US Lifting Bodies Studies - START (ASSET/PRIME), FDL, X-24, etc.

[Justo Miranda]

Some classic stuff here
Post-20
From
Unknown Source

 

[Justo Miranda]

Some classic stuff here
Post-21
From
Unknown Source

 

[Justo Miranda]

Some classic stuff here
Post-22
From
Unknown Source

 

[Justo Miranda]

 

[Michel Van]

that's German Saenger II concept

That's Star-H (H for Hermes)
a French porposal for a Airlaunch Hermes like Sprial 50-50
I think this was from Aerospacial

 

[Skybolt]

Answer to Retrofit reply, some time ago. Martin studied the basic lifting body shape (called MB-2) since late 1959, and used for multiple purposes. The mentioned SLOMAR studies is just one, but there was Apollo, Prime, X-24, Orbital X-24, that was larger and very similar in concept to the SLOMAR vehicle (8-person crew/passengers versus 6 for SLOMAR), and other we don't know for sure (e.g. military derivatives). So the World Fair concept could be a derivative of one of these.

 

[Retrofit]

a French porposal for a Airlaunch Hermes like Sprial 50-50
I think this was from Aerospacial

Hi Michel,
The Star-H proposal was from Dassault Aviation

Hi Skybolt,
Thanks for the information.
Any more detail available on the Martin Orbital X-24?

 

[archipeppe]

a French porposal for a Airlaunch Hermes like Sprial 50-50
I think this was from Aerospacial

It was a sort of French late answer to the German Sanger II proposal, trying to reutilize the troubled Hermes more than something related to the 50-50 Russian concept.

Only a beautiful scale model but nothing more than that, anyway Sanger II was deeply investigated by Germans and it was more "real" project.

 

[Stargazer]

Sanger II was deeply investigated by Germans and it was more "real" project.

Not that it made much of a difference in the end, anyway... :

 

[FutureSpaceTourist]

a French porposal for a Airlaunch Hermes like Sprial 50-50
I think this was from Aerospacial

Hi Michel,
The Star-H proposal was from Dassault Aviation

We mustn't forget the earlier 60s British design study for EAG.4396/4413, covered in another thread

 

[archipeppe]

We mustn't forget the earlier 60s British design study for EAG.4396/4413

Absolutely right!!
Too bad that Great Britain was unable to utilize its enormous aeronautical heritage in manned space activities.

 

[Stargazer]

We mustn't forget the earlier 60s British design study for EAG.4396/4413

Absolutely right!!
Too bad that Great Britain was unable to utilize its enormous aeronautical heritage in manned space activities.

The only real successes of European aviation for 40 years have been those products that were produced as part of an international consortium:
- BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde supersonic airliner
- Dassault-Bréguet/Dornier Alpha Jet primary trainer
- SEPECAT Jaguar combat aircraft
- Airbus A300/310 airliner series
- Airbus A319/320/321 airliner series
- Airbus A330/340 airliner series

Everytime one of the European manufacturers has been staunch on not collaborating and keeping their design to themselves, the commercial results were much more contrasted: AMD-BA Rafale, Saab Gripen...

So I guess the same can be said about space programs. If the British, German and French teams had set about working together early in the 1960s, there would be a truly competitive European aerospace today on a global scale!

 

[archipeppe]

The only real successes of European aviation for 40 years have been those products that were produced as part of an international consortium:
- BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde supersonic airliner
- Dassault-Bréguet/Dornier Alpha Jet primary trainer
- SEPECAT Jaguar combat aircraft
- Airbus A300/310 airliner series
- Airbus A319/320/321 airliner series
- Airbus A330/340 airliner series

E-emh... don't forget the MRCA Panavia Tornado as well.... B)

 

[Stargazer]

E-emh... don't forget the MRCA Panavia Tornado as well.... B)

Yep... right! I soooo dislike that aircraft that my mind just blanked out over it!!! :-X

 

[Desert Dawn]

This looks like the place and time to post this. I've had this photo in my collection since the 80s or early 90s.

Neat !!

 

[blackstar]

Some classic stuff here
Post-22
From
Unknown Source

That's from a British aviation magazine ca 2004 or so. I have it somewhere. It accompanied an article that was really pretty dubious. It was supposedly written by two plane-spotters who used pseudonyms from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon. Now I don't have a big problem with pseudonyms, but the article never stated that these were not their real names. The authors claimed to have gone to the mountain that allowed them to view Groom Lake on a planespotting expedition. They were there to spot secret aircraft. They claimed that they did spot one--and that they completely forgot to use their camera to take a picture.

This is a theme that has been repeated by a number of supposed plane-spotters: they see the Super Secret Airplane that they were looking for, and then they forget to use their camera, or the batteries go dead, or something like that. It's always a fish story about the one that got away.

Once you read their account, and noticed the cartoon names, it was really hard not to conclude that they made the story up as a joke.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I remember seeing that same design on Dreamlandresort.com about 10 years ago. The so-called "Fastmover". Grain of salt.

 

[Orionblamblam]

two plane-spotters who used pseudonyms from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon.

PLEASE tell me that one of them was "Stinky Wizzleteats."

 

[quellish]

Some classic stuff here
Post-22
From
Unknown Source

That's from a British aviation magazine ca 2004 or so. I have it somewhere. It accompanied an article that was really pretty dubious. It was supposedly written by two plane-spotters who used pseudonyms from the Ren and Stimpy cartoon. Now I don't have a big problem with pseudonyms, but the article never stated that these were not their real names. The authors claimed to have gone to the mountain that allowed them to view Groom Lake on a planespotting expedition. They were there to spot secret aircraft. They claimed that they did spot one--and that they completely forgot to use their camera to take a picture.

This is a theme that has been repeated by a number of supposed plane-spotters: they see the Super Secret Airplane that they were looking for, and then they forget to use their camera, or the batteries go dead, or something like that. It's always a fish story about the one that got away.

Once you read their account, and noticed the cartoon names, it was really hard not to conclude that they made the story up as a joke.

Original story (getting off topic):
http://www.dreamlandresort.com/trip_reports/trip_020.html

 

[blackstar]

The magazine article is: "SECRETS OF AREA 51", Parts 1 to 6, in UK-based AIRCRAFT ILLUSTRATED magazine, issues March to August 2000.

I'll have to look, but I'm pretty sure that they used pseudonyms in that article. But if they're using their real names on the website, why use pseudonyms in print?

And I still really have a problem with the idea that they went up there to photograph a top secret airplane and then conveniently forgot to use their cameras when they actually saw one.

 

[Orionblamblam]

And I still really have a problem with the idea that they went up there to photograph a top secret airplane and then conveniently forgot to use their cameras when they actually saw one.

There have been times when I've had a camera *at* *hand* and I saw something truly photo-worthy... and was too startled, dumbfounded or dull-witted to take a decent picture, so on the one hand I can kinda buy the general concept. On the other hand, I'd hardly publish an article that basically boiled down to either "I'm an idiot" or "I was too drunk."

 

[quellish]

There have been times when I've had a camera *at* *hand* and I saw something truly photo-worthy... and was too startled, dumbfounded or dull-witted to take a decent picture, so on the one hand I can kinda buy the general concept. On the other hand, I'd hardly publish an article that basically boiled down to either "I'm an idiot" or "I was too drunk."

A lot of people who live near the places where spooky things happen just don't care. They don't notice, because it's routine, or they don't "tattle" because the local economy is supported by spooky things, or they are just not interested. There's also a general wierdness factor that people who live near such facilities take for granted. I interviewed someone in the late 90s who reported a neighborhood garage door opening on its own late at night near Edwards. I was able to connect that with flights of a particular aircraft from a particular runway (former USCG C-130 with radome IIRC).

A couple of examples:
- Regularly late at night you will find highway patrol cars and motorcycles escorting convoys from the satellite contrator facilities near LAX to airfields, railway cars, or by road to Vandenberg. For a while it was common enough to be a nuisance. I've not seen photos or reporting on it.

- Whatever flys high and fast and makes a chest rattling rumble on Thursday mornings still makes regular appearances.

- Locals out near Tonopah had been seeing the RQ-170 for some time. They kept quiet about it and the new unit based out there because it brought new business to the area.

- There were people sitting on photos of the F-117 before it was revealed for various reasons. One I talked to just was not able to connect what they had captured with the stealth fighter in the press because it did not look at all like any of the "artist's concepts".

I don't read too much into the "it's not real without a photo!" bs for this and many other reasons.

 

[Stargazer]

I don't read too much into the "it's not real without a photo!" bs for this and many other reasons.

Yeah, me neither. Back in early 1989, a French Armée de l'Air officer was positive that while on a Spanish base in 1986, at the time of the Libyan crisis, he'd seen a covered, strangely shaped aircraft being taken out of a C-5 Galaxy. All the information he could gather then was that the U.S. was going to use a classified aircraft to kick the Libyans' butt in a heartbeat and bring a quick end to the crisis. When the F-117 was revealed weeks later, he was convinced that it was the bird in question. However, we know very well the F-117 could NOT be used in a dogfight against a MiG. It's a ground attack plane, NOT a fighter! I have never doubted that story, nor the fact that there MUST have been some other classified bird under the covers, perhaps only in prototype form. The fact that there are no photos or that no evidence has leaked does not make the story any less real or plausible to me.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I don't read too much into the "it's not real without a photo!" bs for this and many other reasons.

And thus, *everything* is real. Nuclear powered hypersonic VTOL interceptors? Sure! SSTO space fighters with antimatter engines? Sure! Nazi azntigravity flying saucers? Sure! Skepticism is BS!

Bah.

Once you have declared that the insistence upon evidence is BS, you have made whatever it is you're obsessed about a *religion.*

 

[Stargazer]

The fact that faith needn't be based on solid, circumstanciated evidence doesn't necessarily make one a fanatic, does it?

 

[Orionblamblam]

The fact that faith needn't be based on solid, circumstanciated evidence doesn't necessarily make one a fanatic, does it?

Faith that is countered by the facts (creationism, flat-earthism, young-earthism, hollw-earthism, socialism, etc.) makes one a fanatic. But this forum, unless I miss my guess, is *not* a religion-forum. ATS, on the other hand, *is.*

While Paul is the final arbiter of such things, seems to me that aircraft designs that are *not* supported by actual evidence are out of place here.

 

[blackstar]

The fact that there are no photos or that no evidence has leaked does not make the story any less real or plausible to me.

Here's the problem: photos and things like official confirmation are very powerful pieces of evidence. They have high confidence levels. It's really hard to say that something does not exist when there is a photo of it. (Yeah, photos can be faked or misinterpreted. Let's not go there for now.)

But without that powerful evidence, then what do you have? You have weak "circumstantial" evidence. And one of my big problems with the whole secret aircraft spotting crowd is that they don't really know how to do solid research or how to gather evidence. They take a circumstantial report at face value and then ask if it is credible or not, they rarely try to actually verify the evidence.

A good example was Bill Scott's cover story on Aviation Week several years ago concerning the "blackstar" spaceplane. If you read that article carefully, you would see that it was based upon very weak, second-hand "evidence." For example, the reporter mentioned a couple of eyewitness sightings of the mothership aircraft. But there was no indication that the reporter himself had actually interviewed the eyewitnesses. The article strongly implied that he was simply repeating things made by other plane-spotters. And after a story gets repeated and repeated again its accuracy goes down.

So, an "eyewitness account" could be accurate. But it's very weak evidence. And the only way to strengthen it is to gather similar accounts and to check the credibility of the witnesses--in other words, interview them yourself, and interview people who know them (asking questions like "are they crazy?").

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Yeah!

 

[sublight]

A good example was Bill Scott's cover story on Aviation Week several years ago concerning the "blackstar" spaceplane. If you read that article carefully, you would see that it was based upon very weak, second-hand "evidence." For example, the reporter mentioned a couple of eyewitness sightings of the mothership aircraft. But there was no indication that the reporter himself had actually interviewed the eyewitnesses.

But look at Bill Scott's resume, its pretty impeccable. He either made a mistake (as people sometimes do) or he did a "favor" for his NSA buddies in putting out some disinformation....

 

[blackstar]

But look at Bill Scott's resume, its pretty impeccable. He either made a mistake (as people sometimes do)

I'm a little thick, so I don't know if this is intended to be humor or not. But I never thought that his record was "impeccable." In fact, he wrote some rather incredulous stories for Aviation Week over the years, and never followed up with hard evidence. I didn't know much about him before the Blackstar incident, but when I went and looked back at his previous stories, I got the impression that he was willing to run rumors without actually checking them. Doesn't that go on his "resume" as well?

And in fact, I don't think he has helped his case:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0702.html

That is an interview with Scott from April 2007. In it Scott states:

"Ref. the Blackstar system: I now have several photos of the XOV spaceplane sitting on a Lockheed Martin flightline ramp, so the vehicle definitely exists. Based on 15+ years of sighting reports, inside sources, etc., I determined that Blackstar's SR-3 carrier aircraft and several versions of the XOV were built and flown."

Now that was three years ago that he claimed to have photos which he has never produced.

or he did a "favor" for his NSA buddies in putting out some disinformation....

How would that help his credibility any?

But that's not really relevant here. Somebody may have a good resume and a history of producing excellent information. But that only goes so far. It does not constitute "proof." Bob Woodward has a history of getting powerful people to tell him secrets, but if he ran an article claiming that flying saucers are real, I'd want to see his evidence.

 

[sublight]

Well if this doesn't look pretty impeccable, I don't know what does....

"Bill is a Flight Test Engineer (FTE) graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and a licensed commercial pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings. In 12 years of military and civilian flight testing, plus evaluating aircraft for Aviation Week over 22 years, he’s logged approximately 2,000 hours of flight time on 80 aircraft types. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from California State University-Sacramento.


During a nine-year Air Force career, Bill served as aircrew on classified airborne-sampling missions, collecting nuclear debris by flying through radioactive clouds; an electronics engineering officer at the National Security Agency, developing space communications security systems for satellites; and an instrumentation and flight test engineer on U.S. Air Force fighter and transport aircraft development programs. He also served as a civilian FTE/program manager for three aerospace companies: General Dynamics (F-16 Full Scale Development), Falcon Jet Corp. (Coast Guard HU-25A development and certification), and Tracor Flight Systems Inc. (Canadair Challenger development and certification, plus numerous fighter, transport and helicopter test programs)."

 

[blackstar]

But why would that make him an authority on things after he left the Air Force? I would assume that more important would be his credibility as a reporter. How many of his stories about super-secret extraordinary aircraft proved to be true? And how many were either unproven, or disproven?

Similarly, you can look at what happened to Nick Cook. He had a lot of credibility as an editor at Janes. But then he started writing about anti-gravity devices and Nazi UFOs.

And as I noted, a person's previous record only gets them so far. It does not substitute for lack of evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And when it came to Blackstar, there was no good evidence.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Yeah, I'm gonna go with Dwayne on this one. Need I point out Dan Rather and the fiasco that turned his cred as a "respected journalist" into the-now train wreck of a career path he's been on since. There you go. You can take that to the bank.

Let's what Bill Scott will serve up for Act III.

 

[quellish]

I don't read too much into the "it's not real without a photo!" bs for this and many other reasons.

Once you have declared that the insistence upon evidence is BS, you have made whatever it is you're obsessed about a *religion.*

Sorry, after re-reading my post I can see how it was less than clear. I was absolutely not arguing against the insistence of evidence, I was arguing against the insistence of *photographic* evidence.
For example, imagine someone saying the KH-11 is not real, because it has not been photographed (close up).
Or someone saying that TSSAM never flew. It did, records of the flight tests are all over the place, but photos are hard to come by.

Really. I've heard this line time and time again.

Was more than one cooling method proposed for the X-24C?

 

[blackstar]

But photographic evidence is some of the strongest possible evidence for certain things. Yes, there are many other things that can constitute evidence. But what you cited--an eyewitness account--generally ranks as one of the weakest (or lowest confidence) forms of evidence. That's what really kicked off the discussion.

 

[quellish]

But photographic evidence is some of the strongest possible evidence for certain things. Yes, there are many other things that can constitute evidence. But what you cited--an eyewitness account--generally ranks as one of the weakest (or lowest confidence) forms of evidence. That's what really kicked off the discussion.

Sorry, I wasn't citing eyewitness accounts. I was giving examples of things that people do not bother to report on, or snap a picture of. I'm not sure how my post was taken as an eyewitness account

 

[Stargazer]

Perhaps I was responsible for the confusion, although my example was not used to justify the notion of eyewitnessing. Rather the point I was trying to make is that I'm more willing to believe a high ranking officer telling me something he witnessed firsthand than what an average soldier or a lazy journalist might report having heard about. The difference doesn't lie only in how credible the story is, but how reliable the source is, depending on their professional status and references.

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

I don't know. In my experience, an officer can be just as full of it as your enlisted grunt. If an officer wanted to pull your leg or just embellish something ordinary for own his tale's sake, he's gonna do so.

In a COMPLETELY TOPIC RELATED question, was there any specific payloads or experiments intended for the small payload bay on Lockheed's variant of the X-24C?

 

[edwest4]

To airrocket -


I don't know why you're so puzzled about NASA's decision making. The US Government has the final say as far as I'm concerned.

Regarding a few lifting body designs - where does the lift come from? Honestly, I've seen one shape that reminds me of a guy sitting in a bathtub. Just looking for a little help here.





Ed

 

[mz]

well, almost anything has lift. And if you fly fast enough, that lift keeps you in the air. After spending the rocket fuel, these things are not very heavy. When touching down, you need to flare to avoid a large vertical speed though.