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Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude
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Marta and I have been in Oro Valley, about 10 miles north of the center of Tucson and the University of Arizona, for over a week now. We have leased a short-term apartment rental for the entire month of May, as we want to see what life is like in Oro Valley and Tucson. We definitely want to anchor ourselves in Arizona, the only question being where. Last year we spent a month in the Scottsdale-Phoenix-Tempe area, but thought we ought to give Oro Valley-Tucson a chance as well before making the final decision.
Tucson has a couple of real gems to recommend it. The first is the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum. the term "museum" is something of a misnomer, as it is really a large complex that combines elements of a zoological park, a botanical garden, and a museum. Featured are flora and fauna of the Sonoran Desert, overlapping both Arizona and Northern Mexico. It has been in existence for decades but gets better each time I visit. Very professionally run.
The second gem is the Pima Air and Space Museum, adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and its "Bone Yard," where thousands of military aircraft are stored. The arid, high desert environment and hard rock under the desert floor are perfect for storing aircraft without the threat of corrosion and disintegration. Stored at the Bone Yard are all sorts of aircraft, some being kept in good condition in case they need to be reactivated, some cannibalized for spare parts to keep others running, and some that will be sold to foreign governments.
The Pima Air and Space Museum may not be the equal of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, but it comes close. there are the usual World War II aircraft displayed: a P-51 Mustang, B-17 Flying Fortress, B-24 Liberator, and the B-29 Super Fortress that enabled the U.S. Eighth Air Force to reach and bomb rail centers and fuel depots, and to conduct area bombing of cities, throughout Germany with P-51's flying fighter escort, as well as to bomb Japan from the Mariannas, and finally to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the war.
The gem within a gem at the museum is an SR-71 blackbird. The SR-71 was developed to take U-2 reconnaisance capabilities a giant step forward. Originally developed as a single-seater called the "A-12" at Groom Lake (Area 51) in Nevada, it finally ended up as the Sr-71, a two-seater developed and tested at Palmdale, California. The two-man crew consisted of the pilot and the operator of the technical reconnaisance equipment. It is the sleekest, most magnificant machine one can imagine, capable of flying at an altitude of 85,000 to 90,000 feet at three times the speed of sound. It has been completely overtaken by satellite imagery and is no longer in use.
We'll be here another three weeks. We like the high desert environment. the temperature is always about five or six degrees cooler than the Phoenix metropolitan area, and the desert is lush with growth--mequite, palo verde and the like, as well as cacti.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date May 12 2015 18:01:28
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to SephardRick)
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It was announced that the SR-71 Blackbird would be retired. One last transcontinental speed run was scheduled to establish an unclassified speed record. The Blackbird crossed the California coast near Santa Barbara, eastbound fairly early on a Saturday morning. I was lying in bed asleep, the windows open to be nice and cool. I woke up when the sonic boom rocked my condo. I thought it was an earthquake.
During that period I went to meetings for a "black" project at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. The identity of the participants was secret. Instead of showing your identification to the guard on the gate, you went to a parking lot beside the guard post and called your contact on a pay phone. Your contact came to pick you up, vouched for you to the guard, and took you to the meeting.
As things heated up for the First Gulf War, I saw people in the parking lot carrying attache cases with prominent SR-71 decals on them, although the Blackbird was officially "retired." Not very effective "operational security."
Larisa and I visited for first time the branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum that adjoins Dulles Airport near Washington DC. You enter in a broad marble floored hallway that leads to a wide balcony overlooking the huge display floor.
An SR-71 is front and center. Larisa and I spoke at the same time, "Holy sh1t, it's the Blackbird!" It is a very impressive sight. The plane is large, and the shape radiates the sensation of speed. The black heat resistant finish adds a tone of menace.
Behind the SR-71 is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, but for the two of us as we stood on the balcony the Blackbird was the focus of attention.
RNJ
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Date May 13 2015 21:22:24
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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The United States was damned fortunate to have the likes of Kelly Johnson and his Lockheed "Skunk Works" developing reconnaisance aircraft like the U-2, the A-12, and finally the magnificent, menacing SR-71. There was nothing like them at the time, and there never will be again, as satellite imagery has completely overtaken them since the mid 1990s. The interesting thing about today's ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaisance) is we have great capability in detecting potentially hostile missile complexes and the like through satellite imagery, as well as real-time battlefield imagery via reconnaisance drones. Both macro and micro ISR, so to speak.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 13 2015 23:27:49
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
It was announced that the SR-71 Blackbird would be retired. One last transcontinental speed run was scheduled to establish an unclassified speed record. The Blackbird crossed the California coast near Santa Barbara, eastbound fairly early on a Saturday morning. I was lying in bed asleep, the windows open to be nice and cool. I woke up when the sonic boom rocked my condo. I thought it was an earthquake.
During that period I went to meetings for a "black" project at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. The identity of the participants was secret. Instead of showing your identification to the guard on the gate, you went to a parking lot beside the guard post and called your contact on a pay phone. Your contact came to pick you up, vouched for you to the guard, and took you to the meeting.
As things heated up for the First Gulf War, I saw people in the parking lot carrying attache cases with prominent SR-71 decals on them, although the Blackbird was officially "retired." Not very effective "operational security."
Larisa and I visited for first time the branch of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum that adjoins Dulles Airport near Washington DC. You enter in a broad marble floored hallway that leads to a wide balcony overlooking the huge display floor.
An SR-71 is front and center. Larisa and I spoke at the same time, "Holy sh1t, it's the Blackbird!" It is a very impressive sight. The plane is large, and the shape radiates the sensation of speed. The black heat resistant finish adds a tone of menace.
Behind the SR-71 is the Space Shuttle Enterprise, but for the two of us as we stood on the balcony the Blackbird was the focus of attention.
I grew up in a house that had a sight line straight onto the air field at Norton. I could see the tails of C-141's taxi and always see the landings and lift off of the 141's and the occasional C-5 and visiting B-52's from March AFB. I think they might have sent them to the mechanics at Norton, there was a huge shop there. The guy who lived next door was a film producer at the AFAV audio visual dept. - Just about everyone on the block had a job related to the base.
You post reminded me of the rumors at the time that the Blackbirds and teams used Norton as one of the bases they deployed from to where ever. I seem to remember something about a Norton to Thailand connection, as it might have been where SR-71 teams left for the Far East. I don't remember seeing an SR-71 take off during the day, but a few times at night when I was closer to the base in the east Highlands out near the Santa Ana wash I did see black air craft taking off and they had the two exhaust cones that were the size a shape of the A -11...pretty sure that it was Blackbirds taking off after sundown.
I would sure like to see the the Pima museum.
At the NASM is was the U-2 that grabbed me, love those wings. I can imagine it would be like riding a seagull at 75,000 ft. The Blackbird is beyond beyond.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date May 14 2015 0:56:42
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: BarkellWH
The United States was damned fortunate to have the likes of Kelly Johnson and his Lockheed "Skunk Works" developing reconnaisance aircraft like the U-2, the A-12, and finally the magnificent, menacing SR-71. There was nothing like them at the time, and there never will be again, as satellite imagery has completely overtaken them since the mid 1990s. The interesting thing about today's ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaisance) is we have great capability in detecting potentially hostile missile complexes and the like through satellite imagery, as well as real-time battlefield imagery via reconnaisance drones. Both macro and micro ISR, so to speak.
Bill
Yes, Kelly Johnson and the whole Skunk Works operation have been a great American military asset.
The Navy Strategic Program Office was (probably still is) headquartered in Crystal City near the Pentagon. "SP" is in charge of U.S. fleet ballistic missile submarines, the missiles they launch, and the nuclear warheads the missiles could deliver. At an SP meeting concerned with defeating the Soviet strategic missile defenses, I was objecting to the "threat model" projections beyond ten years into the future.
The services develop official threat models for U.S. equipment designs to defeat. Threat models are based on intelligence information about enemy equipment. But intelligence is often incomplete, and important parameters are estimated by experts in the field. Predicting technology developments more then ten years in the future is difficult. The U.S. Missile Intelligence Agency did not project Soviet missile defense technology more than ten years into the future.
The Navy was interested in exploratory projects to defeat Soviet threats further into the future, so they hired an independent research company to develop a more advanced threat model. The research company did what they had done for years. They simply "mirror imaged" U.S. systems that were already under development. I objected.
"You are giving the Soviets instantaneous broadband radar waveform capability. They have never shown any signs of developing this during the last fifteen years. For their most recent systems they have spent hundreds of millions of rubles to build radars of massive scale and power, but their inherent design is bandwidth limited, even if they had capable transmitter tubes and receiver system designs. For far less money they could have reverse engineered American and European broadband tube technology and come up with a less expensive and more capable radar design."
The research institute engineer replied, "But the U.S. has used this technology in deployed systems for the last fifteen years."
"Precisely."
At this point Levering Smith, the admiral in charge of SP asked, "Mr. Jernigan, why is it that the U.S. has deployed broadband technology for the last fifteen years, but the Soviets have not?"
"For one thing, the Varian brothers were born in California, not Russia, and they went to Stanford and Cal Poly, not Moscow Engineering University. They had access to venture capital and an educated and capable work force. In the Soviet Union hardware engineering development is a lower tier in the profession than system engineering and design. It receives less prestige and far less funding. One of the Varian brothers was a college dropout, the other one took six years to graduate from Stanford because he had trouble with math and physics. In the Soviet Union they probably would not have even become engineers, but in the USA they made a lot of money in the hardware business."
"What is the source of your information about Soviet radar development, Mr. Jernigan?"
"As you know sir, I have been on the Antiballistic Missile Joint Intelligence Review Panel for the last seven years, and contributed to National Intelligence Estimates on the subject."
Admiral Smith addressed the research institute engineer. "What would be the effect on your model to omit this broadband technology?"
"It would very seriously degrade its capability."
"Please develop a model that does that so we can evaluate the effect of the two different models on our design concepts."
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, they never fielded a broadband radar.
RNJ
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Date May 14 2015 19:22:16
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to estebanana)
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During a fairly long career I had a foot in each camp, both defeating radars and upgrading them in response to countermeasures.
Each segment of the defense business is like a set of Russian dolls. People in the outer layers are technically qualified, but they may not know all the technical details, or the strategic import of technological trends.
At the inner layers there is more cross fertilization. I participated in a number of "black" projects, whose very existence was supposed to be secret. But I was only surprised to learn of the existence of one of them. It was "black" due to diplomatic/political considerations, not to conceal the development of technology.
Stealth technology relies on two basic tactics. One is to absorb radar energy as it impinges. The other is to deflect the energy away from the direction it came from, which is where the radar transmitter is.
There's nothing the radar designer can do about the first, except to build more powerful transmitters and more sensitive receivers. The most sensitive receivers nowadays operate very close to the limits imposed by quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. Their "front ends" need to be cooled to very low temperatures, which is bulky, expensive and hard to transport. You're not going to put a liquid nitrogen cooled receiver in the nose of a fighter jet.
Even the stealthiest practical structures can be detected if they are close enough to the radar. What the radar designer would try to do is to increase the detection range. But to do this by increasing transmitter power is a very expensive proposition in terms of size, weight and required electrical prime power. Required transmitter power goes up as range to the fourth power.
To counter deflection, you can put the receiver in a different place from the transmitter. Work on this tactic was going on well before the still classified stealth technology began to be a buzz on the grapevine.
I was no longer in the intelligence business when the F-117 was shot down in Serbia, but the rumor on the street was that they used their network of cellphone towers as a distributed network of receivers. The commander of the SA-3 surface-to-air missile battalion said they saw the plane when it opened its bomb bay doors, a much less stealthy configuration. But somebody had to tell the SA-3 guys where to look, unless they were just really lucky.
In practical structures, deflection doesn't work in all directions. One of my ex-wife's nephews was an FA-18 pilot in the first Gulf War. The stealthy F-117s went in by themselves on the first strike against Baghdad, to take out air defense and command and control. The nephew went in on the next wave. Returning to his carrier, he detected on radar a plane where no plane was supposed to be. He asked for permission to engage. The Air Boss said, "No. You don't want to be the first guy to shoot down one of those."
RNJ
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Date May 15 2015 16:48:20
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to BarkellWH)
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In checking out a few bookstores in Oro Valley and Tucson, I made note of a new publication that Runner (and perhaps others) may be interested in reading. Runner, should you be reading this posting, James Bradley has a new book out entitled, "The China Mirage." I have not read it, but I did spend about an hour perusing it and homing in on a couple of chapters. Bradley's thesis, much like that of his previous work on United States engagement with Japan, "The Imperial Cruise," is that throughout the history of its engagement with China, the United States has gotten it all wrong.
You may recall our discussion of "The Imperial Cruise" in the thread "Late Night Drawings." I mentioned that I had read the "Imperial Cruise" when it was published in 2009, and my reaction was that I found Bradley's work to be tendentious, riddled with errors, and ridiculously absurd in his analysis of U.S. foreign policy, Japanese internal dynamics, and particularly in his vastly overblown conclusion that the cruise and Teddy Roosevelt's foreign policy led in a direct line to the Communist takeover of China, the Korean War and other maladies of our time. In perusing a couple of chapters in his latest work on U.S. engagement with China, I see no reason to alter my opinion of Bradley.
I was particularly interested to note that his take on the U.S. refusal to arm Mao Zedong during the period 1944-45 was that it led directly to Mao turning to Stalin and the Soviet Union, and that had we armed Mao he would have allied himself with the U.S. This is an old revisionist chestnut that gained some popularity among a few historians after the American debacle in Vietnam, but it has been so thoroughly debunked that it is amazing that Bradley would try to revive it. If you read Bradley's book, I suggest you also read a book published in 2014 entitled, "China 1945," by the China scholar Richard Bernstein. Compare Bradley's take on the U.S.-China relationship during World War II (with both Mao at Yenan and Chiang's Nationalist forces) with that of Bernstein. Bernstein is a reputable China scholar, while Bradley's credentials, as far as I can see, rest on his father having been one of those raising the American flag on Iwo Jima, which at least says something about his father's valor.
In any case, don't take my word for it. I suggest you read both books and would be interested in your take on them.
Cheers,
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 18 2015 17:41:32
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to BarkellWH)
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quote:
Bernstein is a reputable China scholar, while Bradley's credentials, as far as I can see, rest on his father having been one of those raising the American flag on Iwo Jima, which at least says something about his father's valor.
You must know Bill the raising ( razing??) of the American flag on Iwo Jima was a staged photo and it was pure theatre, which says more about Bradley's dad's participation. The soldiers fought in awful conditions, especially the Japanese, but the enduring American icon of victory, the photo of the flag raising is a staged piece of drama. The famous photo is an idealized reenactment of the actual flag raising. Iwo Jima was a horrible battle for both American and Japanese soldiers, in my opinion there were no winners there, but whomever was left standing got to claim the real estate.
It's a deluded notion that Mao would have been faithful to the US had the US aided his faction; Mao's game was to get what he could where he could, then sellout the supporters he did not like or kill them when possible. By that revisionist logic we should have given aid to Pol Pot or Stalin himself. Mao was a systematic mass murderer just like the two former mentioned fellows.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date May 19 2015 12:31:24
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Tucson/Oro Valley Interlude (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
You must know Bill the raising ( razing??) of the American flag on Iwo Jima was a staged photo and it was pure theatre, which says more about Bradley's dad's participation.
In fact Joe Rosenthal, the photographer who took the iconic photo that everyone associates with the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, was not even present for the initial flag-raising on Mount Suribachi. The initial flag-raising was photographed by Louis Lowery, a photographer for the Marine publication "Leatherneck." It was a couple of days later that Lowery suggested to Rosenthal that they climb Mount Suribachi to see the flag.
By the time Lowery and Rosenthal reached the summit of Mount Suribachi a couple of days later, the Marines had decided to raise a larger flag that could be seen off-shore. While they had planned to raise the larger flag in any case, the actual "raising" was staged, in that they waited until Rosenthal had his camera set up and everything was in place to get the photo. It is unfortunate that Lowery never received the credit reaped by Rosenthal.
Nevertheless, regarding Bradley's father, he deserves credit for having participated in the Marines' assault on Iwo Jima, even if his part in the flag-raisong was staged. What I find odd is that the son and author, James Bradley, apparently thinks that being the father's son credentials him to write about the history of United States engagement with Asia. In the little author's biography on the flyleaf, it is the only thing mentioned about Bradley's credentials.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 19 2015 17:29:28
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