SR-71

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Maple1 wrote in

http://gizmodo.com/5052279/f+117-ste...-%252B-caterpi
llar-crus her--pile-of-sadness

That aircraft was ‘Article 784’, the fifth full-scale
development F-117A, and it was destroyed at the US Air Force’s
Plant 42 site in Palmdale, Calif after being stripped of all
useable and secret items..

All the remaining operational Blackjets were retired to
Tonopah. (other than the 4 now in museums)

Interesting. Thanks.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Whatever, have a great Saturday, John. I've learned a lot
from you about these planes.

My pleasure,,,
BTW: the B-2 crash at ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam
was due to water in several of the air-data sensors
causeing the flight control computers to get bad data..

Hmmm. I am aware that the flight characteristics of the F-117 are
so poor that it cannot fly without it's computer(s). Is that also
true of the B-2, i.e., if the computer(s) fail for any reason, like
rain killing the data sensors, the plane goes down? Wow! Double
plus ungood! Thank God for redundant systems and good design.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

"HEMI-Powered" wrote in
So, if these very expensive - $2B each? - and very scarce,
what protects them from a terrorist attack of some sort on
Guam or an attack by another country with an air force and/or
missiles?

Very efficent and armed Security forces. and a few signs.

Neat sign and I certainly believe it. But, perhaps the question is,
would a SEAL team-like assault term give a damn? Wouldn't a
dedicated or fanatical terrorist group be able to overcome whatever
"deadly force" Anderson has?

Do you agree that mainly parking these birds in the American
Midwest was chosen to maximize their ability to fly anywhere
in the world with the most optimum time as well as protect
them (hopefull) from attack?

makes sense to me.. long way from the coast ( and
missiles), in the
heartland. away from a major population centers. same reason
missile fields were once placed there....

Well, for once, I speculuated right. Thanks for the confirmaton,
John. I commented yesterday or the day before that I thought they
were based in the Midwest both for protection from terrorist or
mid-range missiles, but also so they could fly either to a Korea or
SE Asia hot spot or Iran/Middle East in about the same time and
distance. Basing the entire wing someplace else would aggravate
that, plus make security much more difficult. Too bad that planes
this large can't launch and land on a CVN, it'd be a great place to
deploy some in the Persian Gulf.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

So, if these very expensive - $2B each? - and very scarce,
what protects them from a terrorist attack of some sort on
Guam

also the B-2 has been deployed on a short term basis to
Australia
as well..(more or less a training operation)

Didn't know that either.

The picture looks pretty lethal but let me tell you a story from my
fighting the Red Smear days, circa 1971. I was stationed in Bavaria
in a Pershing tactical missile battalion. One month out of 4, we'd
"deploy" to a hard site where the missiles were set up and armed
with nuclear warheads, but the warheads themselves were obviously
not armed. There was a really tall, maybe 10 feet or so, double
barb wire fence around the whole place and I think two rows of
fencing with a killing zone in between. A company of Army infantry
guarded the place for us.

That's all great, I guess. But, security tests were run
occasionally and it was trivially easy to bluff your way past the
gate guards with the simple ploy of dressing in an Army officer's
uniform. Yeah, that's been fixed, but I also was fearful of the
fact that the hard site was surrounded by farmland with no
protection at all. My biggest fear, such that it was, was that a
sapper squad or two could simply get in close at night and mortar
the place. And then there was the constant threat of being only 9
minutes away from Soviet tactical nucks in Czechoslovakia ...

I only have one picture of the hard site missiles (attached) which
does show a double row of fences but few guards are visible. I used
a small 35mm range finder camera to grab this picture quickly by
standing in the doorway of my radio van and shooting over the roof
(I was outside the security perimeter but still inside a fenced
area). It was a special court martial offense back them to
photograph the missiles on the hard site but I always wondered what
would stop someone from shooting pictures from the farmland with a
bigger camera and telephoto lens. Besides which, there ain't much
to be seen of value to a foreign power.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Why cadmium-free tools? would there be a weird electrolytic
reaction or something if cadmium came in contact with the
paint?

traces of cadmium left on the bolts caused the heads of the
bolts to
break off when, the planes/engines got hot...
remember these planes suffered the heat of friction of the
air. the pilots were reported to warm their food by holding it
close to the windscreens.

Really?! I do know that the skin of the aircraft got hot enough to
glow red in the dark, which is pretty damn hot to heat titanium by
air friction even at speeds about it's unclassified speed of Mach
3. I was educated as an engineer but it's been 40 years since I
took Strength of Materials, and there weren't no exotic materials
back then. But, I cannot imagine cadmium causing some kind of
reaction or messing up the heat dissipation enough to crack off a
head. Obviously, I believe you, it just shows how really difficult
it must've been for Kelly Johnson to develop and build such a
plane.

I fully believe that the windscreen would be hot enough to heat
food. When I was running my radio van in the field using the 10 KW
V-4 air cooled generator built in, I used the exhaust manifold to
heat my C-rations.

I must've missed your first mention of this book. Could you
please repeat the title as well as the author so I can make a
note go to the library?

Skunk Works by Ben Rich & Leo Janos
ISNB 0-316-74330-5

Thank you, I'll look for it.

Do you foresee anything on the horizon for a high altitude,
maybe stealthy, high speed air breathing aircraft to be
developed especially for intelligence gathering to replace
the Blackbird?

IMHO:
No, but believe me, I am FAR from an expert, FAR, FAR...
I just follow . what I can find, and research and read much...
:-)

I wouldn't downplay your knowledge, John. You've got a fantastic
store on a wide variety of aircraft and I suspect you either have a
large library of reference and picture books (as I do of car books,
my specialty) and/or you have a large digital collection.

I find it interesting to go from analysis, which is the study of
data, to synthesis, which is the extrapolation of current data to
reach conclusions. So, I would think that your judgment is quite
keen on military and intelligence aircraft, John.

I don't go in for conspiracy theories or little green men, but I do
believe it is necessary for our country to be constantly vigilent
against a rapidly changing new set of enemies while still keeping
an eye on our former Cold War enemies who are still very active.
So, while I have zerio knowledge, I would strongly suspect that
something is being at least discussed to take the place of a fast,
high flying intelligence aircraft, but I would also include in my
synthesis that we may be designing and deploying more and more
sophisticated spy satellites which are impervious to attack with
today's technology and perhaps get enough of them to shorten the
time of reorienting a satellite to spy on a rapidly evolving
situation. That might get rid of the need to develop a multi-
billion dollar new aircraft that would be outrageously expensive to
fly and maintain.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

"HEMI-Powered" wrote in
Neat sign and I certainly believe it. But, perhaps the question is,
would a SEAL team-like assault term give a damn? Wouldn't a
dedicated or fanatical terrorist group be able to overcome whatever
"deadly force" Anderson has?


Sure, Anything is possible. But at what cost, for what benefit ?

When I was stationed at Ft Campbell,(before our little trip overseas
in 1967)..
we had a nice little compound less then a mile from our barracks. Know
as Clarksville Base. (AKA: The Birdcage) guarded by a detachment of
Marines, with 4 fences around the place, two floodlights every 50 ft
2nd fence was electric. two patrol ring roads
The Marines carried live ammo,
and there were those signs everywhere..

the 160th (Night stalkers) helicopter unit is housed there now.
the fences are gone, but you can still see some of the signs...

There are several websites that detail the place..


Anything can be attacked given the right resources..
but you have to weigh the cost/gain ratio..

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Neat sign and I certainly believe it. But, perhaps the
question is, would a SEAL team-like assault term give a damn?
Wouldn't a dedicated or fanatical terrorist group be able to
overcome whatever "deadly force" Anderson has?

Sure, Anything is possible. But at what cost, for what
benefit ?

Maybe I shouldn't belabor this, but the BIG lesson we learned on
9/11 plus our experiences in both Afghanistan and Iraq is that a
dedicated enemy of Islamic terrorists such as Al Qaeda will stop
at nothing to attack a target of opportunity, usually at very low
cost and with very low numbers of boots on the ground (but very
highly trained). What I learned myself almost 40 years ago can
possibly be extrapolated today with shoulder mounted RPGs and
even 10 kilo ton nukes that are small enough to literlly fit into
a minivan.

John, one of the things I learned when I was first assigned to be
Chrysler's Engineering Information Security Manager was a saying
that said "the only two kinds of people that've never had a
security breach are the arrogant and the ignorant". Perhaps we
could apply that same logic to a very small scale
military/terrorist attack here ...

When I was stationed at Ft Campbell,(before our little trip
overseas in 1967)..

Where did you go then, the rice paddies? I don't recall you ever
saying what branch of the military you were in, your rank (I left
as a hard stripe Sergeant E-5), and job. I'd be very interested
in that because I could learn from your experiences.

we had a nice little compound less then a mile from our
barracks. Know
as Clarksville Base. (AKA: The Birdcage) guarded by a
detachment of Marines, with 4 fences around the place, two
floodlights every 50 ft 2nd fence was electric. two patrol
ring roads
The Marines carried live ammo,
and there were those signs everywhere..

the 160th (Night stalkers) helicopter unit is housed there
now. the fences are gone, but you can still see some of the
signs...

There are several websites that detail the place..

I don't understand your point. You're saying that this place was,
in your opinion, reasonably impregnable?

Anything can be attacked given the right resources..
but you have to weigh the cost/gain ratio..

I certainly agree with this in principle, but the Al Qaeda
attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon (only because the
fools got lost in D.C. looking for the White House, else we'd
have had a big hole in that) and a field in Pennsylvania were
attacked by trained airline pilots - only 20 of maybe 30 in-
country - that nobody, NOBODY even surmised might mount that kind
of attack. Every year coming up to 9/11 everyone gets nervous
even though Osama Bin Laden himself has said that they will
attack when they are ready and when we are vulnerable, and NOT on
arbitrary anniversaries or special dates, ala this year's
election. I said I'm not a conspiracy believer and I'm also not
an alarmist, but frankly with all due respect to our dedicated
people in the FBI, CIA, and Homeland Security, I don't think they
could find a terrorist if they were looking at them. There've
been a few terrorist attacks that were, fortunately, stopped and
I'm someone sure that some people are being surveilled right now,
but I have to wonder ...

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

"HEMI-Powered" wrote in
When I was stationed at Ft Campbell,(before our little trip
overseas in 1967)..

Where did you go then, the rice paddies? I don't recall you ever
saying what branch of the military you were in, your rank (I left
as a hard stripe Sergeant E-5), and job. I'd be very interested
in that because I could learn from your experiences.

Yep..
trained as a member of an airborne artillery FDC
crosstrained as a Airborne Pathfinder, left after my tour
as a SPC-5


I don't understand your point. You're saying that this place was,
in your opinion, reasonably impregnable?

Pretty much, the same as the gold Vault at Ft Knox, probably more so..

John Szalay added these comments in the current discussion du
jour ...

Where did you go then, the rice paddies? I don't recall you
ever saying what branch of the military you were in, your
rank (I left as a hard stripe Sergeant E-5), and job. I'd be
very interested in that because I could learn from your
experiences.

Yep..
trained as a member of an airborne artillery FDC
crosstrained as a Airborne Pathfinder, left after my tour
as a SPC-5

I was the oldest guy in my BCT company at Ft. Dix in June, 1970 at
23 being that I had a college defermant for 4 years plus a year a
Chrysler before I got drafted. We had this 17 year old kid that
never stopped talking about going airborne so he naturally picked
up the nickname Airborne. Finally, even our drill sergeant,
airborne infantry and Viet Nam tested himself said "son, there is
something unnatural about jumping out of an airplane in level
flight!"

My respects to you, John, for your contributions.

I don't understand your point. You're saying that this place
was, in your opinion, reasonably impregnable?

Pretty much, the same as the gold Vault at Ft Knox, probably
more so..

Thanks. As I think I said earlier, rule breakers can always stay
ahead of rule makers so let's hope that them who have the
responsibility of securing our military bases and our civilian
population are thinking out-of-the-box for new threats, e.g. like
when the Brits discovered people trying to bring liquid explosives
on board an airliner.

--
HP, aka Jerry

"Don't say 'can't' when you really mean 'won't'"

"HEMI-Powered" wrote in Finally, even our drill sergeant,
airborne infantry and Viet Nam tested himself said "son, there is
something unnatural about jumping out of an airplane in level
flight!"


Yep ! I agree, but boy is it a rush !

But then I was a firefighter for 17 years too,
& There is something unnatural about running into
a burning building too ! :-)