decades in various magazines, books, and web sites without any repercussions from the government.

As someone posted above, Jim Goodall planned to use some of the photos in his latest book, 75 Years of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, but was told if he did so his book would not be carried in the Skunk Works employee store in Palmdale or other LM venues. He may have been threatened with the withdrawal of other LMSW support for his project, as well.

 

[Hydroman]

Going through some stuff and found these, the FCHIL lab patch and decal are rare, mainly only the folks (including myself) who worked in the iron bird lab during the FCHIL development got these to my knowledge. To all, ENJOY!

 

[Aeroweanie]

I have yet to see any evidence that the SENIOR PROM and SENIOR PEG images that have been making the rounds all these years are actually classified. Perhaps Lockheed Martin considers them proprietary. I don't know. Much, if not all of the HAVE BLUE material was declassified on December 31, 1990, and perhaps the SENIOR PROM stuff was, too. Ben Rich apparently gave some photos to Jim Goodall in the early to mid 1990s.

After Rich died in 1995, his family donated his papers and photos to the Huntington Library in San Marino, California. Apparently, everything had to be examined by Air Force Office of Special Investigations/Special Projects (AFOSI/PJ) so anything sensitive could be removed before the collection was made available to the public. Eventually, the Los Angeles Times announced that the collection finally available to researchers. As it stands now, the Ben Rich Collection at the Huntington contains a substantial amount of SENIOR PROM material.

The February 14, 2005, issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine ran an article that included a few SENIOR PROM photos and at least one image tentatively identified as SENIOR PEG (or at least as an ATB model). The following year, Air Force historian Yancey Mailes and NASA photographer Tony Landis published F-117A Stealth Fighter Photo Scrapbook (Specialty Press, 2006), which included some of the SENIOR PROM images and a photo of the SENIOR PEG pole model. That book has recently been republished (Detail & Scale Aviation Publications, 2023). As noted above, these SENIOR PROM and SENIOR PEG images have been published numerous times over the past two decades in various magazines, books, and web sites without any repercussions from the government.

As someone posted above, Jim Goodall planned to use some of the photos in his latest book, 75 Years of the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, but was told if he did so his book would not be carried in the Skunk Works employee store in Palmdale or other LM venues. He may have been threatened with the withdrawal of other LMSW support for his project, as well.

I got a reader's card to the Huntington Library and spent two days working in their collections on site a few weeks back. I focused on their collection of Kelly Johnson papers and Northrop Grumman corporate archives. I didn't have time to get to the Ben Rich collection.

These collections are extensive and mind boggling. In particular, I now have a copy of Kelly Johnson's suppressed 1942 Institute of the Aerospace Sciences paper "Compressibility Effects on High Speed Aircraft". This paper was approved for publication by the War Department, but NACA later demanded its retraction. The archive includes letters from other companies requesting copies and later letters from Johnson asking for their return.

I also found that many of Kelly Johnson's college assignments are in the archives and a diary of a trip he made to Europe in 1947.

 

[alpha_k]

Very interesting PDF about the B-2 here:

Defense Technical Information Center

apps.dtic.mil

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA464771.pdf

Here's some extracted pages from Northrop's 1980 APSA study, which is the earliest origins of the B-2.

it say "unclassified",than how to get this file?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

it say "unclassified",than how to get this file?

Click the Open PDF button from the page https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/citations/ADA464771 or this direct link : https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA464771.pdf

 

[Erdosain]

Lockheed Senior Peg by Giuseppe de Chiara

 

[kmrumble]

Here's my totally unsupported theory.

This image is actually Lockheed Senior Peg / ATB design. It's taken from a misleading angle like the first F-117A - in this case from close above the rear, above the articulating tail on its pylon (described as like a Stegosaurus tail protruding from the top of the rear diamond).

The actual size of the tail is much more like this:

and the wing sweep is much closer to a B-2 than it looks.

I distorted the hell out of the image to show roughly what I mean.
View attachment 700792

This would then make the "it looks like the same aircraft" comments more understandable:

The only one of the above images that I recognize is the second one, the screen capture of the Zillow image from the former Skunkworks employee's wall. I'm reasonably sure that is the artist's conception submitted as part of Lockheed's December 1, 1980 technical proposal for ASPA. By the time the source selection team was formed, Lockheed had been on contract to explore ASPA concepts for more than 18 months, and I have no idea how many different concepts they looked at or what drawings they created before 12/80. Some of the ones posted in this thread might be real, or might not be real...I never saw earlier concepts and couldn't say one way or the other.

As for who beat whom at RATSCAT, I doubt that anyone at Northrop or Lockheed really knew. Apart from special access and security considerations, source selection security was pretty tight. Even within the government, that info was very closely held and only known by a few members of the evaluation team. After it was all over, I asked one of the survivability/vulnerability guys about the results, and he shrugged, waggled his hand, and said "Six of one, half a dozen of the other." They were both perfectly acceptable at the frequency and angle of most interest to the guys who did mission planning.

I understand the confusion about various comments people have made about how similar the two concepts looked when in fact there are obvious differences. A lot of that comes from "presentism" because people now have 40 years of seeing large flying wings and thinking they are normal. If you could take your mindset back to 1980, when the YB-49 was mostly a forgotten footnote in history, everone's idea of a modern strategic penetrator looked like the B-70 or B-1. So, everyone freaked out when they saw it for the first time, especially SAC guys. When a general officer's first exposure to the program was walking into a briefing room and seeing the two 12-inch table-top models from a 20 foot distance, they both looked remarkably weird, and similar.

 

[kmrumble]

My ASPA/ATB wall:

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

The rise of stealth technology, which temporarily cut short the B–1, gave impetus to a new program at Lockheed. The company was given a preliminary contract to design and build its version of what would become the B–2 Stealth bomber. Two teams, Lockheed and Northrop, labored on their respective visions of the aircraft in secret,neither one officially knowing the other was competing. Although still classified, Gene Salvay’s design for Lockheed was shaped more like a long narrow triangle, when viewed from directly above. Its trailing edge was equipped with elevons and elevators, somewhat like those on the Northrop B–2, but there were fewer of them and they were much less segmented. The Lockheed plane was also characterized by a V-shaped vertical tail, mounted on an articulated, moving pylon,which protruded aft from the central portion of the wing. Instead of hooded intakes built into the top surfaces of the wing in the Northrop B–2, which Gene claimed caused too much drag and spoiled the surface, he placed them in the wing root’s leading edge. In general,Lockheed’s version looked more like a narrow triangle or delta.Viewed in profile, the only break in the slender wing-fuselage line was the swept forward rudders.

I figured we should add the infamous description from Gene Salvay for completeness.
Wings/Airpower August 2000

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

 

[Empire]

Where did you see a picture of the ATA-B? I did not know a drawing or rendering had been rej

Where did you see a picture of the ATA-B? I did not know a drawing or rendering had been released.

This is suppose to be the radar test model being built for the ATA-B program. They base this on the larger air in-take seen on the model for the GE F-101 engines that would have been used. I'm not sure what scale difference there is between a radar pole model and full size design. I also thought the ATA-B was more stretched than the ATA-A.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/18w7i2f/a_radar_cross_section_test_model_of_the_lockheed

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/WeirdWings/comments/18w7i2f/a_radar_cross_section_test_model_of_the_lockheed/

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

View attachment 746191

View attachment 746191

What's interesting to me is the F-117 vibes I get from this design. Cockpit glazing, wing shape, v tail, intake position...

 

[Empire]

Here is a picture from the book Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works by Jay Miller it is a view of the full size ATA-A radar model but in the upper corner is the weird vertical stabilizer of the supposed ATA-B radar model. Different shot by the same photographer of upper picture posted.

 

[flateric]

Sharp eye!