Saturday, October 24, 2015

Lockheed SR-75 Aurora

Here are some images plus a composite of Testor's 1/72 scale Lockheed? SR-75 Aurora. The following is taken from the Aurora Aircraft Page. "In the late 1980s and early 1990s it was believed that a top-secret reconnaissance aircraft, capable of flying at speeds beyond Mach 6, was developed to replace the SR-71 Blackbird. The alleged project was detailed in mainstream media including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Jane's Defence Weekly, and Aviation Week & Space Technology.

The name Aurora was included in a Pentagon budget request in 1985, perhaps inadvertently, underneath reconnaissance programs of the SR-71 and U-2. The Aurora has been attributed to scores of unidentified aircraft reports around the world, including a 1989 sighting from an oil platform in the North Sea, a series of mysterious sonic booms over Southern California in 1991-92, and photographs of unusual "donuts-on-a-rope" contrails. 


From Wikipedia"

Aurora was a rumored mid-1980s American reconnaissance aircraft. There is no substantial evidence that it was ever built or flown and it has been termed a myth.
The U.S. government has consistently denied such an aircraft was ever built. Aviation and space reference site Aerospaceweb.org concluded "The evidence supporting the Aurora is circumstantial or pure conjecture, there is little reason to contradict the government's position."
Others come to different conclusions. In 2006, veteran black project watcher and aviation writer Bill Sweetman said, "Does Aurora exist? Years of pursuit have led me to believe that, yes, Aurora is most likely in active development, spurred on by recent advances that have allowed technology to catch up with the ambition that launched the program a generation ago."
 The Aurora legend started in March 1990, when Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine broke the news that the term "Aurora" had been inadvertently included in the 1985 U.S. budget, as an allocation of $455 million for "black aircraft production" in FY 1987. According to Aviation Week, Project Aurora referred to a group of exotic aircraft, and not to one particular airframe. Funding of the project allegedly reached $2.3 billion in fiscal 1987, according to a 1986 procurement document obtained by Aviation Week. In the 1994 book Skunk Works, Ben Rich, the former head of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, wrote that the Aurora was the budgetary code name for the stealth bomber fly-off that resulted in the B-2 Spirit.By the late 1980s, many aerospace industry observers believed that the U.S. had the technological capability to build a Mach-5 replacement for the aging Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird. Detailed examinations of the U.S. defense budget claimed to have found money missing or channeled into black projects. By the mid-1990s, reports surfaced of sightings of unidentified aircraft flying over California and the United Kingdom involving odd-shaped contrails, sonic booms and related phenomena that suggested the US had developed such an aircraft. Nothing ever linked any of these observations to any program or aircraft type, but the name Aurora was often tagged on these as a way of explaining the observations.


In late August 1989, while working as an engineer on the jack-up barge GSF Galveston Key in the North Sea, Chris Gibson and another witness saw an unfamiliar isosceles triangle-shaped delta aircraft, apparently refueling from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker and accompanied by a pair of F-111 fighter-bombers. Gibson and his friend watched the aircraft for several minutes, until they went out of sight. He subsequently drew a sketch of the formation.
Gibson, who had been in the Royal Observer Corps' trophy-winning international aircraft recognition team since 1980, was unable to identify the aircraft. He dismissed suggestions that the aircraft was an F-117, Mirage IV or fully swept wing F-111. When the sighting was made public in 1992, the British Defence Secretary Tom King was told, "There is no knowledge in the MoD of a 'black' programme of this nature, although it would not surprise the relevant desk officers in the Air Staff and Defence Intelligence Staff if it did exist."
A crash at RAF Boscombe Down in Wiltshire on 26 September 1994 appeared closely linked to "black" missions, according to a report in AirForces Monthly. Further investigation was hampered by aircraft from the USAF flooding into the base. The crash site was protected from view by firetrucks and tarpaulins and the base was closed to all flights soon after.

A series of unusual sonic booms was detected in Southern California, beginning in mid- to late-1991 and recorded by United States Geological Survey sensors across Southern California used to pinpoint earthquake epicenters. The sonic booms were characteristic of a smaller vehicle, rather than the 37-meter long Space Shuttle orbiter. Furthermore, neither the Shuttle nor NASA's single SR-71B was operating on the days the booms had been registered. In the article, "In Plane Sight?" which appeared in the Washington City Paper on 3 July 1992 (pp. 12–13), one of the seismologists, Jim Mori, noted: "We can't tell anything about the vehicle. They seem stronger than other sonic booms that we record once in a while. They've all come on Thursday mornings about the same time, between 4 and 7." Former NASA sonic boom expert Dom Maglieri studied the 15-year-old sonic boom data from the California Institute of Technology and has deemed that the data showed "something at 90,000 ft (c. 27.4 km), Mach 4 to Mach 5.2". He also said the booms did not look like those from aircraft that had traveled through the atmosphere many miles away at Los Angeles International Airport, rather, they appeared to be booms from a high-altitude aircraft directly above the ground moving at high speeds. The boom signatures of the two different aircraft patterns are wildly different. There was nothing particular to tie these events to any aircraft, but they served to grow the Aurora legend.
On 23 March 1992, near Amarillo, Texas, Steven Douglass photographed the "donuts on a rope" contrail and linked this sighting to distinctive sounds. He described the engine noise as: "strange, loud pulsating roar... unique... a deep pulsating rumble that vibrated the house and made the windows shake... similar to rocket engine noise, but deeper, with evenly timed pulses." In addition to providing the first photographs of the distinctive contrail previously reported by many, the significance of this sighting was enhanced by Douglass' reports of intercepts of radio transmissions: "Air-to-air communications... were between an AWACS aircraft with the call sign "Dragnet 51" from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, and two unknown aircraft using the call signs "Darkstar November" and "Darkstar Mike". Messages consisted of phonetically transmitted alphanumerics. It is not known whether this radio traffic had any association with the "pulser" that had just flown over Amarillo." ("Darkstar" is also a call sign of AWACS aircraft from a different squadron at Tinker AFB) A month later, radio enthusiasts in California monitoring Edwards AFB Radar (callsign "Joshua Control") heard early morning radio transmissions between Joshua and a high flying aircraft using the callsign "Gaspipe". "You're at 67,000 feet, 81 miles out" was heard, followed by "70 miles out now, 36,000 ft, above glideslope." As in the past, nothing linked these observations to any particular aircraft or program, but the attribution to the Aurora helped expand the legend.
In February 1994 former resident of Rachel, Nevada, and Area 51 enthusiast, Chuck Clark claimed to have filmed the Aurora taking off from the Groom Lake facility. In the David Darlington book Area 51: The Dreamland Chronicles, he said:
I even saw the Aurora take off one night - or an aircraft that matched the Aurora's reputed configuration, a sharp delta with twin tails about a hundred and thirty feet long. It taxied out of a lighted hangar at two-thirty A.M. and used a lot of runway to take off. It had one red light on top, but the minute the wheels left the runway, the light went off and that was the last I saw of it. I didn't hear it because the wind was blowing from behind me toward the base." I asked when this had taken place. "February 1994. Obviously they didn't think anybody was out there. It was thirty below zero - probably ninety below with the wind chill factor. I had hiked into White Sides from a different, harder way than usual, and stayed there two or three days among the rocks, under a camouflage tarp with six layers of clothes on. I had an insulated face mask and two sleeping bags, so I didn't present a heat signature. I videotaped the aircraft through a telescope with a five-hundred-millimeter f4 lens coupled via a C-ring to a high-eight digital video camera with five hundred and twenty scan lines of resolution, which is better than TV." The author then asked "Where's the tape?" Locked away. That's a legitimate spyplane; my purpose is not to give away legitimate national defense. When they get ready to unveil it, I'll probably release the tape.

Although his claims have been controversial, Bob Lazar has stated that, during his employment at the mysterious S-4 facility in Nevada, he briefly witnessed an Aurora flight while aboard a bus near Groom Lake. He claimed that there was a "tremendous roar" which sounded almost as though "the sky was tearing". Although Lazar only saw the aircraft for a moment through the front of the bus, he described it as being "very large" and having "two huge, square exhausts with vanes in them". Lazar claims that his supervisor confirmed to him that the aircraft was indeed an "Aurora", a "high altitude research plane". He was also told that the aircraft was powered by "liquid methane".
By 1996, reports associated with the Aurora name dropped off in frequency, suggesting to people who believed that the aircraft existed that it had only ever been a prototype or that it had had a short service life.
In 2000, Aberdeen Press and Journal writer Nic Outterside wrote a piece on US stealth technology in Scotland. Citing confidential 'sources', he alleged RAF/USAF Machrihanish in Kintyre, Argyll to be a base for Aurora aircraft. Machrihanish's almost 2-mile (3.2 km)-long long runway makes it suitable for high-altitude and experimental aircraft with the fenced-off coastal approach making it ideal for takeoffs and landings to be made well away from eyes or cameras of press and public. 'Oceanic Air Traffic Control at Prestwick' Outterside says, 'also tracked fast-moving radar blips. It was claimed by staff that a "hypersonic jet was the only rational conclusion" for the readings.'
In 2006, aviation writer Bill Sweetman put together 20 years of examining budget "holes", unexplained sonic booms, as well as the Gibson sighting and concluded:
"This evidence helps establish the program's initial existence. My investigations continue to turn up evidence that suggests current activity. For example, having spent years sifting through military budgets, tracking untraceable dollars and code names, I learned how to sort out where money was going. This year, when I looked at the Air Force operations budget in detail, I found a $9-billion black hole that seems a perfect fit for a project like Aurora."
On 1 December 2014, loud repetitive bangs were heard in Bedfordshire, Glasgow, North Devon, Leicestershire, and West Sussex in the UK. The repetitive banging sound lasted for 20 to 30 minutes and was recorded by one resident on a cell phone. At around the same time, a loud boom was reported by a number of people in the upstate New York areas of Buffalo, Cheektowaga, and Clarence. Dr Bhupendra Khandelwa (University of Sheffield, UK) stated that he believed the loud, repetitive bangs sounded like an experimental jet engine called a pulse detonation engine (PDE). Sonic booms caused by meteors and military planes were ruled out, as were the sounds of fireworks and thunderstorms. Media speculation concluded that the noise recorded by locals in the UK could have been caused by the PDE engine of an Aurora aircraft.
 

Thursday, October 22, 2015

US Navy Swift Boat (PCF)

Here are some images of Revell's 1/48 scale US Navy Swift Boat (PCF).

From Wikipedia"
Patrol Craft Fast (PCF), also known as Swift Boats, were all-aluminum, 50-foot (15 m) long, shallow-draft vessels operated by the United States Navy, initially to patrol the coastal areas and later for work in the interior waterways as part of the brown-water navy to interdict Vietcong movement of arms and munitions, transport Vietnamese forces and insert SEAL teams for counterinsurgency (COIN) operations during the Vietnam War.
 Most of the 193 PCFs built were used by the Navy in Vietnam and the two training bases in California. About 80 of the boats constructed were sold or given away to nations friendly to the United States. The original training base for Swift Boats was at the Naval Base in Coronado, California. In 1969 training was moved to Mare Island near San Pablo Bay, California, where it remained for the duration of the war. Though not a deep water boat, PCF training boats frequently transited from Mare Island, through the Golden Gate Bridge to cruise either north or south along the Pacific Ocean coastline. PCF-8 sank in a storm off Bodega Bay, California in December 1969. This was the only Swift Boat lost during training operations. No crewmen were lost in the event.

The first swift boats arrived in Vietnam in October 1965. Initially used as coastal patrol craft as a part of Operation Market Time to interdict seaborne supplies on their way to the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army in South Vietnam. However, their shallow draft and low freeboard limited their seaworthiness in open waters. These limitations, plus the difficulties being encountered in the interior waterways by the smaller, more lightly armed PBRs led to the incorporation of Swift boats to patrol the 1,500 miles of rivers and canals of Vietnam's interior waterways. Swift boats continued to operate along the Vietnamese coastal areas, but with the start of Admiral Elmo Zumwalt's "SEALORDS" riverway interdiction strategy, their primary area of operations soon centered upon the Ca Mau peninsula and the Mekong Delta area in the southern tip of Vietnam. Here they patrolled the waterways and performed special operations, including gunfire support, troop insertion and evacuation, and raids into enemy territory.
The Mekong Delta was composed of ten thousand square miles of marshland, swamps and forested areas all interlaced by rivers and canal ways. Controlled by the Viet Cong, the interior waterways of the Mekong Delta were used to transport Viet Cong supplies and weapons.
Boats generally operated in teams of three to five. Each boat had an officer in charge, one of whom would also be placed in overall charge of the mission. Their missions included patrolling the waterways, searching water traffic for weapons and munitions, transporting Vietnamese marine units and inserting Navy SEAL teams.
When the swift boats began making forays up the waterways into the interior of the delta, they initially took the carriers by surprise, causing them to drop their materials and run off into the overgrowth. Occasionally a short firefight would break out. As it became clear that control for the waterways was being contested the Viet Cong developed a number of tactics to challenge the US Navy. They set up ambushes, built obstructions in the canals to create choke points, and began to place mines in the waterways.
For the swift boats, coming back down river was always more dangerous then going up river. The passage of a patrol assured their eventual return, providing an opportunity for the Viet Cong. Ambushes were typically short lived affairs, set up at a river bend or in a narrow canal that restricted the maneuverability of the boats. A wide variety of portable weapons were used in attacks, including recoilless rifles, B-40 rockets, .50 caliber machine guns and AK-47s, often fired from behind earthen bunkered positions. Engagements were brief and violent, with the ambushers often slipping away into the undergrowth when the boats located the source of attack and began to concentrate their return fire. When attacked the boats would accelerate out of the hot zone, turn and then return as a group, firing as many of their guns as they could bring to bear. They would power past the ambush point, turn and return to attack again till the ambushers were either killed or slipped away. Though most cruising and patrolling was done at 8 to 10 knots, the boats could reach a top speed of 32 knots. Thick brush and vegetation in the delta provided excellent cover for the escaping ambushers. Casualties taken among the river crews were high. Casualties suffered among the Viet Cong were difficult to assess, as they would take their dead and wounded away from a firefight. Discovering newly dug graveyards was one of the few ways to confirm Viet Cong losses.
The first Swift Boat to be lost during the war was PCF-4, which was lost to a mine in 1966. Two boats, PCF-14 and PCF-76, were lost in rough seas at the mouth of the Cua Viet River near the DMZ, and a third, PCF-77, was lost in a rescue effort during a monsoon at the mouth of the Perfume River on the approach to Huế. All three of these boats were lost in 1966. PCF-41 was lost that same year in an ambush when it was hit by fire from a 57 mm recoilless rifle. Its controls destroyed and coxswain killed, it ran aground at speed. When the crew ran out of ammunition it had to be abandoned. She was recovered the next day but was too badly damaged to be repaired. She was salvaged instead. PCF-43 was lost to a rocket attack in 1969. Several other Swift Boats had been lost to river mines, but had been salvaged and either repaired or used for spare parts.

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

D'deridex Class Romulan Warbird

Here are some images of AMT/Round 2 1/3200 scale  D'deridex Class Romulan Warbird from Star Trek the Next Generation.

From Memory Alpha"

The warbird design referred to as D'deridex-class, B-type warbird, or Warbird class was one of the largest and most powerful mainstays of the Romulan Star Empire. It served as the backbone of the Romulan fleet during the latter half of the 24th century

The uncloaking of a warbird of this type in 2364, during an encounter with the USS Enterprise-D on the edge of the Neutral Zone, signaled the end to fifty-three years of Romulan isolation. (TNG: "The Neutral Zone") Over the next ten years, these warbirds, under the command of both the Romulan military and the Tal Shiar, participated in numerous encounters with Starfleet and the Dominion.
By 2374, they were prominently featured in the Dominion War, where they were instrumental in forcing the Dominion fleets back, time and again. The design saw action during the First and Second Battles of Chin'toka, as well as the final showdown of the conflict, the Battle of Cardassia. (DS9: "Tears of the Prophets", "The Changing Face of Evil")
At least four warbirds were used in the Battle of the Omarion Nebula, joined with at least twelve Cardassian Keldon-class cruisers in a combined fleet of twenty ships. The entire fleet was ambushed and destroyed by a fleet of 150 Dominion ships. (DS9: "The Die is Cast") At least seven warbirds were present in the Federation Alliance fleet at the Battle of Cardassia. One is known to have been destroyed and at least five survived. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind") 

The D'deridex-class warbird was classified as a battle cruiser by Starfleet. Using a forced quantum singularity as a power source (see Black hole starship) and the latest in Romulan cloaking technology, the D'deridex was not only one of the most advanced vessels in the Romulan Star Empire, but also in the Alpha Quadrant. These warbirds were roughly twice as long as a Federation Galaxy-class starship with a lower overall maximum speed. (TNG: "The Neutral Zone", "Tin Man")


The outboard plan of the warbird's design incorporated a unique, horizontally split "shell" hull design, with a prominent forward section. The bulk of the ship's overall size was incorporated in the open-shell, which resembled two separate "wings" that met at either side at the warp nacelles, at the "tail" and off the "neck", which was connected to the "head" or primary forward hull section. The "head" featured the bridge, main engineering, and a majority of the primary weapon systems of the vessel. (TNG: "The Neutral Zone", etc.) Andrew Probert, who designed the D'deridex-class warbird, intended for it to have a length of 4,440 feet (1,353 meters).  He writes, "The wings were to have had a LOT more substance to them (as seen in my drawing) but was reduced [on] the model. They are separated to allow the engines to 'see' each other and generate a warp field. As previously noted on the board, I did not design the subsequent ships that ignore my attempt at requirements-for-warp-drive continuity.

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Messerschmitt BF 109-E4

Here are some images of Airfix's 1/24 scale Messerschmitt BF 109-E4.
I don't know if it is a running problem with the kit. but when I built it I discovered that the engine covers would not fit properly by a good 1/16th of an inch in some places. So as a result some top parts of the engine had to be removed and the inside of the covers shaved in order to get the covers to fit. I couldn't see any plastic warping and the engine did fit into its proper position in the fuselage. So as a result I had no option but to glue the covers into place.

From Wikipedia"
The E-3 was replaced by the E-4 (with many airframes being upgraded to E-4 standards starting at the beginning of the Battle of Britain) which was different in some small details, most notably by using the modified 20 mm MG-FF/M wing cannon and having improved head armour for the pilot. With the MG FF/M it was possible to fire a new and improved type of explosive shell, called Minengeschoß (or 'mine-shell') which was made using drawn steel (the same way brass cartridges are made) instead of being cast as was the usual practice. This resulted in a shell with a thin but strong wall, which had a larger cavity in which to pack a much larger explosive charge than was otherwise possible. The new shell required modifications to the MG FF's mechanism due to the different recoil characteristics, hence the MG FF/M designation.
The cockpit canopy was also revised to an easier-to-produce, "squared-off" design, which also helped improve the pilot's field of view. This canopy, which was also retrofitted to many E-1s and E-3s, was largely unchanged until the introduction of a welded, heavy-framed canopy on the G series in the autumn of 1942. The E-4 would be the basis for all further Bf 109E developments. Some E-4 and later models received a further improved 1,175 PS (1,159 hp, 864 kW) DB601N high-altitude engine; known as the E-4/N; owing to priority being given to equipping Bf 110s with this engine, one fighter gruppe was converted to this version, starting in July 1940. The E-4 was also available as a fighter-bomber with equipment very similar to the previous E-1/B. It was known as E-4/B (DB 601Aa engine) and E-4/BN (DB 601N engine). A total of 561 of all E-4 versions were built, including 496 E-4s built as such: 250 E-4, 211 E-4/B, 15 E-4/N and 20 E-4/BN.

Sunday, October 4, 2015

The Exterminator

Here are some images of Lindberg's 1/8 scale Dragster "The Exterminator".

 "The Exterminator" a 50's style rail dragster of which one can build a variety of configurations from the kit. I built a front end blower version.
However when I tried to do some research on an actual vehicle all I could track was the model.
If anyone happens to know if the car actually existed in some form I would like to hear about it, or is it as I suspect a concoction of Lindberg. If so I'm forced to wonder what dragsters they did get their info from. There's no information on the box or the instructions. Perhaps dragsters of that period were all of a standard configuration. Who knows?

Thursday, October 1, 2015

DFW T-28 Floh (Flea)

Here are some images of Planet Models 1/32 scale DFW T-28 Floh (Flea).

From Wikipedia.

The DFW T.28 Floh (English: Flea) was a small German biplane fighter prototype designed by Hermann Dorner, the designer of the successful Hannover CL.II two-seat fighter of 1917, and built by Deutsche Flugzeug-Werke. Designed in 1915 as high-speed fighter the Floh had a small 6.20 m (20.3 ft) wingspan and a rather ungainly tall and thin fuselage.[1] With a fixed conventional landing gear the Floh was powered by a 100 hp (75 kW) Mercedes D.I inline piston engine, and on its first fight in December 1915 reached 180 km/h, quite fast for the time.The aircraft suffered from very poor forward visibility and was difficult to land due to its narrow landing gear.The prototype crashed during the flight testing programme.