Aurora - a Famous Speculative Project

Byeman said:
The box is a lot more than LA, it includes Bakersfield and Fort Irwin and the area around Edwards
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Corner to corner, that box is 250 miles across. That's some 15 minutes supersonic (at 1000mph). How many planes in the US inventory can spend 15 minutes in afterburner?
 
Scott Kenny said:
Because I was assuming a much longer supersonic time than just some jerk pilot booming LA.
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Well, one jerk thought to roll a B-52 and knife-edged it into the ground....kids. I wouldn't put it past some pilots to use a boom to shatter windows...swoop past farmers with Blackhawks....some of the urban legends about black helicopters probably began as some prank or other...scaring Ma and Pa Kettle.

"Mailbox baseball" at altitude.

That's easier to believe than some secret plane....or it'd have a photograph here.
 
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publiusr said:
Well, one jerk thought to roll a B-52 and knife-edged it into the ground....kids. I wouldn't put it past some pilots to use a boom to shatter windows...swoop past farmers with Blackhawks....some of the urban legends about black helicopters probably began as some prank or other...scaring Ma and Pa Kettle.

"Mailbox baseball" at altitude.

That's easier to believe than some secret plane....or it'd have a photograph here.
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Crud, I've wanted to do some rude things with a flight out of John Wayne International, due to their absolutely dangerous throttle chop on climbout to not annoy the neighbors. Something fun like a T38 or other supersonic aircraft. Engine failure on throttle reduction, not enough power on one engine to maintain altitude, emergency restart about 200ft above ground and slamming into full afterburner to regain altitude.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Corner to corner, that box is 250 miles across. That's some 15 minutes supersonic (at 1000mph). How many planes in the US inventory can spend 15 minutes in afterburner?
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Most them. Many have over 500 miles range at full afterburner.
 
publiusr said:
Well, one jerk thought to roll a B-52 and knife-edged it into the ground....kids. I wouldn't put it past some pilots to use a boom to shatter windows...swoop past farmers with Blackhawks....some of the urban legends about black helicopters probably began as some prank or other...scaring Ma and Pa Kettle.

"Mailbox baseball" at altitude.

That's easier to believe than some secret plane....or it'd have a photograph here.
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I thought that B-52 pilot was older and very experienced?
 
Morgan said:
Well, not secret but covert - North EDW, Beale, among others...
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For those that think that Plant 42 or Edwards North Base are "covert"....

Edwards North Base is close to a busy public highway.

EDWNorth-Annotated.jpg

Plant 42 is surrounded by urban sprawl. Housing, large shopping malls, etc. There are public roads that cover the perimeter of Palmdale Regional Airport. There are also walking/bike trails.

Palmdale-Annotated.jpg
 
bobbymike said:
I thought that B-52 pilot was older and very experienced?
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Yep. That crew was a 46-year-old O-5 (Lt Col) as PiC, 2 other O-5s as the crew, and a full bird Colonel as copilot and "safety observer." Because they knew the PiC was unsafe and decided not to risk any junior crew (some of whom had already refused to fly with him). But leadership didn't have the integrity to ground him for his last flight despite a documented series of safety violations. It wasn't "kids," it was the "old guard" looking the other way and worrying more about perceptions and reputations than safety.
 
quellish said:
........

This is after many years of research and continually changing methods, standards, and re-evaluating that position. I am much more skeptical than I was 20+ years ago, yet given the information/evidence I have seen (and verified) I do believe that there was something flying.
.......
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Perhaps you could give us a summary of the information/evidence you have verified? And maybe an idea as to what sort of platform you think was actually tested or put into limited service? Thanks!!
 
gweller said:
Perhaps you could give us a summary of the information/evidence you have verified? And maybe an idea as to what sort of platform you think was actually tested or put into limited service? Thanks!!
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There will be a series of articles published on the new platform. When I say platform here I mean new website / service.
 
quellish said:
Sorry, I’ve been writing appeals, which is sort of like administering an exorcism.

“The power of FOIA compels you!”
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I meant in your presentation style on your new platform.

Chris
 
A while ago I came up for a reason as to why Aurora may still be classified. That being the current hypersonics arms race. Revealing an hypersonic spy plane will further increase tensions and worsen the hypersonic arms race, and will prompt adversaries to develop even faster or more hypersonic missiles. Of course, this may not be a good reason for Aurora still being classified, just wanted to say that right now. And nor am I saying this is why Aurora is still classified.
 
Ninja said:
A while ago I came up for a reason as to why Aurora may still be classified. That being the current hypersonics arms race. Revealing an hypersonic spy plane will further increase tensions and worsen the hypersonic arms race, and will prompt adversaries to develop even faster or more hypersonic missiles. Of course, this may not be a good reason for Aurora still being classified, just wanted to say that right now. And nor am I saying this is why Aurora is still classified.
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Of course, that's just your very basic arms race paranoia logic (which sadly has been thoroughly validated through the ages...).
 
Ninja said:
A while ago I came up for a reason as to why Aurora may still be classified. That being the current hypersonics arms race. Revealing an hypersonic spy plane will further increase tensions and worsen the hypersonic arms race, and will prompt adversaries to develop even faster or more hypersonic missiles. Of course, this may not be a good reason for Aurora still being classified, just wanted to say that right now. And nor am I saying this is why Aurora is still classified.
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Once things are classified, they (generally) do not get declassified without some kind of reason, and even then go through a review. There is a widespread misconception that the "25-year automatic declassification rule" means that anything 25 years old or more is automatically declassified. That is not how it works.

That said, plenty of things get declassified but are still inaccessible. Technical documents about the XST prototypes were declassified years ago (see here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secrets-skunk-works-180952122/) but remain inaccessible. No federal agency seems to be able to locate a copy.

And classification is just one of many reasons the government uses to withhold documents. With classification there are processes where the public can get a document declassified. With other FOIA exceptions.... not so much.

For example, FOIA exemption 3, "Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law" is frequently used to withhold technical information. Ask NASA for a document about the Redstone rocket, they will use exemption 3 and cite export control laws as a way of withholding a 50+ year old document that was never classified. The government uses exemptions like this - and abuses them - to withhold information indefinitely.
 
quellish said:
Once things are classified, they (generally) do not get declassified without some kind of reason, and even then go through a review. There is a widespread misconception that the "25-year automatic declassification rule" means that anything 25 years old or more is automatically declassified. That is not how it works.

That said, plenty of things get declassified but are still inaccessible. Technical documents about the XST prototypes were declassified years ago (see here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/secrets-skunk-works-180952122/) but remain inaccessible. No federal agency seems to be able to locate a copy.

And classification is just one of many reasons the government uses to withhold documents. With classification there are processes where the public can get a document declassified. With other FOIA exceptions.... not so much.

For example, FOIA exemption 3, "Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law" is frequently used to withhold technical information. Ask NASA for a document about the Redstone rocket, they will use exemption 3 and cite export control laws as a way of withholding a 50+ year old document that was never classified. The government uses exemptions like this - and abuses them - to withhold information indefinitely.
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Believe it or not, Playstation 2s were embargoed to most of the middle east for a long time, may still be. Because their processors are vector math/graphics units, which are basically ideal for ballistic missile guidance.
 
On the topic of classification, I've often wondered whether the whole "spy plane" thing was genuine or whether it was a McGuffin put up in the 1980s?

Aurora seems to have been assumed as an SR-71 replacement without much evidence of that fact other than the hypothesis that high speed = reconnaissance aircraft and that led logically to the leap Aurora = Blackbird replacement. Of all the high-speed black/advanced white projects that we know of only Oxcart/A-12 was actually a recon asset. Many of the other hypersonic and spaceplane projects were purely research, though many of course had potential military use.
How logical was it that an advanced hypersonic project would leap from drawing board to operational aircraft without some kind of proving research testbed first? That was the whole point of the X-series for example, to prove technologies for ultimate operational use.

Plus leaping to the conclusion that it was a recon platform automatically justified the high classification assumed for it. As Descartes once (maybe) said "I spy, therefore I am secret."
Given the paranoia of the time Aurora might well have been interpreted as a hypersonic nuclear strike weapon or an ASAT fighter part of Star Wars, but no it was the spy plane thing that stuck.

The fact that the majority of the conspiracy "Area 51" aircraft are reconnaissance platforms (Aurora, TR-3B Manta (plus the non-exotic TR-3A), F-121 Sentinel, Blackstar, Galaxy 'Theme Castle', Copper Coast, Brilliant Buzzard, Snow Bird, TR-6 TELOS) or are special ops insertion craft (F-119A) I think reveals far more about the state surveillance obsessions of the proponents of these supposed sighted projects than anything else.

And of course given the laws of probability there can't be nine secret hypersonic spy planes out there! As Flateric would succinctly put it, there is a lot of BS here. Maybe they are all methane-powered?
 
Hood said:
On the topic of classification, I've often wondered whether the whole "spy plane" thing was genuine or whether it was a McGuffin put up in the 1980s?

Aurora seems to have been assumed as an SR-71 replacement without much evidence of that fact other than the hypothesis that high speed = reconnaissance aircraft and that led logically to the leap Aurora = Blackbird replacement.
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I think the recon mission is the one that makes the most sense for an "Aurora".
Putting it into the context of its time, when satellites weren't as present/persistent as today, having an asset that could be deployed in hours and different trajectories offered its advantages.

Nuclear strike with such a platform wouldn't really offer much over contemporary ICBMs.
Conventional strike, as a Prompt Global Strike predecessor? Again, I don't think that's something that would make much sense. If you were to use such an important platform to conduct a single conventional strike, the implications would be that said target is extremely important and is a well defended one. If you are striking this sort of enemy, you are most likely going to face a strong retaliation that will, in all probability, devolve in a nuclear exchange.

Then again, even as a recon platform this thing would only be able to take a snapshot of a certain location at any given time. Things may or may not happen during an overpass.
It would be a one trick pony. Extremely expensive at that, but pretty much unstoppable.

Maybe such a platform was meant to substitute for satellites in case of all out war. If satellites started to get taken out, having this sort of recon asset would make sense.
And maybe that's why it's still classified today. Not because of the technology involved, but because it's a back-up plan, something whose true worth would come out only at desperate times.

Hood said:
And of course given the laws of probability there can't be nine secret hypersonic spy planes out there! As Flateric would succinctly put it, there is a lot of BS here. Maybe they are all methane-powered?
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If I were a betting man, I would say just two hypersonic aircraft.
And would hazard one each for Lockheed (70s-80s higher perfomances and costs) and General Dynamics (late 80s-90s lower performances and costs).

And I would also hazard to say that the X-37B might be a successor, overlapping some of the capabilites an "Aurora" might have had.
 
Hood said:
The fact that the majority of the conspiracy "Area 51" aircraft are reconnaissance platforms (Aurora, TR-3B Manta (plus the non-exotic TR-3A), F-121 Sentinel, Blackstar, Galaxy 'Theme Castle', Copper Coast, Brilliant Buzzard, Snow Bird, TR-6 TELOS) or are special ops insertion craft (F-119A)
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Hood said:
And of course given the laws of probability there can't be nine secret hypersonic spy planes out there!
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To clarify, those are not 9 hypersonic aircraft:

- Aurora: OK, that is one
- TR-3A: Subsonic, and at this point completely debunked
- F-121 Sentinel: I really don't know what this is, I've seen it mentioned on one web page.
- Blackstar, Brilliant Buzzard, "Snow Bird" : All 3 are the same thing
- Galaxy 'Theme Castle': I don't know what "Galaxy" has to do with this, but THEME CASTLE was an airlift program, not a hypersonic aircraft
- TR-6 TELOS: I have no idea what that is

And

F-119A: Another I have no idea what it is. I've never heard of it before.


Hood said:
I think reveals far more about the state surveillance obsessions of the proponents of these supposed sighted projects than anything else.
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Keep in mind that reconnaissance and surveillance were urgent needs in the 1980s and 1990s. A key driver of those needs was the strategically relocatable targets mission - finding mobile SS-20s. There definitely were a number of reconnaissance aircraft programs in the 1980s.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Believe it or not, Playstation 2s were embargoed to most of the middle east for a long time, may still be. Because their processors are vector math/graphics units, which are basically ideal for ballistic missile guidance.
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It takes less avionic brain power for missiles than planes. The ABMA knew that.

The X-37 flies much faster upon return than Aurora ever could—-even if it was real.
 
Ninja said:
Well, I wouldn't call it a meaningless point or irrevelant. It's his right to discuss too you know
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The point that ABMA knew or didn't know has no bearing on Aurora, hence it was meaningless and irrelevant.
 
quellish said:
To clarify, those are not 9 hypersonic aircraft:

- Aurora: OK, that is one
- TR-3A: Subsonic, and at this point completely debunked
- F-121 Sentinel: I really don't know what this is, I've seen it mentioned on one web page.
- Blackstar, Brilliant Buzzard, "Snow Bird" : All 3 are the same thing
- Galaxy 'Theme Castle': I don't know what "Galaxy" has to do with this, but THEME CASTLE was an airlift program, not a hypersonic aircraft
- TR-6 TELOS: I have no idea what that is
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No they are not all hypersonic aircraft (I was making a glib comment) but most of these are all variations on the same hypersonic Blackbird replacement - which as you point out are often various names for the same thing (yes the C-5C 'Theme Castle' was meant to be ferrying Blackstar around). TR-3 and TR-6 are alien-technology recon platforms (flying triangle and massive flying wing), which of course takes things to the next level

quellish said:
F-119A: Another I have no idea what it is. I've never heard of it before.
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I came across on one of those Abovetopsecret type sites, was meant to have been developed from the A-12 Avenger II or something. Actually a few A-12 derivatives seem to have fed into the whole flying triangle thing.

quellish said:
Keep in mind that reconnaissance and surveillance were urgent needs in the 1980s and 1990s. A key driver of those needs was the strategically relocatable targets mission - finding mobile SS-20s. There definitely were a number of reconnaissance aircraft programs in the 1980s.
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Maybe so, but it still took a mental leap from a cost code for 'Aurora' - which has been explained away as an ATB pot of money - to thinking "aha, Blackbird replacement!"
I guess Blackbird would have looked long in the tooth with S-300 coming into service etc. (SA-12 etc. as NATO knew them then) and so it would have been logical to assume a Mach 5/6 project would be next. But I'm interested in what the rationale was - and why it was discounted as being, for example, an ATB project or even an outgrowth of ATF (viz Lockheed's SR-71esque ATF concept art).
 
I missed out somehow…when was the C-5C called “Theme Castle”?
 
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Adventurer104 said:
I missed out somehow…when was the C-5C called “Theme Castle”?
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THEME CASTLE was a special access program (PE Code 41129F) from about 1984 to 1989. THEME CASTLE was a tactical airlift RDTE program.
 
Speculation (low probability) - C-141B SOLL II modifications?
 
Adventurer104 said:
I missed out somehow…when was the C-5C called “Theme Castle”?
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Actually...never.

The THEME CASTLE link to the C-5 was something Micheal Schratt (self professed military aviation historian and mistery aircraft expert) came up with.

You can find more "information" about what this supposed aircraft and its mission are here on this page.
Here's an excerpt about it:
Three of these unique C-5 aircraft were produced which featured eight-foot-wide “chipmunk cheek” extensions on each side of the fuselage. Originally, these modifications were specifically incorporated for the purpose of transporting large containers which protected satellites during transit to launch sites. However, they were also later used to transport classified aircraft to multiple locations around the world. These highly modified aircraft also utilized an extra set of six-wheeled landing gear. Two of these aircraft were operated by NASA and carried the tail numbers 00503, and 00504.
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Mind the fact that NASA does not operate the C-5 Galaxy [correction NASA operates 2 C-5Cs aircraft of the USAF], same for the CIA (claimed as the user of the third airframe in another part of the article), nor are there any C-5s with the referenced tail numbers.

But just using a bit of logic, one could ask themselves what the point of adding side extensions to the fuselage would be, since neither the frontal access ramp, nor the rear one, appear to be changed in Schratt's drawing and description of the C-5 THEME CASTLE variant.
It's not like you can fit oversized cargo just because you enlarge the fuselage, those bigger things would still need to enter/exit the aircraft at some point.
 
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