I know this is probably old hat, and if I dig enough on this site I will find more info, but I was looking through some old FTs and came across a section on the Aurora project. It seemed to be fairly high profile at the time, but has all gone a bit quite know, can anybody shed any light on it for me?
Aurora (Alleged Top Secret Aircraft & Project)
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Anonymous
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Hey there Bob,
Nice to meet the other Spurs fan at last - roll on Sunday!
What kinds of things do you need to know?
Basically it's supposed to be a Top Secret, v. high altitude, high speed US spy plane. The name is derived from a US government balance sheet, which showed a large sum of money being poured into a project named Aurora. No-one could determine what this project actually was, and may have been a military "black project" reported by mistake. I'm not sure how the connection was made between Aurora and this supposed high tech spy plane (so high tech it can't find Bin Laden and his merry men).
Eyewitnesses include a former signalman on an offshore platform in the north sea who saw an unidentified large triangular shaped plane refueling in mid-air (not stealth, and this guy was trained to recognised every known military plane there is). A radio ham in Texas reportedly picked up a callsign "Dark Star" whilst monitoring military frequencies, and heard a strange engine noise in the skies above, like a low frequency pulse. This led to a theory that the Aurora is powered by some kind of pulse detonation engine.
Either way, like stealth which has been around since the seventies, we may not know for some time, at least until they get something better. Some have poured scorn on the idea, since some SR-71 Blackbirds which were dropped from service, theoretically to make way for Aurora, were mysteriously recalled back into service a short time later.
Hope this helps, though I'm by no means an authority on this.
Nice to meet the other Spurs fan at last - roll on Sunday!
What kinds of things do you need to know?
Basically it's supposed to be a Top Secret, v. high altitude, high speed US spy plane. The name is derived from a US government balance sheet, which showed a large sum of money being poured into a project named Aurora. No-one could determine what this project actually was, and may have been a military "black project" reported by mistake. I'm not sure how the connection was made between Aurora and this supposed high tech spy plane (so high tech it can't find Bin Laden and his merry men).
Eyewitnesses include a former signalman on an offshore platform in the north sea who saw an unidentified large triangular shaped plane refueling in mid-air (not stealth, and this guy was trained to recognised every known military plane there is). A radio ham in Texas reportedly picked up a callsign "Dark Star" whilst monitoring military frequencies, and heard a strange engine noise in the skies above, like a low frequency pulse. This led to a theory that the Aurora is powered by some kind of pulse detonation engine.
Either way, like stealth which has been around since the seventies, we may not know for some time, at least until they get something better. Some have poured scorn on the idea, since some SR-71 Blackbirds which were dropped from service, theoretically to make way for Aurora, were mysteriously recalled back into service a short time later.
Hope this helps, though I'm by no means an authority on this.
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Anonymous
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We learned about Stealths when the gulf war came. Maybe now we will see their new toys.
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For a detailed look at stealth projects funding etc look here.
http://www.janes.com/regional_news/americas/news/jidr/jidr000105_01_n.shtml
http://www.janes.com/regional_news/americas/news/jidr/jidr000105_01_n.shtml
I remember hearing romours that the aurora caused the Chinook helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre in 1994.
Apparently the downdraft of the aurora coming into land at Macrihanish (sp?) caused massive turbulance in the air below, causing the chopper to crash. The USAF were thrown out shortly after.
Apparently the downdraft of the aurora coming into land at Macrihanish (sp?) caused massive turbulance in the air below, causing the chopper to crash. The USAF were thrown out shortly after.
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CAUTION - Unsubstansiated rumour time....
There was a rumour current in the military at the time of the Chinook was that the crash was actually engineered to get rid of some 'hard liners' on the UK Gov side over the Northern Ireland Peace process, zealots not being restricted to Sin Fein and the Ulstermen... IMHO an unlikely scenario, since it was oo high profile and there are better ways for to silence dissent than killing them all at once.
Another cover up theory appeared in Computer Weekly, claiming that there was a MOD cover up over mechanical failures in Chinooks and that pilot error was just a cover... This story is something of a crusade on the part of CW and a serach on Chinook on the site brings up this:-
Chinook story
No idea if the url will work but...
Sorry this is off thread but this subject almost deserves a thread of its own
8-)
There was a rumour current in the military at the time of the Chinook was that the crash was actually engineered to get rid of some 'hard liners' on the UK Gov side over the Northern Ireland Peace process, zealots not being restricted to Sin Fein and the Ulstermen... IMHO an unlikely scenario, since it was oo high profile and there are better ways for to silence dissent than killing them all at once.
Another cover up theory appeared in Computer Weekly, claiming that there was a MOD cover up over mechanical failures in Chinooks and that pilot error was just a cover... This story is something of a crusade on the part of CW and a serach on Chinook on the site brings up this:-
Chinook story
No idea if the url will work but...
Sorry this is off thread but this subject almost deserves a thread of its own
8-)
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Dark Detective said:
It might be interesting to know that "Dark Star" was the name for Tier 3 minus, which was a stealthy recce UAV that got cancelled. It was (at the time) the partner to the Global Hawk (Tier 2 Plus) which *has* now entered service.
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It is interesting, but I guess by UAV you mean unmanned, so why would there be a radio broadcast. Hmm, I guess it's also a bit far-fetched to suggest Aurora might be unmanned given that the Predators in Afghanistan are so limited and unreliable. Where can I get more info on Global Hawk?
As for the chinook crash, I don't see why it's so hard to accept that it was a bloody stupid thing to put so many security experts in one aircraft only for it to crash in bad weather. Suggests incompetence rather than a conspiracy.
As for the chinook crash, I don't see why it's so hard to accept that it was a bloody stupid thing to put so many security experts in one aircraft only for it to crash in bad weather. Suggests incompetence rather than a conspiracy.
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DD,
As I've said on record before, from outside frequently incompetence and conspiracy look the same and conspiracy often follows incompetence
8¬)
As I've said on record before, from outside frequently incompetence and conspiracy look the same and conspiracy often follows incompetence
8¬)
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unsubstantiated rumour time here too.. that Arura flew from Scotland (Marcrahanish) to St mawgan useing the sonic booms which are reguly heard and atributed to Concord as cover... St Mawgan (cornwall) has a hugely long runway..... i wounder.... Other rumours are that its a flop tho fast and thats why Blackbirds are agin in use.....
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Dark Detective said:
I wasn't necessarily suggesting that Dark Star and Aurora are one and the same, just that a reference to Dark Star may (though only *may*) be a transmission involving that beast. As to why there was radio traffic, it could have been radio traffic between some "person" and the Dark Star ground crew. (It may have been un-manned, but there was probably a team on the ground with the ability to monitor it's telemetry, and also to take control of it if necessary.)
As regards the utility of UAVs, after Afghanistan the US are looking to extend their use (to the extent of using armed ones) and are also planning to acquire a significant number of Global Hawks. I don't think that a hypersonic manned aircraft would have been any more successful. (Possibly less so, as I think that the loiter capability of the UAVs was one of the key plus points.)
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sidecar_jon said:
maybe i can shed some light on this rumour i also listen to military frequencies on a scanner and i know for a fact that there is testing of secret aircraft going on in the northern reaches of scotland, whether it's project aurora i can't tell but there is deffanitly testing going on up there, i have heard them on similar frequencies for the past 5 years or so.
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Very fast aeroplanes
I live at the top of a hill in south Bristol, and have a wide field of vision from my house. As I live below the flight path between the US and Heathrow, not to mention a couple of miles from Bristol airport and six miles south of the Rolls Royce and BAe plants in Filton, I'm used to seeing planes of all kinds and from all distances. One summer afternoon, about four years ago, I was sat in my garden with my father, a former aero-engineer who worked in research and development. Looking up we both saw Concorde travelling east to west: as my dad had worked on the plane at one time he remarked it was good to see it still going (a tad ironic, I know, but anyway) it was at about 10,000 and climbing, sub-sonic as it was overland. Then, behind it and much higher, we saw another delta-winged craft: this was obviously going a great deal faster, and in fact overtook Concorde before they both left our view - we could tell it was higher as it actually passed over Concorde en route.
I asked my dad what it could be: his answer, upon which he would not be drawn further:"Probably American."
You can't make planes stealthy to the human eye...
I live at the top of a hill in south Bristol, and have a wide field of vision from my house. As I live below the flight path between the US and Heathrow, not to mention a couple of miles from Bristol airport and six miles south of the Rolls Royce and BAe plants in Filton, I'm used to seeing planes of all kinds and from all distances. One summer afternoon, about four years ago, I was sat in my garden with my father, a former aero-engineer who worked in research and development. Looking up we both saw Concorde travelling east to west: as my dad had worked on the plane at one time he remarked it was good to see it still going (a tad ironic, I know, but anyway) it was at about 10,000 and climbing, sub-sonic as it was overland. Then, behind it and much higher, we saw another delta-winged craft: this was obviously going a great deal faster, and in fact overtook Concorde before they both left our view - we could tell it was higher as it actually passed over Concorde en route.
I asked my dad what it could be: his answer, upon which he would not be drawn further:"Probably American."
You can't make planes stealthy to the human eye...
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Ben R. Rich, former head of the Lockheed Skunk Works says in his book "Skunk Works" that Aurora was the code name for Lockheed's stealth bomber prototype. The project never got beyond a prototype because the B-2 contract went to another company.
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The bloke that was in court today for spying had apparently been accused of stealing documents concerning a British stealth project. I think it was called Halo in the TV report but it sounded similar to Aurora. This would be a turn up seeing as Aurora doesn't officially exist.
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Inevitable correction to the above: Halo apparently stands for Hostile Artillery Locator, which is used to detect the range and location of enemy gunfire and is nothing to do with Aurora. Which is strange, because it sounded just like it on the news yesterday...
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aerialsnake said:
Looking it up in Jane's it would appear that there are at least two things with that name. The abandoned aircraft program, and the artilllery locator.
The BBC went for the artillery locator, but Ananova went for the aircraft. Journalism is a wonderful profession.
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schnor said:
Those bloody things drop out of the sky like narcoleptic sparrows!
My old RSM had been on five of the things that crashed! I'm not best fond of them either. First time I was on one it broke down...just as well it hadn't taken off...
FelixAntonius
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There were distant booming noises heard in the West Country, or out in the Atlantic, long before Concord or Aurora. I think Fort makes at least one reference to them & I remember in the late 1970's, hearing almost sub-audial booming sounds, when I was down in Falmouth.
I'm relatively new to the Aurora project. My first encounter came a couple of months after 9/11 (11/9??) when that hardline journal of factual news 'the sun' reported that the aurora was being used to bomb afganistan - claiming that it could take off from the us after breakfast, deposit some death on Afganistan, and be home for lunch. A few months ago i saw a tv prog claiming that although lockhead had stoppped production of the SR71 many, many years ago, the high security plant where it was produced, was still producing something and had taken on extra staff, reather than reducing numbers. To me it seems quite feasable that the aurora does exist simply because it is in our nature to build things bigger, faster, more effective etc. Also as stealth technology is a couple of decades old, theres gotta be something new around the corner in terms of aviation tech to replace it as the next big thing. Just a thought, bit then what do i know!
rustyfunk said:
rofl
That's the reasoning that's got me convinced that aurora exists, although I'm not sure that it's "the next big thing" as it were, but merely uses advances in existing technology eg. stealth technology, and a new form of propulsion (Ammonia/Hydrogen slush for example)
It's suprising how old (relatively speaking) stealth technology is
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I doubt if they'd use Aurora as a bomber: if anything it's more likely a reconaissance (if that's how you spell it) craft, as was the SR71. Bombers, cos of the amount of weight they have to carry, i.e. ordnance, are very heavy, and so can only fly at relatively low speeds at a relatively low altitude cos the higher you go, the thinner the air and so the more fuel you consume, which after a while becomes practically impossible in terms of pure physics. The SR71 etc, being spy planes (I can spell that!) only carry light stuff like cameras, and a couple of crew, so can go much higher and faster. If you look at the spec for the Blackbird it's about 100 feet long, narrow (again bombers have to be bulky) with massive engines and huuuge fuel tanks: about 70 - 80% of it's take-off weight would have been kerosene.
This is the reason stealth was so heavily developed: if you can't make bombers fast or high enough to avoid flak, you have to make them as low profile as possible. So it's much more likely, given the primitive anti-aircraft systems the Taliban had, that the US just used B-52s. Stealths only really come into their own against sophisticated systems, such as the Iraqis possess.
As for the fuel thing, the use of slush is a possibility, but from my understanding would still need to carry vast amounts of it to get really high or have a practical range(look at the space shuttle for example) and would still have the same problem vis a vis weight: it could well make it a deal faster though within the given parameters.
Perhaps we should just wait and see if Airfix bring out a model kit of Aurora (worked with Stealth!).
This is the reason stealth was so heavily developed: if you can't make bombers fast or high enough to avoid flak, you have to make them as low profile as possible. So it's much more likely, given the primitive anti-aircraft systems the Taliban had, that the US just used B-52s. Stealths only really come into their own against sophisticated systems, such as the Iraqis possess.
As for the fuel thing, the use of slush is a possibility, but from my understanding would still need to carry vast amounts of it to get really high or have a practical range(look at the space shuttle for example) and would still have the same problem vis a vis weight: it could well make it a deal faster though within the given parameters.
Perhaps we should just wait and see if Airfix bring out a model kit of Aurora (worked with Stealth!).
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Revell did in the 1980s
8¬)
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That's it! Revell.
I knew one of them caused a fuss with the Pentagon....
I knew one of them caused a fuss with the Pentagon....
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Somehow, Revell seem to have a better record of getting new techonlogy out in the public domain than Jane's
8¬)
8¬)
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Are you sure. I though HALO stood for High Altitude, Low Orbit, which sounds a bit more like a superspook plane.aerialsnake said:
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HALO: High Altitude, Low Opening. A type of parachute drop used by the SAS and other special forces.
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chatsubo said:
As I said in an earlier post, there are a number of different versions of the acronym flying around. The one that the media has fastened on to is the artillery locator (deployed in Bosnia I think?), whereas the aviation version was "high-agility low-observable." Got this from Janes. (The latter programme is now defunct.)