Really Top Secret Projects (Ben Rich remark to Jim Goodall)

[XP67_Moonbat]

True,very true.

 

[John21]

Do you think there is any truth to claims of deep Top Secret air/spacecraft using some type of anti gravity propulsion, literally the holy grail of aviation? I say this because some of the maneuvers being reported over Groom Lake are just crazy, and other reasons that I do not want to get into on an aviation specific board.

Didn't Ben Rich make a remark about "we have the technology to take us to the stars but it would take an act of god to get it out into the public domain"? Or was that possibly faked? It was near his death so It could have been faked.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

according to the current widely accepted physical theories, verified in experiments, and according to the major directions of physical research, it is considered highly unlikely that anti-gravity is possible

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-gravity

Hovering disc-shaped UAVs, maybe. Antigravity, no.

 

[Andreas Parsch]

Do you think there is any truth to claims of deep Top Secret air/spacecraft using some type of anti gravity propulsion, literally the holy grail of aviation?

No.

Didn't Ben Rich make a remark about "we have the technology to take us to the stars but it would take an act of god to get it out into the public domain"? Or was that possibly faked? It was near his death so It could have been faked.

If Rich actually said that, I'm 100% convinced that he was pulling someone's leg and sure had a great laugh about it!

Anyway, about taking "better than Star Trek" too literally: shockonlip, DWG and matej may well be right about that, but guess what Joe Average thinks when her hears "better than Star Trek"?! This is the way how very wild rumours start, which will soon be regarded as fact by all the UFO/conspiracy/aliens/etc. fans. And my guess is that whoever came up with the phrase knew that .

 

[Lauge]

.....some of the maneuvers being reported over Groom Lake are just crazy....

Well, yes. But the fact that a manoeuvre looks crazy (e.g. sudden, 90 degree course changes) doesn't mean that they actually are. If, for example, a normal, standard, aerodynamic, nothing-to-do-with-antigravity-at-all aircraft is heading straight towards you, especially in low light, where all you see are the anti-collision lights, then any course change (up, down, left, right) will appear to you to be a "sudden 90 degree course change".

I don't mean to deliberately widdle on anyones bonfire, but what people see and what is actually there are usually two very different things

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Luxembourg

 

[AeroFranz]

Crazy maneuvers are to me synonimous with lots of Gs. Any person finding itself inside a vehicle performing those maneuvers would be smashed to pulp.

Unless this is where anti-gravity comes into play! [not being serious at all]

 

[XP67_Moonbat]

Unless they have inertia dampeners!

 

[quellish]

Do you think there is any truth to claims of deep Top Secret air/spacecraft using some type of anti gravity propulsion, literally the holy grail of aviation? I say this because some of the maneuvers being reported over Groom Lake are just crazy, and other reasons that I do not want to get into on an aviation specific board.

No.

There are unusual aircraft out there for sure. They're flown out of that location because they are sensitive, and because of that they are flown under conditions that make them hard to observe. So even fairly mundane operations will look impressive to an observer with imagination. Keep in mind plenty of people still think the landing lights of JANET 737s are "out of this world" craft!

During the 1990s there were definitely V/STOL and rotary wing projects out there, and there have been unusual propulsion systems tested there. But no warp drives or anti-gravity systems - I can't imagine the military need for something like that anyway!

 

[AeroFranz]

Suppose there was a black hypersonic program that produced a successful experimental testbed, would you still spend heaps of DARPA money in a bunch of white world programs?
I have always been puzzled by the existence of all the hypersonic research programs, like Hyper-X, Hy-Shot, X-51, and their slow progress. If there is indeed a scramjet (or other high-speed means of propulsion) X-plane hiding in the desert, would you still pursue the other ones? wouldn't the lessons learned with the black program help you mature the white ones? As far as we know, all the best scramjet has achieved is a few seconds of self-sustained flight. If this black plane exists and is operational, it is WAY ahead of anything a lot of people have studied hard in the white world.

I mean, I don't rule out it's existence, but it makes little sense. Unless I am missing something ???

 

[Stargazer]

During the 1990s there were definitely V/STOL and rotary wing projects out there, and there have been unusual propulsion systems tested there. But no warp drives or anti-gravity systems - I can't imagine the military need for something like that anyway!

Don't be so sure. Boeing has been conducting a research program on the subject at their Phantom Works facility for several years now... it wouldn't be so if there was no interest from the Pentagon behind it.

Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, has admitted it is working on experimental anti-gravity projects that could overturn a century of conventional aerospace propulsion technology if the science underpinning them can be engineered into hardware.

The company is examining an experiment by Yevgeny Podkletnov, who claims to have developed a device which can shield objects from the Earth's pull. Dr Podkletnov is viewed with suspicion by many conventional scientists. They have not been able to reproduce his results. The project is being run by the top-secret Phantom Works in Seattle, the part of the company which handles Boeing's most sensitive programmes. The head of the Phantom Works, George Muellner, told the security analysis journal Jane's Defence Weekly that the science appeared to be valid and plausible.

Dr Podkletnov claims to have countered the effects of gravity in an experiment at the Tampere University of Technology in Finland in 1992. The scientist says he found that objects above a superconducting ceramic disc rotating over powerful electromagnets lost weight. The reduction in gravity was small, about 2%, but the implications - for example, in terms of cutting the energy needed for a plane to fly - were immense. Scientists who investigated Dr Podkletnov's work, however, said the experiment was fundamentally flawed and that negating gravity was impossible.

But documents obtained by Jane's Defence Weekly and seen by the BBC show that Boeing is taking Dr Podkletnov's research seriously. The hypothesis is being tested in a programme codenamed "Project GRASP" (Gravity Research for Advanced Space Propulsion), which takes place at Phantom Works, a division of Boeing located in Seattle and known to be deeply involved arming the United States, through many contracts it has with the Pentagon. Boeing is the latest in a series of high-profile institutions trying to replicate Dr Podkletnov's experiment. The military wing of the UK hi-tech group BAE Systems is working on an anti-gravity programme, dubbed Project Greenglow. The US space agency, Nasa, is also attempting to reproduce Dr Podkletnov's findings, but a preliminary report indicates the effect does not exist. A Boeing spokesman said: "We have conducted tests on a number of anti-gravity devices. These devices do not actually break the laws of physics.
"We are trying to engineer the science in a way that produces something workable. It could help produce a transport system that works without fuel, or produce spacecraft."

Compiled from various articles found on the web, notably at:
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/sci/tech/2157975.stm
- http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2611-antigravity-research-on-the-rise.html

Hope this was not posted elsewhere before on the forum... If so, sorry for the repeat!

 

[martinbayer]

AeroFranz,

if it was a truly deep black program, other agencies like DARPA would likely not be aware of it, and whoever might already have the same technology within the government would be more than happy to keep it that way. The top priority would be to keep existing capabilities under tight wraps, rather than to prevent taxpayer money waste in reinventing the wheel (or scramjet). Keeping the white world (including international competitors respectively adversaries) guessing and maintaining an (even temporary) technological edge is a no brainer in that sort of mindset, and sharing knowledge with *anybody* on the outside is definitely an absolute no-no in any classified program. Factors like fostering general technological progress or squandering of resources don't even enter the considerations. In my admittedly very limited understanding, DARPA projects are also often driven by individual managers that may have certain pet concepts that they pursue fairly independently.

Martin

 

[flateric]

proof of last statement can be found in harsh history of stealth programs like A-12, when GD/MacAir was forced to reinvent many LO stuff while Northrop and Lockheed already these technologies and materials for ages (mostly for taxpayers money)

 

[AeroFranz]

hmmm...It could very well be...i guess i'm just saddened by the waste of resources. We're probably talking about several hundred millions of dollars at the least, but really more like a few billions.

 

[quellish]

Suppose there was a black hypersonic program that produced a successful experimental testbed, would you still spend heaps of DARPA money in a bunch of white world programs?

Absolutely. For example, if the black program was rocket powered it makes complete sense to keep investing in white scramjet research (if you think it's going somewhere).
A black hypersonic program would be demonstrating something other than going fast. Going fast you can do in the white world, far cheaper and easier. Something like that would be demonstrating a technology or capability that is sensitive.

Historically a number of white programs have had black counterparts run in parallel. There was a black X-Wing program run in parallel with the NASA X-Wing and RSRA work. NASA focused on one set of problems, the black program on others. The two programs did not share any real information between then.

 

[martinbayer]

And of course it doesn't help in this context that there's an unhealthy amount of rivalry going on between various and sundry agencies or, in the case of NASA Centers, even within an agency, which ensures that relevant information is often jealously guarded and nicely complements the 'not invented here' attitude that regularly kicks in even if alternatives are known and available - witness the ongoing EELV vs. Ares I saga.

Martin

 

[flateric]

...

 

[quellish]

..

Shape shown in software is a standard RCS test shape seen often at Helendale. The shape in the photos is something... else.

 

[flanker]

Whoa.

Can say i have any idea what the hell those things are. I see nothing that suggests it (the skunk one) to be an aircraft...Looks like a DARPA toy, like HTV-2.

 

[Stargazer]

Half-naked pot-bellied worker in first picture is proof that it's in Russia. You'd never see a topless worker on a US manufacturing site!!!

 

[quellish]

Shape shown in software is a standard RCS test shape seen often at Helendale. The shape in the photos is something... else.

A hint:

The next ideal configuration would be a diamond shaped planform, sometimes called the hopeless flying diamond, which has good RCSR qualities, but is a poor practical choice. Nevertheless, the diamond has a four-spike azimuth pattern for V,H, and circular polarizations because the leading and trailing edges have been made parallel

http://books.google.com/books?id=j7hdXhgwws4C&lpg=PA271&ots=NIfjk5vysi&dq=radar%20cross%20section%20shaping&pg=PA287#v=onepage&f=false

 

[LowObservable]

It's a Boo........

 

[Mat Parry]

The hopeless diamond always struck me as a slightly misleading name, I guess "the hopeless rhombus" wasn't as catchy (it would seem that as well as being a geometrical pedant, I also don't play enough card games).

Apologies if I'm too slow to catch on to any subcontext in previous hints and jokes? No slights are intended. As this object is photographed at Lockheed's RCS facility it's shaping = signature connection is a given (although without alignment of the leading and trailing edges this "boo........" is more of a "hopeless kite"). The HGV would seem to predate these photo's? However in the absence of an apparent propulsion system, a naive observer might suppose that if "dropped from or propelled to" a great height and at a great speed this object may glide a great distance and arrive at an intended target rather.... promptly?

 

[flanker]

So i any good guesses as to what that thing is? I am still baffled and unsure.

 

[sferrin]

Wonder if it could be a stealthy boost-glide vehicle.

 

[dannydale]

Wonder if it could be a stealthy boost-glide vehicle.

With edges that sharp, I'm not sure even hafnium diboride could keep up past Mach 8ish.

 

[sferrin]

Wonder if it could be a stealthy boost-glide vehicle.

With edges that sharp, I'm not sure even hafnium diboride could keep up past Mach 8ish.

Cooling.

 

[quellish]

So i any good guesses as to what that thing is? I am still baffled and unsure.

It's a calibration target with a very, very small return.

 

[flanker]

So i any good guesses as to what that thing is? I am still baffled and unsure.

It's a calibration target with a very, very small return.

Aha, so not really a *project* per see. Thanks.

Still looks very cool.

 

[Mat Parry]

probably completely unrelated but....

I saw Flateric's pictures and thought of some of the diagrams in a patent posted in another speculative discussion.

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11250.msg119478.html#msg119478

mach 6 planform is close-ish and the mach 20 cross section is also slightly reminiscent (see flateric's pic the one below the "pot bellied worker").

NB// some method of preventing the patents inventive step (leading edge flaps) from vapourising at high mach numbers may indeed be required.

A calibration object is a good call. Usually measuring instruments are calibrated by performing measurements on objects or phenomena that have universal properties and are easily replicated, the output of the measuring device is then tuned up or down to give the known (universal) result for the calibration object or phenomena. However as the RCS of stealthy aircraft continue to drop (and presumably sensitivities of RADAR systems increase) a calibration piece may have to become more sophisticated than say an Iron ball as the measuring RADAR systems will need to be calibrated in the region of tiny returns being generated by state of the art stealth technology. Once the "Iron ball" is no longer useful as a calibration piece, shapes which are nonstandard (and more difficult / expensive to reproduce) are bound to be sought.....

Flawed logic?
You might as well make your calibration piece look somewhat like the stylised & simplified optimum structure for your stealth project, because once the RADAR is calibrated you will ultimately be measuring the RCS of a real object with seams, flight control devices, sensor windows, antennas, fasteners etc and the returns will inevitably be larger than your stylised calibration object. So to me the shape of the suggested calibration piece is enticing and suggestive.... make sense or sound like nonsense?

random thoughts (not serious) about that Boeing waverider patent...
the apparent evolution of the waveriders optimum shape as the mach number increases reminded me of an 1980's kids sci-fi film called "Flight of the navigator" (Disney of course). The kind of material science required for airframes with terminator T-1000 style shape shifting capabilities would truly be tech that belongs 50 years into the future

 

[aliensporebomb]

Adding on years later: I'd read somewhere on the internet that the 1976 Lockheed Corporate Report (the yearly publication they send to investors) allegedly confirmed that they'd test flown a manned M6 craft. However, last time I checked I couldn't go back that far in archived reports online and most corporate reports get used to line the birdcage after skimmed. So, anyone an investor with a longtime collection of these? I can't even remember where this was discussed now.

Update: I later found out the report has nothing about this. I might have been concatenating Francillon's statement in the beginning of his Lockheed book that was later removed with some other info.

 

[edwest4]

The 1976 Lockheed Annual Report?

Annual Report - Lockheed - 1976 - L-1011 TriStar - Employee Photos (AR17) | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Annual Report - Lockheed - 1976 - L-1011 TriStar - Employee Photos (AR17) at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

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[greenmartian2017]

Aliensporebomb, if you perchance buy this 1976 annual report, would you please post here what you may find (or not find) about the Mach 6 mention? Thanks in advance.

 

[greenmartian2017]

I will also add (from reading earlier on comments in this thread) that Lockheed as a corporate entity apparently can keep flight development programs out of the public eye for over 60 years....there are three Lockheed flight test projects from the 1950s that remain classified. This claim is based on two graphics that Lockheed published on their website back in 2007/2009. Three skunks (as in, unreleased program for public consumption) for the 1950s era.

So things allegedly developed in the 1970s (Mach 6 crewed demonstrator), or 1980s (crewed vehicles that could ascend into orbit without detachable stages), or 1990s (an orbital crewed reconnaissance vehicle) are not out of the question, if one is saying that such developments would not be able to be kept from public view for this long.

Lockheed was given billions in black project spending in each of these decades. I think that they did come up with some very futuristic, exotic equipment.

My two cents at the moment.

 

[CJGibson]

I'd read somewhere on the internet that the 1976 Lockheed Corporate Report (the yearly publication they send to investors) allegedly confirmed that they'd test flown a manned M6 craft.

That is mentioned in the 'pulped' Putnam Lockheed Aircraft Since 1913. I always wondered what the original source was.

Chris

 

[greenmartian2017]

I have bought a copy of the Lockheed annual for 1976 for $5 off of ebay. When I get it, I will see if there is any mention (or not). I will post what happens here.

 

[taildragger]

I have bought a copy of the Lockheed annual for 1976 for $5 off of ebay. When I get it, I will see if there is any mention (or not). I will post what happens here.

My bet is that the report makes no mention of the flight of a Mach 6 aircraft. The Lockheed annual report was not an obscure publication and went to what, hundreds of thousands? of shareholders. Such a revelation would be unlikely to remain an urban legend.

 

[greenmartian2017]

Well,

I got the 1976 Lockheed Annual Report today.

I carefully went through it. Not a thing about a Mach 6 demonstrator anywhere. In regards to Skunk works, it says this:

"Our Advanced Development Program organization (the Skunk Works) continues to work on two study contracts that could lead to the manufacture of experimental prototype aircraft for NASA and the Navy."

That's the total and complete mention.

Historically (and usually) aliensporebomb has acquired good inferences on some of the black projects (over time). But this was not a "gusher" (inference to hitting an oil pocket during drilling), but a dry hole this time.

Black projects never get explicitly mentioned in official corporate documentation such as annual reports.

But...

In other officially distributed corporate-linked documents or reportage (such as company newsletters, monthly or quarterly magazines, and technical publications), such projects can be hinted at, they can be alluded to, and they can be discussed in a hypothetical manner--as in, indirectly. The amount of indirectness is key.

However, sometimes, they can be baldly mentioned in regards to in-house R&D exploits in technical publications (as long as they follow the [old] "two out of three" rule, or [much more recent] "three out of six" rule--that is, one can talk about such things if [old] one key component of the project is not discussed, or [much more recent] half of the key components are not discussed about the sensitive effort). If there are technical achievements during the work on the sensitive project that are worthy of public comment, it will happen. (But keeping in mind the "rules.") As long as the achievement is fairly disconnected to the overall black project in the materials being released to the public.

(I have been told this gray area usually happens before the Feds dump money into the project and give the project a code name, but there have a number of dramatic exceptions to this "before the Feds dump money"chronological step, that disclsoures happened well afterward.)

I have been told about this "rule" stuff several times now by different engineers in discussions over the years.

Which has lead me to the conclusion that there are no accidental "leaks." (As in, Rene Francillon's disclosure in his Lockheed aircraft history.)

Sometimes, what is "black" is not the technology or technological achievement itself, but how the technology is being used, and where it is being used (geographically in the world, and how it is being used against the Russians and Chinese, etc.).

Now crashes/accidents of black project aircraft during either flight testing or actual operations is a different kettle of fish.

My two cents on this.

 

[sublight_]

Well,

I got the 1976 Lockheed Annual Report today.

I carefully went through it. Not a thing about a Mach 6 demonstrator anywhere. In regards to Skunk works, it says this:

"Our Advanced Development Program organization (the Skunk Works) continues to work on two study contracts that could lead to the manufacture of experimental prototype aircraft for NASA and the Navy."

Anybody want to guess what they were working on for the Navy?

 

[Grey Havoc]

I wonder if the mysterious Mach 6 aircraft was the Air Force's LASV (Low Altitude Supersonic Vehicle)? That was powered by a Marquardt scramjet.

 

[Ray]

How do you test covertly a platform that flies at M6.0? I mean, the thing probably takes entire countries to turn (as opposed to the SR-71 that only takes an entire state to turn), and there must be a strong signature in some parts of the spectrum associated with it (IR? sound?). I know that there are vast restricted areas available to the airforce (Nevada, north sea...), but it still seems like people would have noticed by now. Don't get me wrong, I do believe there is a black hypersonic surveillance out there, but it's mind-boggling that the only clues of its existence are "doughnut-on-a-rope contrails" and seismograph recordings.

The other question is: how good is technology if you don't use it? I mean, we can't be entirely sure, but no hypersonic plane has been used in the past major wars the US has been involved in (Desert storm I & II, OIF, OEF...). Even the F-117 was used to drop bombs in Panama!

The A-12 was flown covertly for years with great success. It's not as hard as you would think.

When I attended Wichita State University a Canadian aeronautical engineering senior told me that Lockheed had a twin-engined recon plane that flew at Mach 3. I thought it was BS at the time. The time was 1963. Perhaps the A-12 wasn't quite as covert as we thought.