quellish said:The A-12 was flown covertly for years with great success. It's not as hard as you would think.
Mach 3 ain't Mach 6. Twice the speed means at least 4 times the power (and thermal signiture).
quellish said:The A-12 was flown covertly for years with great success. It's not as hard as you would think.
Abraham Gubler said:Which is why USAF and DSTO (the Australian DARPA) have the Hypersonics International Flight Research Experimentation (HIFiRE) agreement for use of Woomera. Every good black program has a white world program to hide in...
However, there are still large sections of the world's oceans which are extremely remote and which would be perfect for testing aircraft over. Middle of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, well away from the shipping lanes and its pretty lonely I suspect.
rickshaw said:Woomera is however not as restricted an area as it once was (my father helped create the Woomera Test Range and once held Security Pass No. 2 as the Project Manager back in 1948). Further, Australia is no where as unpopulated as it once was. Tourists, miners, oil drilling rigs, Aboriginal outstations are now spread all over the outback. Whereas in the 1960s it was possible to drive for days without encountering someone on outback roads, today you'd be unlucky to go half a day before you saw another human being, even in the more remote parts of the continent.
Is 127,000 square kilometers big enough to turn a Mach 6.0 air vehicle?
Abraham Gubler said:rickshaw said:Woomera is however not as restricted an area as it once was (my father helped create the Woomera Test Range and once held Security Pass No. 2 as the Project Manager back in 1948). Further, Australia is no where as unpopulated as it once was. Tourists, miners, oil drilling rigs, Aboriginal outstations are now spread all over the outback. Whereas in the 1960s it was possible to drive for days without encountering someone on outback roads, today you'd be unlucky to go half a day before you saw another human being, even in the more remote parts of the continent.
Yeah of course but that still doesn’t mean you can’t hide a hypersonic test program for a military vehicle out there; because there is no ATC radar coverage and no large collection of people on the ground looking skywards for a very significant piece of airspace. If anyone does hear lots of supersonic booms well there’s HiFire to blame it on. Situations that don’t exist around the US black project bases in the CONUS south west.
flateric said: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...'
flateric said:You'd recognize the place - Upper Chamber of LM Helendale Avionics Facility underground. Photographer's name- Eric Schulzinger - must be familiar to you quite well. I've seen a lot of unusual RCS range test articles' shapes, but this one is really weird. Could it be shaped so strange to cause some radar signals go to the 'twilight zone' to make measurements of some specific parts (nose, intakes etc) of the model more exact?
sferrin said:Re: The ventral fin on the YF-12A and a vibration problem.
"P> I believe that I read in Miller's book on the Skunk Works that the
P> YF-12As were build with the folding fin (because of the
P> almost-bulbous nose housing the radar), but NASA found that it
P> wasn't necessary and took it off at some point in their use of the
P> aircraft. Presumably it was removed from 934 (?) before it was
P> wrecked and rebuilt into the SR-71C, and you saw what was left.
Er, we didn't exactly take it off. We lost it.
We took off with it and returned without it.
Since the pilots hadn't noticed its absence, we had some analysis done
and discovered that the plane was sufficiently stable without it, so
we didn't replace it.
One of the first papers I was on the peer review panel for was on the
YF-12s and this incident was very casually alluded to in the text. As
I recall, the Description of the Test Aircraft section included a
sentence saying that the first n flights were flown with the ventral
fin and the remainder were flown without it, as it had been lost. I,
not knowing the history of the project, questioned the author somewhat
closely on this subject, as I couldn't believe it as it was written.
They gave me the explanation in the first two lines of my reply and I
suggested that it might be better to say that it was lost overboard
during a flight. The original sounded like we took it off and set it
down in the hangar and couldn't find it when the time came to put it
back on. The final version of the paper included just such an
explanation. I guess they thought that others might be equally
confused.
--
Mary Shafer NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA
SR-71 Flying Qualities Lead Engineer Of course I don't speak for NASA "
That was off r.a.m. in 1997 (sheesh where does the time go). Given that the YF-12A didn't actually need the fin it seems unlikely that Lockheed would spend the time and effort to cure a perceived problem in a single aircraft that flew relatively few missions.
Desert Dawn said:Now, they had to have had `something' hypersonic, based on what Ben Rich says in his autobiography and article.
Desert Dawn said:I will dig out the paper or web page that refered to the Lockalloy fin story.
Stephane.
sferrin said:Desert Dawn said:Now, they had to have had `something' hypersonic, based on what Ben Rich says in his autobiography and article.
As I recall, the only thing he said in "Skunk Works" about Mach 6 was "no way". I don't recall him implying Lockheed ever built anything. On the other hand SOC has a handfull of Blackbird papers that all mention a "notional Mach 6 aircraft" for some curious reason.
sferrin said:I'm not Mary, I was quoting something Mary said 12 years ago.
Orionblamblam said:
This response has been left blank because, let's face it, who gives a damn?
quellish said:Orionblamblam said:
This response has been left blank because, let's face it, who gives a damn?
Because you shouldn't have to mention the X-7, right?
sferrin said:What's the X-7 have to do with this?
quellish said:sferrin said:What's the X-7 have to do with this?
They're pretty, fast, and Lockheed.
sferrin said:quellish said:sferrin said:What's the X-7 have to do with this?
They're pretty, fast, and Lockheed.
So's a .50 cal bullet. And about as relevant.
sferrin said:By that rational the U-2 could be said to qualify. More so in fact as Area 51 was originally built for that program. The fact is neither has anything to do with the subject of the thread as far as I can tell.
bobbymike said:Neat video but I have always been of two minds on this issue. 1) I look back historically at what was being conceived in the 50's and 60's and think they must have developed something by now (what that something is maybe can be gleaned from Goodall's remarks) and; 2) There is a lot of disinformation an maybe what is in the desert is 'next generation" but we would not necessarily be "stunned" by the technology.
Jason Bourne taught me "there is no coincidences" so is it just a coincidence that Goodall is in the Air Force Reserve.
I certainly don't blame Mr. Goodall, because - as you say - he simply quotes his sources.quellish said:No. Jim Goodall is honestly relaying what his sources told him. It is up to you to decide what they mean.
"Out of this world" after all could mean a TSTO system like "blackstar", for instance.
Andreas Parsch said:I certainly don't blame Mr. Goodall, because - as you say - he simply quotes his sources.quellish said:No. Jim Goodall is honestly relaying what his sources told him. It is up to you to decide what they mean.
"Out of this world" after all could mean a TSTO system like "blackstar", for instance.
But what should I make of phrases like "better than Star Trek"?! Even to get equal to Star Trek would mean that you'd have to completely dump some of the best tested and verified laws of nature that we know. I'm sorry, but I'm definitely not ready to believe that without really good evidence. Of course not all claims in the short clip are of this nature (e.g. a Mach 6 aircraft is certainly not pushing the limits of the known laws of physics), but the mixture of somewhat believable and totally outlandish claims makes it very difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff.
In short, the interview is certainly interesting, but adds hardly anything to the pool of knowledge about "Area 51".
Andreas Parsch said:But what should I make of phrases like "better than Star Trek"?! Even to get equal to Star Trek would mean that you'd have to completely dump some of the best tested and verified laws of nature that we know.