On Thu, 1 Sep 2011 00:27:13 -0700 (PDT), "miso@sushi.com"
<miso@sushi.com> wrote:
On Aug 30, 10:03 pm, STEALTHMAN <stealth...@iglou.com> wrote:
On Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:09:55 -0700 (PDT), "m...@sushi.com"
<m...@sushi.com> wrote:
On Aug 29, 1:35 am, STEALTHMAN <stealth...@iglou.com> wrote:
On Sat, 27 Aug 2011 22:37:16 -0700 (PDT), "m...@sushi.com"
<m...@sushi.com> wrote:
I doubt anyone reads this newsgroup since John Winston fucked it up
with his psychotic rambling bullshit, but I thought I'd look at this
old post regarding inconsistencies in the Skunk Works book. In fact I
thought I addressed this post, but apparently not.
Here is the original post:
--------------
1. Gosh Darn
Does anyone have the book by Ben Rich and Leo Janus?
Even the date in the General Welch text seems wrong, saying he
met with Fubini and Perry in 1976, when Perry was supposed to have
come into office with the Carter administration in 1977.
And the first sentence in the book seems inconsistent, and
the part where a high ranking official viewed Have Blue at the
"remote base" in the summer of 1977, but Have Blue #1
wasn't there until November of 1977, in fact wasn't
even assembled in the summer of 1977.
I can't think of any reason to alter dates intentionally,
and
surely the authors or the proof readers would catch such obvious
inconsistencies as the claim of Have Blue flying over a radar
range well after both Have Blue articles had supposedly
crashed.
Maybe I will never know the truth, many of those
involved are gone, and few people seem interested
in factual reporting.
Ken
---------
Page numbers using the hardcover version of Skunkworks:
Gene Fubini 302-303, 304, 310
General Welch: 240, 258, 317
with quotes on 41-42, 97-98
William Perry:
B-1 305
quotes 347-350
stealth 41, 42, 63-64,72, 273, 276-277, 302-309. 347
I don't see any common ground between Fubini and Welch. Just look at
the page numbers.
Now Welch and Perry might intersect on pages 41-42. Welch attends a
meeting held by Perry in 1976. The meeting was to discuss building an
operational stealth aircraft (who builds a nonoperational aircraft). I
suppose this would be the beginning of Have Blue.
Perry was in private industry in 1976, AFAICT, he
only joined the administration after Carter was in.
I am beginning to think maybe Ben Rich was pushing
a fighter based on the D-21 drone shape and RCS, and
then Perry in the late spring of 1977 specified all flat
surfaces, they could have had the frame, wheels and
engine in and changed the outer shape in a short time.
It just seems odd that my May 1977 paper which
went to NASA and was seen by the patent office and
probably the DoD liaison officers specified all flat
surfaces and I have a video where the program
manager said they would have used some curved
surfaces but the Air Force said to use all flat surfaces.
Page 3, essentially the first page of the book, says Have Blue was
tested in August 1979.
For RCS overflight, but both articles had crashed
by then, see Bill Parks comments.
So the meeting to start the project begins in 1976 and the first test
is in 1979. Seems consistent to me.
You did not write down the first flight dates,
December 1st, 1977 for article one, which Park
bailed out of in May of 1978.
And in the summer of 1978, article two flew
for the first time, and the pilot had to bail out in
July of 1979 when the engine had a problem.
That means nobody could have seen Have
Blue at the remote location (area 51) before
November of 1977, and no Have Blue flew
after July 1979.
Hopefully this post makes it to the group. Google Groups has been
screwed up lately.
Yeah, just delete win, day after day. :-)
I am pretty sure DARPA and military started
a competition in 1975 or 1976, but that Ben Rich
started out asking the CIA for permission to disclose
the RCS data of the D-21 drone to get into the
competition with Lockheed funding.
I have to accept that Bill Parks flew Article One
on December 1st, 1977 (even though not at the
time Ben Rich says, it wasn't daylight yet.
Write down the dates of first flight of both
planes and the dates they crashed, and see
that it doesn't match with all the text, I can
post page numbers tomorrow.
And from all indications, I don't think that
the Air Force would have allowed Lockheed
to file a patent application, except when they
saw I filed December 22, 1978, they hurriedly
had Lockheed prepare the application and
the Air Force flew it to the patent office and
had two supervisory attorneys rubber stamp
it in, and then put it in the Air Force vault in
the patent office where it stayed without
being examined until 1993.
In the meantime, I was forced to try to
write a more complete application, failed
again on the second attempt in 1981,
without a secrecy order, and then as soon
as I mailed in an application good enough
to be published, it was classified.
But my application was still examined,
the responses sent by registered mail,
restricted delivery so only I could receive
them, and I was given allowance in the
early part of 1988 for all shapes except
flat.
I had been told earlier that flat surfaces
were not new technology, and patent law
says that no patent can issue on art that
has been in public view for one year, and
I filed within a year, I found out 18 years
later that Lockheed did not file within one
year after my paper 11 from the air foil
patent 4,066,226 was put in public view
when the patent issued in January of 1978.
Just think, I could have filed in the summer
of 1976, I knew all the details, and I knew
it was technology that would change the
military balance of power in the world, and
I was afraid to put it all on paper.
A lot of the published information is just
not right, partly because some of it is surely
still classified.
I suppose a lot of the people are dead
now, it has been 35 years since I invented
all the shapes in patent 5,488,372. and
the F-117s have been in ready storage
a few years already.
So I will never know some of what went
on, and I think I did the right thing, just
continuing to secretly try to get the patent,
if I would have gone public it could have
caused a lot of harm.
Ken
Well let's write these date errors up in as clear of a manner as
possible and I will ask the "historian" his opinion.
Chances are the date conflicts can be easily explained,
on unnumbered Page 3, it was almost certainly August 1978,
and either a printer or typist typo showing 1979, the test Rich
described seemed to be a low level thing like a first test before
inviting the big wheels, I consider the comments by Bill Park
about crash dates to be correct, page 60, July 11, 1979 for
article 2, and Page 59, May 4, 1978 for article 1.
I can also check
published FOIAs and the CREST server. If not, then just do a FOIA. The
USAF policy is to only give out summaries of crash reports, so they
are basically free for the asking.
It might not be worth the effort, being the book was
co-authored, a lot of mistakes could happen.
The CIA gives out the entire crash
report, which are easily 400+ pages. You can choke a laser printer
just getting them out, and you are stuck with the task of crossing out
the security markings on each page, top and bottom, before you can
leave the library. It's a bunch of monkey work. Damn good thing if you
are at NARA, the cost of the paper and toner is on the agency.
Being the program was Air Force and DARPA, maybe
the CIA did not get involved.
I suspect flat surfaces were picked simply to make them easier for
computer simulation.
That is Ben Rich's story, but consider that I only mentioned
_all_ flat surfaces in Paper number 11, in May 1977, about the
time it seems Perry would have gotten involved, I was very afraid
to put more details on paper, and in the EAC patent application
I mailed on December 1978 I still did not provide any other details,
I just referenced Paper number 11 of Issued Patent 4,066, 226.
What would a computer be needed for, all flat surfaces is
pretty definite, no matter what the actual shape.
And the video I have of Alan Brown saying, "we would have
rounded some corners, but the Air Force specified all flat surfaces"
seems to say the Air Force had some source for technology other
than Lockheed.
And the fact that Northrop had partly the same design, with
some DARPA input would seem to mean another source besides
Lockheed, or just an extension of the issued Wintersdorff patent.
Whatever Lockheed used for simulation was either
NEC or just a hack of it. Even today, a lot of acoustical design is
done with flat surfaces for that reason, plus the final product is
cheaper to build. For an airplane you would want smoother surfaces, so
going the next step (curved) was important. I'm sure nobody thought a
subsonic stealth fighter was a winning plane in the long term.
It did turn out to be a winning ground attack fighter, no need
for speed, which would just complicate the thermal signature.
When you mention patents, there is also the issue of secret patents. I
doubt those are out for the public to inspect before they a granted.
Patent law changed a lot between the time I applied, and when
the secrecy orders were removed.
I heard some Groom Lake audio either on the net or what someone gave
me where they were dropping balls from a think a chopper. It sounded
like radar tuning. The base, not lacking a sensor of humor, used the
callsign ITCHY for the balls dropper.
I don't know anything about radar, and never saw a set in
operation, but flew as crew chief in a lot of GCA landings in
1947.
I suspect Groom has been in high gear this summer with no Red Flag to
get in the way. The weather has not been very good for visual purposes
nor hill climbing (too hot and lots of sparks in the air), but the
scanner stuff has been interesting. I need to track the senders down
and see what I can upload.
No telling what they are doing, we may never know, there
is definitely a lot about stealth that has not been declassified,
I think Clinton declassifying my patent was a big mistake, it
may have become the bible for aircraft design in Russia and
China, and I feel bad about that.
I asked an Air Force attorney in 1995 if they really wanted
to remove the secrecy order, and he said, "I hope they know
what they are doing", referring to the Army Patent Advisory
Board.
It is just a coincidence, but the last two nights since
I wrote the last message a military helicopter has flown
low over my house, that hasn't happened for a long time. :-)
Another apparent error is on Page 64, telling that ZB,
the NSC chief was taken to the "remote base" where he
kicked HBs tires, in June, it doesn't give the year, but the
text seems to suggest it was 1977, which is impossible,
HB 1 was not there before November 1977.
I don't know why Ben Rich had a co-author, the book
was apparently written well after he retired, so he had
plenty of time on his hands.
What really intrigues me is that no editor or any
person in the media will even talk to me about the
subject as if I am blowing smoke, 12 years of secrecy
orders put me in danger of jail time if I slipped up and
disclosed anything about the subject, and it looks like
I will never get back any of the money I invested.
The fact that the Air Force has a mini space shuttle
that is big enough to carry a crew for a few day mission
is interesting, with it spending months in orbit unmanned,
and the Russian spacecraft that was supposed to change
the ISS crew is grounded, hopefully not for long.
I read in another book on the F-117 that all were
trucked to the remote base, that must have been
noticed by somebody, but it was a long time ago.
I really enjoyed the trips to Edwards in 1964-1965,
and seeing the SR-71 and the B-70 in flying condition.
And having anything to do with stealth has been
35 years of fun and frustration.
Thanks for the message,
Ken
I think I will reread the book and make a timeline, unless you have
done that.
I just made notes of the self inconsistencies,
along with some crazy errors, like saying the F-20
was a two-engine jet.
With flat panels, not only is one simulation faster, but all the
simulations will go faster.
There appears to have been movement toward flat
surfaces as time passed, the first reference the patent
office sent me was;
http://www.google.com/patents/about/4019699_Aircraft_of_low_observability.html?id=VxY2AAAAEBAJ
Which said "surfaces flat as possible within aerodynamic......"
They probably tested all known radar
frequencies. Probably had to find a compromise shape between them all.
The shaping gives the same results for all frequencies,
I assumed from the beginning that a big part of radar was
just the optical component, and I used red hot oven heating
elements to test various shapes, but I was working from
optical theory to start, while it seems the industry had no
theory to work from.
They probably simulated the shape of the plane being distorted in
flight, i.e. dynamic RCS. I can only guess at their reasoning.
That would be a big factor.
This wouldn't be the first time a design or model of a design was
simplified to make simulation practical. [Most logic simulators never
account for continuous time effects.]
I really know nothing about what actually happened in
the industry, all I know is when DARPA, ARMY, NASA, NAVY
and Air Force people accessed my application.
As you probably know, the Navy never got with the stealth program.
Sure they did, the newer bigger F-18s are more stealthy,
as are F-15s and F-16s, there was a little retrofit plus more
in new production planes.
They just jammed and spoofed. If it wasn't for the F35 being shared
between the AF and Navy, I bet the Navy still wouldn't be using
stealth. Gates chopped back a bit on some of the USAF planes just to
get a few extra Growlers.
I imagine most RCS numbers are classified, and I am sure
a lot of stealth is still classified, which is why I try not to guess
too much about what is being done.
If I would have been employed by the government or any
company under government contract, the government would
have taken my patent.
Unless you have written a book before, I don't think a coauthor is a
bad idea. Self publication is probably the worst, i.e. nobody reads
the book and it is dumped out to the world. Uh, kind of like the
internet, or more accurately, like Mr. Winston. (I assume he pulled
Winston from "1984." Much like the nom de plume used by the publisher
of 2600 magazine [Emanuel Goldstein])
I think you are right.
You can always write a book "How they stole stealth from me".
It's all my fault, instead of filing a patent application
as soon as it was all clear, out of fear of disclosure, I
just wrote that paper # 11, and tried to figure out the
best way to put it all on paper without taking a chance
on public disclosure.
I am sure Lockheed started out with the idea of
using the D-21 drone as the basis, but all indications
are that DARPA and the Air Force had some special
requirements.
I just noticed tonight that Bill Sweetman's 1986
book on stealth aircraft mentions the Have Blue
program but gives different dates, saying Bill Park
crashed in 1979, and number two was lost much
later, probably confused with one of the F-117
crashes.
There is still a lot of mystery about what the
technology used on the B2 was, it seemed to me
like there was somebody working with the patent
examiner trying to clarify some things with me
about certain things.
All the resistance to doing away with curved
fairing and rounding was a big surprise to me,
there was an obvious need for a plane with
all aspect radar invisibility.
What my life would have been like if I would
have filed a good application in early 1976 is
am interesting question, that would have been
3 years before Lockheed filed the XST-Have Blue
application.
But it all turned out ok, except I didn't get my
money back, the original filing was cheap enough,
only $65 filing fee, but the fees went up during the
1980s and the three maintenance fees cost me
over $7,000.
I suppose I could have gone more public after
the patent issued, like a few years ago the regional
AWST editor wanted to stop by my house and I
made an excuse, I really don't want any public
exposure or even photographs, etc.
What I am interested in is facts, as long as there
is no need for them to be classified.
A lot is said about RAM and composites, which
is different than what is in my patent, although it
is certain those things are important in the practical
application.
I have made a few attempts to start a book,
but a movie might be better, helped along by
several other patent applications I filed.
It was fun and exciting joking about invisible
airplanes and cars, and at times very scary when
the patent office screwed up, losing my application
for a while, asking for a copy to rebuild the file, and
another time sending me an office action on another
person's application.
It seems odd that with all the extra wide loads
going up the freeway to Las Vegas that nobody
wrote much about them, I wonder if a reporter
would have been stopped if he tried to follow a
truck to see where it was going.
There probably is a lot going on now with new
types of electronic and non-explosive weapons,
and it is hard to believe all the blackbirds and
nighthawks are in storage.
Maybe I will try to write about events in the
1970s and 1980s on line here, as an archive
of what I write, I hate the work of trying to put
the finishing touches on and trying to organize
things even though the computer makes it
easier, I had to use a typewriter and white
eraser working on the patent applications.
Ken