I learned all of this stuff because someone left a copy of the book Skunk Works on a shelf in a storage closet at work. I never was interested in the topic beforehand and didn't expect to be so enthralled but it offers a fascinating insight into the world of US black military programs. I'm not usually one to offer endorsements but legitimately I couldn't put this book down. The matter of fact nature and the first hand account is fascinating.
From Ben Rich's book, SkunkWorks, he would take ball bearings and roll them across desks at the Pentagon "Here's your new plane on radar". Took them a while to prove to many that it was true.
I seem to recall, in Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works", more engine wasn't enough. They had to use the computer to constantly manipulate the control surfaces to keep the thing in the air.
I read this like 20 years ago, and have the audiobook now. I've spent many a commute hour listening to Mr. Rich's memoirs. Here's a linky to Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Fun side note, my stepmom's father (step-grandpa?) was a machinist @ Skunk Works. I mentioned this book to her and she said, oh yeah dad gave Kelly Johnson rides home every so often when his car was in the shop. Uhhh, what Mari?
The story of the development of the Stealth Fighter is absolutely riveting. The book to read is:
(Skunk Works)[https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003] by Ben Rich. Ben Rich was the head of Lockheed Martin's "Skunk Works" division that developed this amazing airplane. The book reads like a Tom Clancy thriller, but it's non-fiction and all true. Deserves the incredible 4.8 average star rating on Amazon, everyone loves this book.
When they were testing the car-sized wooden model of the initial stealth design, the radar operator at first thought the model had fallen off the 12 foot pole it was mounted on. The radar was only 1500 feet away from the model. Then, the radar operator all of a sudden picked up the model. A crow had landed on top of the model and the radar saw the crow. When the bird flew off, the model of the aircraft was invisible again. The stealth design technology was so unexpectedly incredible, they had to spend half a million dollars designing a new stealth pole, because the radar would see the pole.
If I remember correctly, the radar cross section of the final stealth fighter -- the first true stealth aircraft ever built -- was the equivalent of a marble, roughly the size of an eagle's eyeball.
the SR71 is an absolutely incredible piece of engineering for its time. If you read any book on Skunk works (this one being a typical example) you get to appreciate how mind boggingly advanced it was and the crazy stuff that was required to make it happen.
If you want to read a fun book about this and other special planes I can recommend this:
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Among other planes it covers the "Have Blue" project which led to the first stealth fighter. It has a treatment of RCS and what it means.
I’m halfway through a book all about the time they were developing this airplane and other stealth fighters at skunk works. Interesting read if you’re into engineering and of course flying. here is the link to it on amazon
Are you looking for books on studying engineering/engineering principles, or about engineers solving problems?
Cant help with the first, but I would recommend "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich (Amazon link) "From the development of the U-2 to the Stealth fighter, the never-before-told story behind America's high-stakes quest to dominate the skies Skunk Works is the true story of America's most secret and successful aerospace operation. As recounted by Ben Rich, the operation's brilliant boss for nearly two decades, the chronicle of Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works is a drama of cold war confrontations and Gulf War air combat, of extraordinary feats of engineering and human achievement against fantastic odds. Here are up-close portraits of the maverick band of scientists and engineers who made the Skunk Works so renowned. Filled with telling personal anecdotes and high adventure, with narratives from the CIA and from Air Force pilots who flew the many classified, risky missions, this book is a riveting portrait of the most spectacular aviation triumphs of the twentieth century. "
It was an amazing, fun read. Highly recommend.
> failed stealth bomber from the 90's
The F117 Nighthawk was 1) a fighter, 2) a triumph of technology, 3) from the 1970s to 1980s, and 4) a massive success. It single-handedly destroyed more targets in the Gulf War than any other bomber or fighter wing, and it did all of that without losing a single plane.
If you're at all interested, I highly recommend this book. Written by the head engineer of the F117a and SR-71 Blackbird projects, it's an amazing look into the technical challenges they had to overcome to make the most advanced technology on the planet.
/end rant
> If I can somehow find a deal on the blade in the UK for >£1200 I might pull the pin, however, it will probably be hugely overpriced. It's a lovely laptop tho.
I mean, I don't understand how that could ever be possible on a new one. They sell for $1,799 USD new and that's the cheapest it's ever been. I'm not so good on the maths and conversions, but my experience tells me you guys usually get a straight across trade, where $1,799 = £1,799. Sometimes, you guys get more.
You may be able to get one of the 2015 970m ones used in good condition for that price though, but then you're buying a device that's 40% slower across the board.
The Francis Gary Powers part you can read about in Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Ben Rich. It's a fantastic book, even if you're not into planes. It has a chapter about the U2 program, and the whole incident. Long story short, when Francis Gary Powers returned he was ostricized by the CIA, and in the media he was sometimes portrayed as a coward or a traitor for "choosing" to be captured instead of killing himself. In the end Lockheed took him in as a test pilot, and it wasn't until years after his death that he was completely rehabilitated.
Everyone should check out Ben Rich's book "Skunk Works" he worked under Kelly Johnson and took over the Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works after he left and worked on the SR-71 and rhe F-117. It's a fantastic book and a interesting look into one of the most beloved aviation divisions of all time.
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
My understanding is, for weird internal Soviet reasons the Alpha program ended up amazingly aggressive technologically (not just for the hull but the reactor and attempts at reducing the crew via automation) and they were willing to pay for it.
There may be an angle that their steel wasn't up to meeting the depth specifications so they went with titanium (which yes, they had better access to, and consequently better knowledge). Ben Rich's book goes into how inexperienced the West was with titanium and how they had their hands full working with the comparatively small amounts needed for the SR-71 (roughly of the same era as the Alpha), but the Soviets were confident enough to weld giant submarine hull parts together. So they totally had their metallurgy game together back then.
The story above is also in the book Skunk Works.
It's written by Ben Rich, the guy who was in charge of Skunk Works, the secret division of Lockheed that created the SR-71 Blackbird and many other secret aircraft, including the U-2 and the very first stealth fighter.
There are many other stories like it involving the other aircraft too. Paperback sells for $11.98, and used hardcover sells from $2.54.
I've read this book at least 20 times through over the last 15 years. Worth the read if you're at all interested in aircraft or secret government projects.
If you want to learn about its history, operations and how it was designed, I suggest reading this book:
It explains the development of the SR-71 (apparently the number designation was chosen because of a presidential error), the U-s spyplane, the F-1117 Stealth Fighter and a few more.
For anyone that wants to find out more info about the development of the F-117 code named “have blue”, I highly suggest reading the book: “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed” by Ben Rich. This book was such a good read that I had to buy a copy, after I returned it back to the library.
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
If you want to learn more about how the stealth bomber & other Lockheed planes (including the SR-1) were developed check out Ben Rich's book: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1426199223&sr=8-1&keywords=Skunk+Works
HeroOfCanton posted a maginficent link, but I'd still like to add the "official" top speed for the bird is Mach 3.2+ And the plane isn't limited by drag or lack of power(Habu engine's at that speed aren't regular jet engines, but rather, Ram-jet engines, and thus, the faster the plane goes, the faster it wants to go), but rather by the temperatures in the engine. Also since planes where pretty much individually made, each one was slightly different behaving and performing.
Ben Rich (Kelly Johnson successor at the Skunk Works and designer of the Blackbird's engine spike) stated in his book (Skunkworks) that with modern materials for the engine intake, the plane could easily be rated 3.4+
Have you ever read Skunk Works? It's the story of the division of Lockheed-Martin that developed the SR-71, along with the U2 and the first stealth fighter. As told by the guy who ran the place.
According to Ben Rich in Skunk Works, the challenge was in creating a design that broke down into a series of triangles when viewed from every major angle. 90-degree angles provide clear radar reflection, so everything had to be oblique and obtuse angles. (Contrary to popular opinion, stealth is far more a product of an aircraft's shape than anything else. Radar absorbing material absolutely helps, but shape is the critical factor—even more so than size. An enormous F-117A-shaped aircraft would have pretty much the same radar cross section as a small one.)
And they did it—when you look at the Have Blue demonstrator or the F-117 final planform, it's all triangles—everything is triangles. The resulting design is unstable on all 3 axes and wouldn't work without fly-by-wire, but it does work.
The usage of triangular facets was a limitation of the computing power available to engineers in the 70s when Have Blue was being designed. More modern stealth airplanes like the B-2 and the F-22 have fewer facets and more curves because they were built with supercomputers that could work out the complex radar cross section equations necessary.
It’s one of my favorite books. It covers development of the U-2, SR-71, & F-117.
Skunk Works, it's literally about aerospace/defense/rockets. I recommend it.
That story (or a variation on it) was in Ben Rich's Skunkworks memoirs, yep.
The radar demonstrator's RCS was considerably smaller than a bird—more on the order of a large bird's eyeball. Birds sitting on the test stand definitely would be noticeable.
It was in the book "Skunk Works" by Ben Rich: (assuming my memory isn't shot)
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003/
Sure, here is a fantastic presentation of how SkunkWorks was created: https://youtu.be/pL3Yzjk5R4M It talks about U2, A-12/SR-71 and F-117. it's very interesting. Also, you can find a book from Ben Rich itself about SkunkWorks. https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
There's an interesting book about Skunkworks and how the F-117 nearly bankrupted them, how stealth had no believers, how a model airplane showed up in stores looking eerily similar, etc.
non-fiction.. pretty good up until the part about Roswell.
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Most of it is essentially corroborated by Ben Rich (Skunkworks).. those are the guys who literally built Area 51 (U2, SR71, F117)
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Area 51: An Uncensored History of America's Top Secret Military Base is a book by American journalist Annie Jacobsen about the secret United States military base Area 51.
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Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
I highly recommend the book Skunkworks by Ben Rich.
^(Much better than "Fate is the Hunter"....)
I literally gave you a link to the wiki article on the original scientist and quoted the article.
Here's the Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Here's a link to the Air Force Chief of Staffs Reading List for 2019 showing this book is on the list: https://www.airforcemag.com/article/the-air-force-chief-of-staff-reading-list/
Here it is on the 2022 Army Chief of Staff Reading List too: https://amedd.libguides.com/c.php?g=566155&p=3906723
All of these things are just 2 second Google searches away.
Also reddit usernames are meaningless "SEADBee" this is like my 15th one and this one alone has been in use for over 3 years. Who the fuck cares about the names lol.
It was just Lockheed then. Ben Rich's book about working at Skunk Works during the SR71 program and running it during the F117 program was amazing to me as a kid.
https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003/
Essential local lore. They kind of made a mess of Burbank, though.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-01-24-fi-23784-story.html
Have you read this? Plane geek’s wet dream
Highly recommend Ben Rich’s autobiography if you haven’t already read it
Read: https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Ben Rich wrote this book about his time at Lockheed during the Cold War.
One time the EEOC went after various aerospace firms in California during the 70's.
An attorney with the EEOC had Mr. Rich come in for a meeting about Lockheed's hiring practices.
At the time Rich had taken over from Kelly Johnson as head of Skunk Works. He was a Jew who got hired in the 1930's, back when some companies had unofficial policies about not hiring "those people". All Johnson and Rich cared about was who could design airplanes. (BTW, Mary_G._Ross also worked there, again because she could design airplanes)
Rich wrote about how hard it was to hire good applicants because they would have security clearance issues or be -in his words- "zonked out on something when we drug tested them".
So when the attorney (who was deposing various Lockheed execs) got to Rich he started to grill him on why his department had no ____. Rich angrily shot back "Because they don't go to engineering schools!" After some discussing the subject was dropped.
Tells you how long this sort of thing has been going on.
Not EE or CE, but still worth a read\listen. Great Engineering can transcend all fields.
Excellent write-up but missed a few things. The first (minor one) is losses to transmissions; the more fancy the transmission the more likely it is to steal some of that sweet, sweet horsepower on its way to the wheels. CVTs are nice for the obvious benefit of infinitely variable ratios, but they lose a fair amount in the process.
Transmissions aside, the main factor you excluded was the ratio speed per energy used rather than power per energy used. The easiest example of this for ELI5 is the SR-71. They found that it was most efficient at max throttle, it would be burning twice as much fuel but it would be going more than three times as fast. Pointing out the integral of distance vs speed is probably above the ELI5 level but power per gallon per hour isn't the measure of automotive efficiency over MPG for a reason. If you make 200 hp at 8 gallons per hour, but can make 180 at 9 gallons per hour going 30% faster (perhaps losing the 20 hp to drivetrain at speed) you are still going to go further with the same gas. The most efficient RPM/throttle at the highest point on speed per fuel is going to give you the best MPG.
Airplanes have a lot of great data that shows all the variables if you really want to geek out about it. PDF page 132 of the Cessna 172 POH has some great tables showing all the variables of altitude, temperature and RPM setting with % maximum power, air speed and fuel used. Ben Rich's book Skunk Works also dives into great detail on the efficiencies at high mach.
When I search for it on Amazon I see an alternate cover
Excellent book, highly recommended.
This book is a great read if you're interested in some of the history and projects at skunk works: https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
It may be slightly dated, but you definitely want to read Ben Rich's autobiography Skunk Works. It's extremely thorough on this topic.
Not a SpaceX book, but when I was a young buck in engineering I found this a good read about rapid development of airframes: https://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
Two books comes to mind, first we have Skunk works by Ben Rich wich chronicles his years at Lockheed, Developing among others the U2 spyplane and the SR-71, giving you lots of practical glimpses into acctual engineering problems, like say dealing with poor supplier quality etc,
And then we have my all time fauvorite, Surely you're joking Mr Feynman, by Ralph Leighton and Richard Feynman. This isnt as much engineering as science and humour in one, but its still a good read!
Yeah, here: http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003 ... it's usually THE recommended book for anyone technical.
If you geek out on this kind of stuff, this a great book...
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed by Ben R. Rich
He ordered it off of Amazon; the book is "Skunk Works" by Ben R. Rich.
Will do. If you're interested in the development of the F-117 or the SR-71 read up on the skunk works.
This is another great book:
Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316743003
Well it was stated in the book Skunk Works written by the guy who ran the place when they developed the F117, so I figured he knew what he was talking about. shrug
I wasn't taking away from what you said, just saying there are aircraft out there that can do that. There technically should be no reason RPAs can't do it as well, but yes in the case of RPAs they have a local team handle takeoff/landing, with handoff to Nellis for actual mission flight.
Ben Rich, or as it states in the book his cover name "Ben Dover".
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
THE BIBLE!!!!!
Seriously now, its probably this:
http://www.amazon.com/Skunk-Works-Personal-Memoir-Lockheed/dp/0316743003
By Ben Rich of the Skunkworks/Lockheed. Truly amazing.