Blackstar Budget Line Item Found?

[Dana]

mlorrey - 8/8/2006  9:22 PM

Dana - 5/8/2006  7:27 PM

mlorrey - 5/8/2006  11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

Now, how many of these were manufactured or maintained at Groom Lake? None.

BTW: I worked on the F-15. The horizontal stabilizers weren't classified. There would be no reason to dispose of airframe materials on Groom Lake for this aircraft, nor, if boron composites of the same sort were used in a classified aircraft at Groom Lake, would they need to be disposed of there, because, as you say, their use is rather common in airframe structural materials, ergo there is no operational security or other reasons to classify the production and disposal of waste of that nature. Nor are those particular types of boron composites all that great at burning.

Let's say a classified aircraft was built at, oh, Plant 42 or something, and moved to Groom Lake. The design of said aircraft incorporated certain amounts of boron-composite elements. The aircraft is tested at Groom Lake for a while. Spares are manufactured, including the boron parts. Then it crashes. The design is still classified. What to do with the wreckage? When the HAVE BLUE stealth demonstrator crashed, they buried the remains somewhere on the Groom Lake site and either buried or burned the few spares. IIRC there are one or two crashed early F-117s buried around there as well, along with a number of other prototypes and UAV designs. If an aircraft is still classified and something like that happens, do you expect them to truck it out of Groom Lake and dump it in a Las Vegas landfill or something for all to see? If boron-composite materials were part of the aircraft's design and spares package (and in aircraft of that era, the 1970s-80s, it most likely would be) I can certainly see them being disposed of on-site in that manner.

Also: F-15s and F-16s would be as common a sight around Groom as they would be at any other AFB. They would be there to function as chase planes, to evaluate against captured (or "otherwise obtained") foreign aircraft (another common operation at Groom Lake over the decades alongside the "black projects"), participate in classified electronics research that was also carried out at Groom Lake, and numerous other tasks. So there have most likely been significant numbers of F-15s and F-16s operated and maintained at Groom Lake over the past 30 years, either on a permanent or detatchment basis.

[vt_hokie]

It seems that projects are remaining classified a lot longer now than they were back in the days of Kelly Johnson.  Aircraft such as the Blackbird were revealed only a few years after the programs began.  Nowadays, it seems like it'll take decades to learn where our tax dollars are going.  It's a shame that the best of aerospace technology is hidden from the world and therefore cannot really benefit humanity as a whole.

I'm all for national security, don't get me wrong.  But in the post Cold War era, I fear we are still clinging to a Cold War mentality.  Will keeping a space plane secret help to prevent insane/brainwashed fanatics from sneaking explosives onto an airliner or blowing up subways?  If the answer is yes, then great, keep it in the "black" world.  But I have to wonder if the Av Week article was a precursor to de-classification of the program.

I was just re-reading the Blackstar article published by Aviation Week, and it is rather intriguing.  If it is even partially true, to me it is the most exciting development in aerospace in a very long time.

[Strato]

mlorrey - 4/8/2006  2:36 PM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

I can name you one:

Lockheed FDL-5 A unmanned hypersonic test aircraft, 35 feet long, (made of Tantalum and Lockalloy (beryllium-aluminum) among others), the heat shield leading edge skirt was made of a di-boride coating.

Stephane Cochin.
Stratosphere Models.
website: Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

[Strato]

Dana - 4/8/2006  8:27 PM

mlorrey - 5/8/2006  11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm



That also went way back to test rudder and horizontal stabilizer items on the F-4 Phantom and the A-4.

Stephane.
Stratosphere Models.
Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

[Strato]

mlorrey - 8/8/2006  12:22 AM

Dana - 5/8/2006  7:27 PM

mlorrey - 5/8/2006  11:36 AM

Please name some military aircraft that commonly use boron composites... with cites.

Aircraft applique armor: http://www.ceradyne.com/Products/Armor_Aircraft.asp

Quote: "The first major military production use of boron fiber was for the horizontal stabilizers on the Navy's F-14 Tomcat interceptor." 35+ years ago, man! http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Evolution_of_Technology/composites/Tech40.htm

Link with diagram of F-14 horizontal stabilizer materials: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-detail-horizstab.htm

The F-15 (rudder skins- see http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_us/f015.html ) and Shuttle Orbiter (see http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/technology/sts-newsref/sts_coord.html ) also use 'em. Also the F-16. (see http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation/14014/css/14014_343.htm ) Even with the Tomcat out of service, you can't get much more "common" in the western world than the F-15 and F-16. All of these vehicles were designed in the late 1960s/early 1970s and the use of boron in composite structures has proliferated since then, although other materials have eclipsed it in recent years. It's also used in composite structure repairs.

http://www.specmaterials.com/applications.htm

Now, how many of these were manufactured or maintained at Groom Lake? None.

BTW: I worked on the F-15. The horizontal stabilizers weren't classified. There would be no reason to dispose of airframe materials on Groom Lake for this aircraft, nor, if boron composites of the same sort were used in a classified aircraft at Groom Lake, would they need to be disposed of there, because, as you say, their use is rather common in airframe structural materials, ergo there is no operational security or other reasons to classify the production and disposal of waste of that nature. Nor are those particular types of boron composites all that great at burning.

Hi MLorrey,

actually what was burned off in the trenches at Groom Lake and which got the workers sick were left over drums of the older type of RAM composite material used to coat the F-117s.

Stephane.
Stratosphere Models.
Picturetrail.com/stratospheremodels

[publiusr]

Were there any kinds of (major) spills there?

[Whisper-stream]

Since this thread drifted into the subject of "Area 51," I will add a few comments:

In the wake of the lawsuits, the burn/burial trenches (located on the site of the original crash training pit) have been subject to environmental remediation. A new landfill was established at the southern extremity of the base (south of the engine test cells). Waste is no longer burned at the site. Other potentially contaminated sites on base (parking ramps with spilled fuel, older buildings with asbestos, fuel storage sites, etc.) have also been cleaned up.

The Groom Lake facility has had many names:
Paradise Ranch (1955)
Watertown (1956-1958, possibly the legal name)
Area 51 (1958-1978)
Det. 3, AFFTC (1979-present)

DREAMLAND is the radio callsign.

For the ultimate secret of Area 51 check out: http://www.dreamlandresort.com/pete/no_secret.html

[publiusr]

I would imagine that they may have a few zip-propellants over there.

My guess is that there are some anti-rocket USAF engineers there that have read "The Right Stuff" too many times--hate big, simple rockets--and eschew cryogenics. The Jet engine equivalent of some NSACAR greese monkeys rediscovering that flights to extreme altitudes are very difficult.

They want wings on everything and experiment with Boran fuels (i don't know about the gel).

I wouldn't be surprised if they had problems with pentaborane.

It has always been my opinion that the Air Force has had it in for large LV growth and the establishment of a separate space force just because the fighter-jocks that run the place don't want to share funds outside of the fighter (sorry, need to stop here for a second and just say that I have to use stupid words to get my point across. I know that means I must have a weak argument, but that's why I use bad words)..

[Vahe231991]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I should add that although the declassified RAND Corporation report stated that all three projects test flew, but that two were failures, and the third one was considered a "partial success", the paper by Ramon Chase titled "The Formulation of a Near Term Stepping Stone to a Low Cost Earth-to-Orbit Transportation System Based on Legacy Technology" and presented at the AIAA 2004 conference says this about the results of structural tests of the three airframe cross sections built by Boeing, Lockheed, and McDonnell Douglas as part of Have Region:

Of three test articles built only one was validated. The validated structural test article was a hot structure concept. The test article contained over 90% of the parts that would have gone into the flight article.

In other words, the Boeing structural test article for its RASV concept passed structural tests, but testing of the airframe cross sections built by Lockheed and McDonnell Douglas for their proposed ZEL-TAV and GRM-29A designs respectively in simulated transatmospheric conditions was only partially successful. The Copper Coast program began in the late 1970s and is still active although it had nothing to do with SSTO spaceplane development whatsoever. 

Given that Have Key was the Pentagon codename for the design effort by General Dynamics which was part of design work that led to the A-12 Avenger II (which was canceled in early 1991 due to cost overruns and other problems before any of the prototypes under construction could be completed), I'm speculating that the report about the supposed Blackstar TSTO system was only speculating about money supposedly earmarked for a TSTO program being used to fund the A-12 Avenger II program just to coax the A-12 contractors and US Supreme Court to reach a settlement regarding legal disputes over the manner in which the A-12 program was canceled.