WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Sniffing Out Skunk Works Part Two 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio. 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.240 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I am your host, 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:16.520 job and Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.479 Radio and I love all things tech and it's time 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:23.520 for another classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode published 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:27.639 November two thirteen. It's actually the second part of a 0:00:27.680 --> 0:00:30.560 two parter. So if you haven't listened to Sniffing Out 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:34.480 skunk Works Part one that published last Friday, go check 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:39.720 that out, because this is Sniffing Out Skunk Works Part two. Yeah. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.680 I was really creative with the titles back then, but 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.640 we will continue to hear about the fascinating work done 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:50.200 at this top secret R and D facility. Let's listen 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:54.640 in all right, let's move on to what was our timeline? Right, 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:56.880 that was where we left off. Yeah, we were right 0:00:56.920 --> 0:00:59.120 about to get to the sun Town. Yeah. Which that's 0:00:59.120 --> 0:01:01.200 something that Lauren and I know a lot about seeing 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.960 is how we're both such a translucent are Empire people. 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.640 We we are the ones who hiss when the sun 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.800 comes out. But the sun tan does not refer to 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.679 anyone designed to you know, get an actual tan. That's 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.080 not That's not what this is about. I believe it 0:01:17.200 --> 0:01:19.839 was so named. I imagine it was so named because 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.280 it was a very high flying vehicle and also it 0:01:22.319 --> 0:01:26.360 was using liquid hydrogen. Hydrogen very important with sun right, Yeah, 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.319 hydrogens turned into helium the temperature of millions of degrees 0:01:30.400 --> 0:01:32.800 to do. So, yeah, it's it was meant to be 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:34.680 a spy plane. So it was a sun the Sun 0:01:34.760 --> 0:01:37.080 Tan was a spy plane that would fly on liquid 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:40.560 hydrogen as its fuel. And um, as it turns out, 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.440 that's that's kind of scary to develop because I don't 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:45.480 know if you know this, but hydrogen tends to be 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:50.520 a volatile substance. Let's say. Yes, this project came about 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.919 because of photos from a YouTube mission over Soviet Russia 0:01:53.960 --> 0:01:57.000 of hydrogen liquefication plants, and they were afraid that that. 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:58.920 The U. S. Government was afraid that the USSR was 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:01.480 building a plane that could spy better than the YouTube. 0:02:01.680 --> 0:02:03.400 And we just can't have any of that. We could 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:08.160 not have that, so says gunk Works was given nineties 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:11.920 six million dollars to design their own hydrogen powered plane. 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:17.040 So you just imagine this the early days of testing 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:21.840 your liquid hydrogen production system. Uh, you you go to 0:02:21.880 --> 0:02:25.639 work in a bomb shelter, the walls of which are 0:02:25.680 --> 0:02:28.560 eight feet thick in case you happened to blow yourself 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.040 up real good while you're working with liquid hydrogen, so 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:33.079 that you don't blow your neighbors up real good as well. 0:02:33.200 --> 0:02:37.359 Really builds confidence. So the facility ended up investing in 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:41.440 lots of stuff so that they could avoid any possible flames, 0:02:41.480 --> 0:02:43.919 including all of the tools were non sparking. You weren't 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.079 allowed to carry your keys in your pockets to avoid 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.040 any potential sparks. You had to have grounded boots so 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:53.280 that you wouldn't create an electro statics charge. It was 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:57.040 really really important, and they did pretty well up until 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:00.520 they had a tiny, itsy bitsy fire. It was it 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.560 was a stove fire. It wasn't it wasn't really that big, 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:06.400 you know, and it but it took place like seven 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:10.600 feet away from the main hydrogen tank. Yeah, which absolutely terrifying. 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.560 I can't imagine what my reaction would be, nor can 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:15.440 I imagine what my reaction would be when I found 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:18.320 out the next thing that happened. Because this project was 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:21.400 top secret, they wouldn't let firefighters into the building to 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:23.640 control the flames, right, and they could not get the 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:26.640 flames out with fire extinguishers. They had gone beyond that 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:29.639 that level, and yet they could not also allow firefighters 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:33.079 in because this top secret. They did wind up, I mean, 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.240 nothing exploded, turned out to be okay, Um, California is 0:03:37.280 --> 0:03:41.200 still there, so it didn't go boom. But but here's 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.440 the things that the it really illustrated that that accident 0:03:44.440 --> 0:03:49.160 illustrate how potentially dangerous this this project was. And so 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.640 because of its level of risk, it was decided that 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.160 it was too much for lockeed to endure, and so 0:03:57.200 --> 0:04:00.880 they scrapped the project. Yeah. Also, Kelly A. Johnson, who 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:03.960 we mentioned in the previous episode wasn't personally sure whether 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.000 these hydrogen engines were going to be able to go 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:09.720 faster further than a conventional kerosene burning jet, and so 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.920 you know, the final decision was, like, here's your ninety 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:17.520 million of the original ninety six back US government. We 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:19.920 don't want to blow things up like one. We cannot. 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.320 We can't guarantee that it's going to perform at what 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.400 we hope it will, and too, we can't guarantee it 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.880 won't explode. So as an interesting side note, part of 0:04:27.880 --> 0:04:30.640 what spurred all this interest in liquid hydrogen was was 0:04:30.720 --> 0:04:35.400 also the CIA's discovery that Soviet scientists named Peter Kapista 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.560 Yes had been taken out of a Soviet labor camp 0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.080 and put into a research institute. Um he he was. 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:46.560 He was a specialist in in low pressure liquids, and 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:49.000 it had turned out that he was working on the 0:04:49.040 --> 0:04:51.960 Sputnik for which he would win the Noble Prize, in 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.600 which we also refer to as the Satellite that Went Deep. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:04:59.920 And that's pretty much all it did apart from terrify 0:05:00.120 --> 0:05:03.239 an entire country. It also did that from kicking off 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:05.040 a whole new section at the Cold War that we 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.640 like to call the Space Race. Yeah, but that that'll 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.559 that'll that'll play in a little bit with Lockheed, although 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.039 really skunk Works had very limited UH operations with the 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.080 Space Race, although some of the people who would test 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.800 fly some of their jets would end up walking on 0:05:19.839 --> 0:05:22.320 the freaking move and NASA would continue to use some 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:26.560 of their vehicles in testing exactly so May nineteen sixty, 0:05:26.600 --> 0:05:30.120 a very important event happened, not directly related to Lockheed, 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.120 but something that would would end up impacting them down 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.080 the line. That was when the United States pilot Francis 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:39.120 Gary Powers was shot down. He was flying a YouTube 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.520 plane over Russia. Um he was shot down after I 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.960 think they fired something like seven or eight missiles at him, 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.480 and they also had a MiG in pursuit. The MiG 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:50.560 got hit by one of the missiles and was destroyed. 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:54.880 Um and Uh and Power said that he saw another 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:59.080 parachute open after he had to eject. He actually could 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:02.320 have bailed earlier, but stayed in his plane to make 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:05.680 sure that would crash in an unpopulated forest area as 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.040 opposed to crashing in a town, and he ejected from 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:12.600 his plane. He landed safely. He was captured by the 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:16.640 Soviet Union and sentenced to three years in prison, followed 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.880 by seven years hard labor, so ten years total. He 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:21.919 would not have to serve out all that time. In 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:25.520 nineteen sixty two, he was part of a prisoner exchange 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.359 along with another Soviet prisoner and Uh. He was exchanged 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:34.040 for Colonel William Fisher uh It was a Soviet KGB colonel. 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.120 On every tenth nineteen sixty two in Berlin, so he 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.279 would return home. He was He was faced with lots 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:43.960 of criticism, people who said that he should have activated 0:06:44.000 --> 0:06:47.599 a a self destruct mechanism that would have destroyed the 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.200 equipment aboard the You two so that the Soviets couldn't 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:51.840 get in charge of it. Some people said that he 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.840 should have taken the c I a cyanide pill and 0:06:54.880 --> 0:07:00.000 committed suicide rather than be taken captured by the Soviets. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.840 It's your job or something. Yeah, he was eventually like 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:06.359 the Officially people said, you did exactly what you were 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.640 supposed to do, but he faced a lot of criticism 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:12.920 at home. Um. This this also sparked discussions about needs 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:15.920 for for better spy plane. Yes, something has to replace 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.880 the YouTube because remember the You two had been launched 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.720 the previous decade, and so you know clearly you don't 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:25.280 want to have that spy plane flying ten years later. 0:07:25.760 --> 0:07:28.600 I say, as the You two is currently flying right now, 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:33.480 more than fifty years after. Yeah, so um this the 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:35.760 the new project would be called the Youth three. Yeah, 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:38.360 originally that was the original designation. They of course would 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:40.920 change that, but that was what they first called it. 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.080 And uh, this is also when I wanted to take 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.360 a little side note to talk about what it's like 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:49.520 to work at Lockheed, because I was reading an article 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:53.640 that had an interview with Edward Lovick, who was a 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.880 retired he retired Locke to employee, and he was a 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.000 radar expert. And the reason why I bring him up 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.280 now is because this is about when Lockeeds started looking 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:07.080 into ways to make planes harder to detect. So one 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:08.880 of the ways of making a better spy plane is 0:08:08.880 --> 0:08:11.840 making one that can't be seen by radar or ground 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:15.360 or whatever. And so Lovick, who was probably one of 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:18.320 the leading experts in radar at the time, simply he says, 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.280 because he just started playing with it earlier than most 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.200 people were. Um, he was very instrumental in trying to 0:08:25.200 --> 0:08:28.200 figure out what would make a plane harder to see 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:29.800 by radar, and it took a while for them to 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.280 figure this out. He talked about the fact that he 0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:35.760 would go with Kelly Johnson to some of these meetings 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.560 with the CIA. And by the way, at that time, 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.960 Lockheed was referring to the CIA as quote the customer 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.760 end quote, which I thought was a great way of 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.960 putting it. And he said that right before lockeed got 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.720 the new spy plane contract, we went to a hotel 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:54.200 room for a meeting. It was Kelly Johnson, a few 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.240 science advisors to the President, someone from the CIA, and myself. 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.199 Pillows were put over the heat events and the room 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.320 was checked for bugs before any of us spoke. He 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:06.880 said that at the time you thought it was pretty silly, 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:10.360 but but you know, here's the thing is that during 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:13.120 the Cold War there was a lot of spying going 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.360 on on both sides. So while it sounds like you 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:18.520 were being like incredibly paranoid to go to those kind 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.840 of extremes to make sure that no one's listening, the 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:24.079 fact is people were trying to listen. People are absolutely 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.480 trying to listen. Yeah. Luck you. Around the same time, 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:28.800 it also instituted a policy that if any of the 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:33.080 employees were approached by someone uh born out of the 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:36.800 US who wished to befriend them, that they were supposed 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:41.000 to inform management it ly, Yeah, yeah, you don't like 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:44.680 your your friend Boris who seems to be incredibly helpful 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:48.080 and wants to cheese plates. Yeah, introduce you to this 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:51.640 new drink called vodka. You might want to report that first. Yeah, 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.040 I love It. Also ended up talking about what it 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.200 was like to develop the technology they were working on 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:59.560 at the time, because at this point they weren't using 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:03.400 computer computers, were around in the in the fifties and sixties, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.640 but very few places were using them at this point. 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:08.920 So he says that the engineers were actually going about 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:12.199 the old fashioned way with slide rules and just they 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.720 were actually writing things down, planning it out on paper, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:18.400 and mixing chemicals by hand. Yeah, sometimes sometimes by feet. 0:10:18.840 --> 0:10:21.079 He talked about how they would mix chemicals and vats 0:10:21.120 --> 0:10:23.960 and it would often be like if you were stomping 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.040 on grapes for wine, exactly, and they said it was 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:28.600 exactly the same stuff they were using. So they were 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:31.600 really using foot power power to mix some of the stuff, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:33.760 which when you consider what some of that stuff is, 0:10:33.800 --> 0:10:37.360 I'm not sure that all those people are okay. But 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:39.640 then we get to nineteen sixty two. This is when 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:45.080 they start working really seriously on developing a a stealth vehicle, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.719 although at the time they had not quite perfected the 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:51.600 way of going about it, and they started with a 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:55.240 program called the A twelve also known as ox cart Um. 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.840 They wanted to make it an invisible plane. So nineteen 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:02.360 sixty two is when they started this ox cart program, right, 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:06.080 but the CIA wouldn't declassify it until two thousand seven. Yeah, 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.880 that's how secret it was, so it was again another 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:12.080 collaborative effort between Air Force CIA and lockeed just like 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.120 the you two. It could travel at speeds of around 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:15.880 two thousand miles per hour, and it was meant to 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.600 reduce the radar cross section of the aircraft compared to 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.319 earlier vehicles by making it smaller and making it out 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:25.040 of other materials besides just you know, metal materials. This 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.120 was before they had figured out that the real secret 0:11:28.200 --> 0:11:31.280 to making a plane signature disappear was not in how 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.640 large or small the plane was, but rather in the 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.080 surface angles and how they create bounts of of of 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.600 the radar signal exactly. So you know, we would eventually 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:42.880 learned that you could actually have a pretty large aircraft 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:45.480 that could still be effectively invisible to radar if the 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.520 surfaces were shaped the right way. This was before we 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:52.560 knew that. So UM thirteen A twelve aircraft were produced 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.120 under ox Cart and they actually would be tested again 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:58.880 at groom Lake, also known as A fifty one, which 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.600 while I still want to do that episode, I have 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:03.839 been convinced that we can put that off for a 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.960 little while. Uh So, anyway, there were other vehicles that 0:12:08.120 --> 0:12:10.480 looked just like A twelves. And again it was another 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:12.680 one of those kind of cover stories, right, the idea 0:12:12.760 --> 0:12:15.800 being that, well, if any of these vehicles are spotted, 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.439 we can always say no, no, no. That was this 0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:21.840 other designation that looks just like the one you think 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.280 it is. Nineteen sixty four. That's when we get the 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.400 y F dash twelve A interceptor, which was based on 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.360 the A twelve design. So that was the ox Cart 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:34.600 design that was talking about just now, So same sort 0:12:34.600 --> 0:12:36.440 of idea. So the A twelve ox Cart was really 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.839 meant as a surveillance vehicle, okay, but the y F 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.360 twelve A was meant as an interceptor, notther one of 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:46.079 those fighters that could intercept other aircraft. Right. Um. Also, 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:49.719 as Jonathan was just saying, um so, so president the 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:51.600 president at the time was Lyndon B. Johnson, and he 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:54.400 announced its existence, you know, only a year or so 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.920 after it had been in existence. Um but uh and 0:12:57.920 --> 0:12:59.960 and and that was in order to kind of shield 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:03.600 old the fact that these other sneaky planes were flying around, right, 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.360 So this interceptor. They everyone acknowledged the fact that these 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.520 interceptors existed. They did not acknowledge that the A twelves existed, 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:14.920 so if you were to spun A twelve, you would 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.040 think it's just one of those y F twelve a's 0:13:17.600 --> 0:13:21.000 and everything would be hunky dorry. And originally the Air 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.880 Force was going to end up purchasing a bunch of 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.719 planes the next generation of this, and that designation was 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:30.640 YF twelve B, and and that would have that would 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.320 have really worked. We think this this one was really 0:13:33.360 --> 0:13:36.040 mostly used as a test craft and as that kind 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.800 of decoy, right right, and um that program was canceled, 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:42.720 didn't didn't happen. But one of the test pilots for 0:13:42.800 --> 0:13:45.280 the y F twelve A interceptor was Jim Irwin a 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:47.600 k A. One of the astronauts who eventually landed on 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:51.680 the moon. Yep, he uh, he's done a moonwalk literally, 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.520 you know, and maybe figuratively too, maybe did the dance. 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:57.040 I don't know, but he definitely has walked on the moon. 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.040 I imagine that there was a pop culture impair it 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:02.319 for anyone who had actually walked on the moon to 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:04.600 get moon walk at some point, I suppose. So. I 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:07.520 don't know how you invent something retroactively, but I'm sure 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.160 they've worked on that. Also. In nineteen four, that's when 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:13.720 they introduced the s R. Well, they didn't introduce it. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:16.160 They built it and it was in operation, but we 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:18.400 sure as heck didn't know about it yet, certainly not. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:23.040 The SR also known as the Blackbird. This is a 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:26.560 gorgeous aircraft's scary looking. Again. You look at this and 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.120 then you look at the aircraft again in g I Joe, 0:14:29.160 --> 0:14:32.600 like I mentioned the last podcast, Cobra's got some aircraft 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.880 will look like the Blackbird. They do. I had never 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:38.160 thought about that before because it's all sleek and and 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.600 and it just looks it looks like it's going fast. Wow, 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.880 it's staying still, but it could go very fast. This 0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:48.280 this was a mock three plane, which is which is 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.720 like over two thousand miles per hour or like thirty 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:54.640 six thousand kilometers per hour, and it could fly even 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.720 higher than the YouTube. The YouTube, the cap on the 0:14:57.720 --> 0:14:59.840 youtubo is about seventy thousand feet. This could go eight 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.840 five thousand feet. So, uh. The it flew a lot 0:15:03.920 --> 0:15:05.640 of missions, but it would turn out that the You 0:15:05.760 --> 0:15:08.320 two would end up being more reliable and less expensive 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:11.240 to maintain and would end up remaining in service longer. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.360 So the Blackbird ended up getting retired earlier. In fact, 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:15.960 that you two is still in operations, so it's not 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:19.640 been retired. The last Blackbird mission was in about although 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:23.600 I've heard the latest NASA still had one for environmental research, 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:25.960 right right, Yes, so there are some that are being 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.320 flown in non military applications, but as a military vehicle 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:32.400 it was retired in It was another one of those 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:36.560 that won one of those Collier trophies, which is understandable. Uh, 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:40.080 it made a trip between New York to London in 0:15:40.280 --> 0:15:42.840 just under two hours. It was like one hour fifty 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:45.640 four minutes. I can't get to Florida and under two 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:49.680 hours on on my airplanes. I mean they're not my airplanes. There. Yeah, 0:15:49.720 --> 0:15:51.120 we haven't gotten to the point yet where we have 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:53.920 our private aircraft. If anyone would like to donate an 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.120 aircraft tech stuff or you know, you just want to 0:15:56.120 --> 0:16:00.000 convince somebody. Well Discovery anyway, So it beat the previous 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:02.680 speed record. So so the previous speed record was held 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.800 by a plane that did that same trip and just 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:11.840 under five hours, so three hours different. So moving up 0:16:11.880 --> 0:16:14.880 to nineteen sixty six, this seems really early to me. 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.880 We just did an episode about drones. When I say 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:21.440 just did. It actually isn't that recent, but in the 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:25.000 in the memorable past, and most of the drones that 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:28.040 we were talking about in that episode really didn't start 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.280 kicking off until or so and so it's in sixty 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.680 six we we came across the dent one. We have 0:16:33.760 --> 0:16:36.240 the tag Board, which was an unmanned drone. It was 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.040 classified as above top secret. It would not be declassified 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:43.200 until two thousand seven top secret. That when c I 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:45.400 was just like, let's just go ahead and de classify 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.240 all this stuff. I'm here, let's get to give me 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:51.760 the d classify stamp. I'm just gonna go bonkers. So, yeah, 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:56.360 the the tag Board was a drone that was and antenna. 0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:59.000 It was meant to receive commands through the antenna, so 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.040 you would actually roll it from the ground or from 0:17:02.440 --> 0:17:04.680 an aircraft. And in fact it was supposed to launch 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:09.119 off one of those a twelve ox Cart aircraft, right right. 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:11.320 I've I've read that some Blackbirds were used for this purpose. 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:14.320 Is interesting. I was designed to fly out over territory 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.680 where the U S didn't strictly have permission to fly over, 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:20.520 because the idea was that since it was smaller, that 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.800 it would be less likely to be noticed, and it 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:26.480 was meant to take photos of sites like weapons facilities 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:30.679 at altitudes of around feet pretty low. And then in 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:34.600 June nineteen sixty six, there was a tragic accident which, 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.640 uh what happened was the drone was supposed to launch 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:40.359 off the back of one of these ox cart A 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:44.000 twelve aircraft, but it did not launch properly. It was 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.600 going at an incredible speed like mock three, and it 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.480 didn't launch properly, and it ended up cutting that aircraft 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:52.440 in half. Yeah that the pilot and test engineer both 0:17:52.440 --> 0:17:56.720 ejected safely, but um but I believe drowned. Well the 0:17:56.840 --> 0:17:59.760 test the test engineer did. Yeah, what happened was apparently 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:03.160 the face plate on his uniform went up and water 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:07.080 started rushing into suit. Yeah, so he and he tragically 0:18:07.160 --> 0:18:10.520 drowned in this accident. And uh so the project was 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.520 wound up being scrapped. Yeah, it was. People at Lockeed 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:15.919 were absolutely devastated by this. I mean, it was just 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:20.360 a complete freak accident. It was unforeseen, and it really 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.639 shook things up back at Lockheed. I mean it was 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:25.800 you know, anytime anything like this happens, obviously that's a 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:30.040 terrible tragedy and this one just really affected them quite deeply. Uh. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.639 In nineteen seventy Lockheed would then go on to fire 0:18:33.800 --> 0:18:37.600 the test pilot, Francis Gary. Powers were listening earlier. That's 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:39.240 the guy who was in the YouTube plane that got 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:41.800 shot down over Russia. So he came back and he 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.399 was still working for Lockheed. But then he decided to 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.960 write down some of his experiences. Yeah, he published a 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:50.600 memoir about the whole experience and it was not really 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:54.360 um shall we say, favorable to the CIA in particular, 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:58.000 and then mysteriously he lost his job. Well, it may 0:18:58.119 --> 0:19:00.920 also be that, you know, lockeed very very serious about 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.199 this whole let's keep our secrets kind of thing, and 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.800 it may be that that also played a pardon. But yeah, 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.800 that was that happened. Two. That's when this was crazy. 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:16.679 The HMB one Glomar Explorer. Okay, so this is a 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:20.520 submersible barge, a barge that can go under the water. 0:19:20.600 --> 0:19:22.520 It actually was designed to go under the water and 0:19:22.600 --> 0:19:26.080 land on some underwater supports and the whole purpose of 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.120 this thing was to act as a cover so that 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.320 the United States could do a salvage operation on a 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:36.280 sunken Soviet submarine, the idea of being that this thing 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.400 would cover up all of their operation. They would retrieve 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.720 the submarine, pull it into the barge, bring the barge 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.880 back above water, and sail it back and no one 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:47.280 would have known that that's what they had done. It 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.159 sounds like it came out of Hunt for October. If 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:54.840 if Sean Connery was not aboard that saying chumping ship 0:19:54.960 --> 0:19:59.000 don't react well to bullish, I'd be really disappointed. We 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.360 can only hope, and ended up eventually becoming one once 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.359 it finished its job. Now what do you do with 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:07.679 a big submersible barge at that point? So it's been 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:13.520 converted into a above water dry dock where you ships 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.119 would come in and then be serviced and fixed or 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.480 decommissioned or whatever. For a long time it was dry 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.439 dock for another ship called the Sea Shadow, which we 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:26.960 will talk about shortly. And then seven. Here are two 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:30.240 of my favorite aircraft that have ever come out of 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:33.840 skunk works. These were also incredibly important. They were flown 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:38.480 extensively at Groom like slash Area fifty one, so I 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:40.040 wrote about them quite a bit when I wrote my 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.240 article about how Area fifty one works. That's when the 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:44.840 first time I ever learned about these these already have 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:47.320 blue craft. Yeah one and two have Blue one and 0:20:47.359 --> 0:20:50.520 have Blue two. And these were proof of concept prototypes. 0:20:50.640 --> 0:20:55.520 These two aircraft were incorporating all the information that Lockeed 0:20:55.560 --> 0:20:59.120 had been gathering about stealth technology in order to decrease 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.720 their radars nature. So they were again top secret vehicles. 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.560 They were tested quite a bit at groom like and 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:11.399 the whole idea was now that getting those angular uh surfaces. 0:21:11.440 --> 0:21:15.159 So it looked a little weird because it had all 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:17.879 these angles to to bounce the radar in random places. 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.000 It was almost like a non Euclidean cthulhu type aircraft. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:22.720 And it's not quite that much, but I mean it's like, 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:24.960 you know, if you've ever seen those old stealth bombers, 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.320 they look clunky, right, those weird angles. Yeah, it's totally 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:30.840 the you know, like the opposite of the aero dynamic 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:32.199 kind of thing that you think of when you think 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.160 of something that's supposed to be flying. Its nickname wound 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:37.960 up being the Hope the Hopeless Diamond, the Hopeless Diamond 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:40.080 because it had these weird angles to it like the 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.159 Hope diamond does. Because you know, it's been cut a 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.159 very specific way, so it's called the Hopeless Diamond. Um. Yeah, 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:48.560 Like I said, you look at the s R seventy 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:50.639 one Blackbird and that thing looks like it's going fast 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:52.960 standing still. You look at one of these things and 0:21:52.960 --> 0:21:55.080 you're like, that is not meant to go into the air. 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:59.040 That that is just wrong on every level. Um. But 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.280 you know, they decided to really go into this after 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:06.520 the Vietnam War because during the Vietnam War, U S 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:12.080 Forces kept on encountering trouble with surface to air missiles 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:15.359 where a lot of aircraft were getting shot at and 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:17.679 shot down by these missiles, and so they wanted to 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:21.840 have something that could operate without being spied, you know, 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:24.920 spied by. You don't want that to happen. So that 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.080 was the main purpose. Um. Now they have Blue one 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:30.119 and two. They were just men as prototypes. It was 0:22:30.160 --> 0:22:34.240 really approve of concept was to show the US military, Hey, 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.879 this is going to work. We can build this into 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.840 an actual working aircraft that we will use for real 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:44.040 military purposes. We just need the funding. And uh So 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.320 it wasn't ever meant to go into combat. Didn't They 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:48.960 didn't really go anywhere, but um, but the concepts behind 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.960 it would wind up being used later on, which we 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.560 will talk about in our second half. We'll be back 0:22:54.640 --> 0:22:57.159 with more from Sniffing Elt skunk Works Part two in 0:22:57.240 --> 0:22:59.919 just a moment, but first let's take a quick break. 0:23:07.440 --> 0:23:10.399 All right, let's get back into talking about the super 0:23:10.400 --> 0:23:13.880 secret stuff. So you know, we had just talked about 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.639 the have Blue one and two obviously not meant for combat. 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:18.960 I mean they could go six hundred miles per hour, 0:23:19.040 --> 0:23:22.960 which is about six kilometers per hour. That's not that 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:27.000 fast compared to other aircraft at the time. The prototype 0:23:27.119 --> 0:23:29.560 that's that's as fast as um that that first p 0:23:29.680 --> 0:23:32.480 A D that we were talking about, right, So obviously 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:34.760 that was just sort of hey, look what we can do. 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.639 That's when we started seeing a new version of the 0:23:39.720 --> 0:23:42.560 U two. Remember that was You two came out in 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.359 the fifties and one you get. The You two are 0:23:45.400 --> 0:23:48.919 also known as the t R one, also known as 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.520 the Dragon Lady, which granted was the original designation for 0:23:52.560 --> 0:23:55.320 the c I A U two's way back when. But 0:23:55.400 --> 0:23:57.320 that was the thing is that the You two had 0:23:57.400 --> 0:24:00.400 largely become the domain of the Air Force, and now 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:04.080 the You two are was this kind of super secret 0:24:04.200 --> 0:24:07.240 version of the U two which had an increased fuel 0:24:07.240 --> 0:24:09.359 capacity so it could fly longer, and the t R 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:15.120 stood for Tactical reconnaissance, and it had a superpod which 0:24:15.160 --> 0:24:18.480 was kind of a little think of like a bulbous 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:23.080 kind of projection where all of their super secret sensors 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:27.280 were so very very um precisely tuned sensors to get 0:24:27.320 --> 0:24:31.600 all kinds of information about the area they were flying over. Um. 0:24:31.680 --> 0:24:34.400 The current designation for this aircraft is now you two ARE, 0:24:34.680 --> 0:24:37.320 so it's no longer called the t R one, it's 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:38.960 just the U two ARE. But there are other you 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:41.600 two rs that are that don't have the superpod, so 0:24:41.600 --> 0:24:44.000 it's a little confusing. And there's been a whole bunch 0:24:44.040 --> 0:24:46.879 of different versions and designations of this over the years, 0:24:46.960 --> 0:24:49.520 and the utwo S one one of those, call your trophies. 0:24:51.040 --> 0:24:53.080 But the U two R, I believe, is still the 0:24:53.160 --> 0:24:56.560 highest flying single engine airplane in service. Yeah, and also 0:24:56.640 --> 0:24:58.800 you've got to remember that skunk Works did not work 0:24:58.840 --> 0:25:01.960 on every very a of the U two. They worked 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:03.560 on the first one, and they worked on the U 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.359 two ARE, but by that time a lot of that 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:09.240 work was going out to other branches of Lockeed. So 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:11.840 this was, uh, you know, we're really just focusing on 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:14.000 the skunkworks stuff here. If we were talking just about 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:16.840 Lockeed this, we'd have to do like a six. Yeah, 0:25:16.880 --> 0:25:18.960 that would be like a nine party. So let's talk 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:21.520 about the F one seventeen. That is the night Hawk. 0:25:21.640 --> 0:25:25.560 The night Hawk the first radar evading aircraft. So we 0:25:25.600 --> 0:25:29.560 actually had these F one seventeen aircraft in use during 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.960 Operation Desert Storm back in Lauren. You wouldn't remember that. 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:35.680 You were I think, you know, two at the time, 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:42.040 so it was like nine okay. So the that was, 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:45.560 by the way, the only jet in the coalition forces 0:25:45.640 --> 0:25:48.399 that had the authorization to strike targets within the city 0:25:48.440 --> 0:25:51.399 limits of Baghdad, because they thought that it was the 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:53.679 only one that he get close enough to guarantee that 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:56.600 the strike would hit the precise target and not hit 0:25:56.720 --> 0:26:00.760 something else instead. Um it was off is referred to 0:26:00.800 --> 0:26:02.800 as a stealth fighter, although it was really an air 0:26:02.840 --> 0:26:05.479 took round combat vehicle, not air to air because when 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:07.679 we think of fighters, we usually think of you know, 0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:10.800 aircraft that are designed to shoot down other aircraft. This 0:26:10.880 --> 0:26:14.359 was more of an attack vehicle than a fight fighter. 0:26:15.000 --> 0:26:17.040 The designations get a little confusing. I would have to 0:26:17.119 --> 0:26:19.280 keep looking them up because you know what, can I'm 0:26:19.320 --> 0:26:22.280 a podcaster, not a fighter. So despite what Ben Bowling 0:26:22.280 --> 0:26:23.680 will tell you, because I did shake them up a 0:26:23.720 --> 0:26:26.880 bit this morning, I hear that that was for completely 0:26:26.920 --> 0:26:29.400 legit work purpose. Yeah, there's gonna be a stuff Mom 0:26:29.400 --> 0:26:31.320 never told you video that I will link out so 0:26:31.359 --> 0:26:33.760 that you can see me rough up Ben Bowling. It 0:26:33.800 --> 0:26:35.639 happens on a daily basis anyway, but this time I 0:26:35.720 --> 0:26:38.280 was calm camera anyway. The night Hawk was retired in 0:26:38.359 --> 0:26:40.320 two thousand and eight. It's another one of those called 0:26:40.359 --> 0:26:44.600 your trophy winners. It's kind of interesting how many of 0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:48.240 these have one. That's when we get into something that's 0:26:48.240 --> 0:26:51.600 not an aircraft, the Sea Shadow, right, this was a 0:26:51.600 --> 0:26:55.159 prototype stealth ship. Yes, so funky. Did you see a 0:26:55.200 --> 0:26:56.840 picture of this? I have not known. You got to 0:26:56.880 --> 0:26:58.600 look up a picture. When we're done, I'll definitely have 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:01.040 to link a picture of this on social as well, 0:27:01.080 --> 0:27:04.280 because it just looks really odd. We should make a gallery. 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:06.480 We can do. That's the excited to the most excited 0:27:06.520 --> 0:27:08.919 I've ever been about making a gallery because there's some 0:27:08.920 --> 0:27:11.120 pretty cool jets in this. We'll make a gallery for it. Sure. 0:27:11.400 --> 0:27:14.199 So the Sea Shadow is this prototype stealth ship. It 0:27:14.320 --> 0:27:17.879 had those weird angular surfaces kind of like stealth bombers, 0:27:17.880 --> 0:27:21.000 stealth fighters, that kind of thing. Um, but it think 0:27:21.040 --> 0:27:23.199 of it like it almost felt like it was suspended 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:25.840 over the water, Okay, And you have these two wings 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:28.000 that come down on either side, like think of a 0:27:28.040 --> 0:27:31.760 manta ray that has its wings down towards the ocean floor. Right. 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:35.680 The edges of the wings are obviously in contact with 0:27:35.720 --> 0:27:38.000 the water. The rest of the body appears to be 0:27:38.080 --> 0:27:40.720 above the water, and it's bulky. So you're like, how 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:44.400 the heck is this thing? Turns out it's gut submerged hole. 0:27:45.160 --> 0:27:48.000 There's got this enormous hole that's underneath the water that 0:27:48.119 --> 0:27:51.400 submerged that is keeping it bulliant so it's not sinking 0:27:51.440 --> 0:27:54.920 down and just flopping over on its side. But yeah, 0:27:55.000 --> 0:27:56.679 you look at this thing and you're like that just 0:27:56.880 --> 0:27:58.760 like the just like some of the aircraft, like that 0:27:58.800 --> 0:28:02.000 should not be to happen. That doesn't look like any 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:04.800 thing that only works if that's non Newtonian fluid in 0:28:04.840 --> 0:28:08.240 that ocean, and I know that waters Newtonian, so that 0:28:08.280 --> 0:28:11.800 can't be it. Yeah, it was also a designed to 0:28:12.000 --> 0:28:15.679 show off the usefulness of automation. The idea being that 0:28:15.720 --> 0:28:19.080 we could really have these vehicles that would need a 0:28:19.160 --> 0:28:22.439 relatively small crew because we automate as much of it 0:28:22.480 --> 0:28:25.000 as we possibly can. So there are twelve bunks aboard 0:28:25.560 --> 0:28:28.080 crew of twelve UM and it had a microwave. That 0:28:28.160 --> 0:28:30.760 was the only uh thing in the galley. There was 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:32.800 no like stovetop or anything. It was a microwave and 0:28:32.840 --> 0:28:37.600 twelve bunks, So luxury, um and UH. It was really 0:28:37.640 --> 0:28:39.520 just kind of designed to be a proof of concept. 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:41.800 It was never meant to be a production vehicle. It 0:28:41.840 --> 0:28:43.480 was never meant to go to the military. Is more 0:28:43.520 --> 0:28:45.920 to say like let's see if this works kind of thing. 0:28:46.480 --> 0:28:49.920 Um so nothing. It was never built into any other 0:28:50.000 --> 0:28:53.680 kind of ships. Eventually it was retired. It went to 0:28:53.760 --> 0:28:56.120 that that barge I was talking about earlier, that was 0:28:56.160 --> 0:29:00.360 the dry dock. Uh. And then the eventually the state's 0:29:00.400 --> 0:29:03.480 government allowed the I want to say it was I 0:29:03.560 --> 0:29:05.480 want to say the navy took control. I didn't write 0:29:05.480 --> 0:29:07.840 this down in my notes, I remember reading it. But anyway, 0:29:07.880 --> 0:29:11.719 the military organization in charge of the Sea Shadow decided 0:29:11.760 --> 0:29:14.200 to sell it, yeah, to to recoup some of some 0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:17.080 of this costs. They sold it to a company under 0:29:17.960 --> 0:29:21.440 under the stipulation that they had to immediately dismantle it. Yeah, 0:29:21.440 --> 0:29:23.840 they could not sail it. The United States government said 0:29:23.840 --> 0:29:26.760 all right, we're gonna sell this. We're gonna let you 0:29:26.840 --> 0:29:29.800 sell this off to whoever bids the most, but they 0:29:29.840 --> 0:29:31.840 cannot sail it. They have you can look at all 0:29:31.880 --> 0:29:33.960 the bits you have to take it apart. So it was. 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:37.040 It's been dismantled. So the Sea Shadow is no more. 0:29:37.080 --> 0:29:39.160 It was dismantled a couple of years ago. So that's 0:29:39.200 --> 0:29:41.000 kind of sad because when you see pictures of this thing. 0:29:41.800 --> 0:29:43.520 As soon as I saw I thought, I hope this 0:29:43.640 --> 0:29:45.480 is at a museum somewhere where I can go and 0:29:45.520 --> 0:29:48.360 see it. And nope, it is gone. So maybe someone 0:29:48.400 --> 0:29:52.440 will build a replica at some point. That's when they 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:56.280 introduced the y F twenty two, also known as Yeah 0:29:56.280 --> 0:29:58.920 and usually we just called the F twenty two, which 0:29:58.960 --> 0:30:03.920 was a stealth air superiority fighter. Superiority fighter. Yeah, it's 0:30:03.920 --> 0:30:07.960 meant to be souper. It's a fifth generation supersonic fighter. 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:11.800 Single seat twin jet engine aircraft can also be an 0:30:11.840 --> 0:30:14.280 attack vehicle, so not just a fighter but also can 0:30:14.760 --> 0:30:18.240 can act out against land based targets, and it can 0:30:18.280 --> 0:30:21.200 serve as a signals intelligence vehicle. So the n s 0:30:21.280 --> 0:30:23.360 A is probably pretty interested in these things. That means 0:30:23.400 --> 0:30:27.480 that it can intercept electronic messages. UM. And it formally 0:30:27.640 --> 0:30:30.440 entered the United States Air Force service in two thousand five. 0:30:30.520 --> 0:30:33.360 Son is when they start really working on it. Two 0:30:33.400 --> 0:30:35.840 thousand five is when it enters into service. So that's 0:30:35.880 --> 0:30:39.080 a long time, you know, more than a decade before 0:30:39.080 --> 0:30:41.240 it entered into service. Yeah, and there are still a 0:30:41.280 --> 0:30:44.000 few squadrons of them in in service today. Yeah, I 0:30:44.040 --> 0:30:49.120 think there's somewhere something like ten squadrons totals something like that. Uh. 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:51.760 And the final F twenty two was delivered to the 0:30:51.840 --> 0:30:54.320 United States Air Force on May second, two thousand twelve, 0:30:54.440 --> 0:30:57.920 so now long ago, no longer in production. But these things, 0:30:58.000 --> 0:31:00.480 by the way, obviously when you put in an for 0:31:00.960 --> 0:31:04.760 two thousand, five hundred UH jets, it takes a while 0:31:04.800 --> 0:31:09.120 to fill that order, as as you could possibly imagine. Um. UH. 0:31:10.200 --> 0:31:14.560 Corporate note in Lockheed and Martin would combine in what 0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:17.280 was called a merger of equals. Right, so we've been 0:31:17.320 --> 0:31:20.000 talking about Lockheed all this time. But remember if you 0:31:20.040 --> 0:31:22.400 listen to the beginning of the last podcast, we talked 0:31:22.400 --> 0:31:25.960 about how the Martin Company was also instrumental in early 0:31:26.080 --> 0:31:29.320 days in aircraft. Well, they had been quite busy themselves 0:31:29.480 --> 0:31:33.960 and it developed many aircraft that also were incredibly innovative. 0:31:34.240 --> 0:31:36.880 And at this point the two companies merged together to 0:31:36.920 --> 0:31:42.040 make a mega innovative aircraft company. Meanwhile, in nine six 0:31:42.200 --> 0:31:45.480 they come out with the Lockeed Martin skunk Works come 0:31:45.480 --> 0:31:49.440 out with the r Q three A dark Star Dark 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:52.680 Star also known as Tier three or sometimes Tier three Minus, 0:31:53.280 --> 0:31:56.120 which was an unmanned aerial vehicle designed to be a 0:31:56.240 --> 0:32:00.200 high altitude drone. So uh, this was another one of 0:32:00.240 --> 0:32:04.680 those innovative approaches to trying to do surveillance without putting 0:32:04.800 --> 0:32:07.320 an actual human pilot at risking right, and and this 0:32:07.400 --> 0:32:10.280 was a project that would I I think that both 0:32:10.440 --> 0:32:15.320 Tagboard and have Blue Um really influenced this one definitely. Yeah, 0:32:15.360 --> 0:32:18.040 because it had stealth technology making it harder to detect. 0:32:18.640 --> 0:32:21.440 It also had a lot of autonomy. It could take off, 0:32:21.960 --> 0:32:24.600 fly to its mission, complete its mission, and come back 0:32:24.600 --> 0:32:29.680 and land all without a human controller taking control of that. 0:32:29.760 --> 0:32:32.240 But also it had the ability for a human controller 0:32:32.280 --> 0:32:34.560 to get in there and change the parameters of the 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:37.840 mission on the fly. So it wasn't like, you know, 0:32:37.920 --> 0:32:40.280 you had this pre programmed route that it had to 0:32:40.280 --> 0:32:42.200 take and once you press play, that's it. You gotta 0:32:42.200 --> 0:32:44.680 wait till it comes back. You could actually change things 0:32:44.680 --> 0:32:47.680 on the fly and change the programming. So really innovative, 0:32:47.680 --> 0:32:51.040 particularly in n and it had a jet engine. It 0:32:51.120 --> 0:32:53.920 used jet engines for propulsion. It wasn't like a little 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:58.320 rotor based drone. This is this is a jet um 0:32:58.440 --> 0:33:03.600 So officially that program was shelved sometime around but there 0:33:03.640 --> 0:33:06.800 are some rumors that it's not really shelf shelved so 0:33:06.920 --> 0:33:10.520 much as totally an operation. Yeah, and and like totally secret. 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:12.560 And uh, that's all I'm going to say about that, 0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:16.440 because honestly, I do not need another coffee break. Um 0:33:16.520 --> 0:33:19.640 so thou That's when we get the F thirty five 0:33:19.920 --> 0:33:22.880 Lightning or Lightning Too. Yeah, Lightning Too. It's the sequel 0:33:22.880 --> 0:33:25.720 to Lightning. So if you remember in our previous episode 0:33:26.000 --> 0:33:29.200 we talked about the first Lightning jet aircraft, which was 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:33.280 way back in the very earliest days for Lockheed or 0:33:33.400 --> 0:33:35.640 when they were doing their work with the military. So 0:33:35.720 --> 0:33:37.840 the Lightning two is sort of the idea of the 0:33:37.880 --> 0:33:42.640 next generation of military aircraft. It's a single seat, single engine, 0:33:42.840 --> 0:33:45.959 multi roll fighter. So multi roll also means they can 0:33:46.000 --> 0:33:48.960 do multiple things. It can be the ground attack, the 0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:52.440 air defense, reconnaissance. That yeah, it's like, you know, throw 0:33:52.480 --> 0:33:55.240 it at me, bro, I'm gonna do it. So there 0:33:55.280 --> 0:33:58.760 are three variations on the F thirty five that allow 0:33:58.800 --> 0:34:01.680 it to take off our land and a front environment. 0:34:01.760 --> 0:34:04.080 So for example, there's one version of the F thirty 0:34:04.080 --> 0:34:07.360 five that can land and take off from aircraft carriers, 0:34:07.840 --> 0:34:11.319 but the others don't have that capability that sort of thing. Um, 0:34:11.440 --> 0:34:14.320 So depending on what you need, you use that particular 0:34:14.400 --> 0:34:17.319 type of of F thirty five. And the military has 0:34:17.400 --> 0:34:19.040 ordered a bunch of these have been things yeah more 0:34:19.040 --> 0:34:22.200 than uh, and they are going to the Air Force, 0:34:22.200 --> 0:34:24.759 the Navy, and the Marines. Different branches are using them. 0:34:24.800 --> 0:34:27.920 For those of you who aren't familiar with the branches 0:34:27.960 --> 0:34:30.839 of the military in the United States, there are pilots 0:34:30.840 --> 0:34:34.439 in these different branches, like air forces. Obviously you would 0:34:34.560 --> 0:34:37.440 you would immediately assume Air Force. I remember talking to 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:40.120 a friend of mine who was telling me about how 0:34:40.200 --> 0:34:42.480 much he thought it was weird the way that the 0:34:42.520 --> 0:34:44.759 Air Force was depicted in top gun and do you 0:34:44.760 --> 0:34:47.719 mean the Navy, because those were Navy pilots. The top 0:34:47.760 --> 0:34:50.960 Gun program was a Navy program, not an air Force program. 0:34:51.000 --> 0:34:55.120 I'm not entirely positive that that the strict military accuracy 0:34:55.239 --> 0:34:57.600 was what people are watching Top Gun for. I don't 0:34:57.640 --> 0:34:59.400 know either. I I knew that by the end of it, 0:34:59.440 --> 0:35:02.200 I I who had the need, the need for speed, 0:35:02.840 --> 0:35:05.440 But yeah, I don't know exactly how accurate it was 0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:08.560 all the way from the beginning to end. We'll return 0:35:08.719 --> 0:35:12.160 to the conclusion of our two part series on skunk 0:35:12.160 --> 0:35:23.880 Works in just a second after this quick break. Two one. 0:35:25.160 --> 0:35:27.319 That was the introduction of the Desert Hawk, and that's 0:35:27.360 --> 0:35:30.400 another drone. Yeah, another u a v on manned aerial vehicle. 0:35:30.520 --> 0:35:33.960 It was designed to be really portable. It was extremely light. 0:35:34.000 --> 0:35:35.960 In fact, the original Desert Hawk was made out of 0:35:36.040 --> 0:35:39.560 essentially kind of foam. So think of like styrofoam or 0:35:39.600 --> 0:35:42.279 packing foam that you would find in a box. That's 0:35:42.360 --> 0:35:44.439 essentially what this thing was made out of. That makes 0:35:44.440 --> 0:35:46.680 more sense. Your next note is that they were launched 0:35:46.719 --> 0:35:49.040 by hand, and therefore, okay, I get that now. I 0:35:49.040 --> 0:35:51.040 think they even use bungee cords, so it's almost like 0:35:51.080 --> 0:35:53.480 a slingshot launch, and they had electric motors, so they 0:35:53.520 --> 0:35:58.160 were almost silent. Yeah, incredibly light, incredibly quiet. We now 0:35:58.360 --> 0:36:01.520 no longer use the Desert Hawk actively. We have a replacement, 0:36:01.560 --> 0:36:04.239 the Desert Hawk three I'm just given over to. But 0:36:04.280 --> 0:36:05.880 the Desert Hawk three is what we use today. It's 0:36:05.960 --> 0:36:08.640 much more sophisticated and it uses a gyro stabilized three 0:36:09.040 --> 0:36:11.920 sixty degree sensor turret that's mounted on the bottom of it. 0:36:12.520 --> 0:36:15.160 It's pretty awesome. It's also made out of very lightweight 0:36:15.200 --> 0:36:18.560 composite material, so it's it's gone beyond the foam, but 0:36:18.640 --> 0:36:22.399 it's still very lightweight. Two thousand six. This might be 0:36:22.480 --> 0:36:27.080 my favorite, the hybrid. This is a This is an airship, right, yeah, 0:36:27.160 --> 0:36:29.799 so that if you are at all of the steampunk vein, 0:36:30.680 --> 0:36:32.920 this is the aircraft for you. It looks like a 0:36:32.920 --> 0:36:36.640 blimp or a dirigible. It's it's an airship and it 0:36:36.840 --> 0:36:40.879 is beautiful. It's so it's meant to act as transportation. 0:36:41.000 --> 0:36:43.120 So it's got a large capacity for carrying lots of 0:36:43.160 --> 0:36:46.680 people and low operating costs, and it can operate from 0:36:46.760 --> 0:36:49.640 either existing infrastructure, meaning like some sort of landing field 0:36:49.719 --> 0:36:52.200 or landing strip like an airport or it could just 0:36:52.320 --> 0:36:55.319 land anywhere that's a remote open space. So as long 0:36:55.360 --> 0:36:57.720 as there's not like stuff for it to bump into, 0:36:57.800 --> 0:37:00.560 it can land there. And the first commercial airship is 0:37:00.560 --> 0:37:06.320 scheduled for And uh, this is similar to another vehicle 0:37:06.760 --> 0:37:08.960 that's actually more of a military vehicle. In fact, it 0:37:09.000 --> 0:37:13.200 is a military vehicle that is also a future item 0:37:13.239 --> 0:37:15.719 that we'll be seeing from Lockheed won't maybe we won't 0:37:15.719 --> 0:37:18.080 see it, but it'll see us. I'm talking about ISIS, 0:37:18.520 --> 0:37:22.160 which is the integrated Sensor is Structure aircraft which looks 0:37:22.200 --> 0:37:26.040 a lot like the Hybrid. It's another blimp type thing, 0:37:26.280 --> 0:37:28.560 but it's this is a stealth blimp. Yeah, and it's 0:37:28.560 --> 0:37:31.120 spies on you. Um yeah. So it's got surveillance and 0:37:31.160 --> 0:37:35.000 communications gear and flies in the stratosphere. So for those 0:37:35.040 --> 0:37:37.440 of you who listen to our Google Loon podcast, you 0:37:37.480 --> 0:37:39.319 know all about that. We're not gonna go over it again, 0:37:39.320 --> 0:37:42.600 but you know that's really yeah. So, and it also 0:37:42.760 --> 0:37:45.759 is able to actually detect targets that are undercover or 0:37:45.840 --> 0:37:50.080 under camouflage. It's got like camouflage piercing radar. It's pretty 0:37:50.120 --> 0:37:53.160 cool stuff. So it's similar to the hybrid, and it 0:37:53.200 --> 0:37:57.520 also uses fuel cells so that makes sense because it's 0:37:57.560 --> 0:37:59.680 like the Hybrid two and solar panels to to get 0:37:59.719 --> 0:38:02.400 its hours. So right, the contract for this was was 0:38:02.440 --> 0:38:06.080 awarded to Lockeed Martin in two thousand nine. But but 0:38:06.160 --> 0:38:09.080 I think that we had did we have something else? 0:38:09.200 --> 0:38:11.360 It's it's not. No, it's not. It's not going to be. 0:38:11.480 --> 0:38:14.040 The isis. As far as I know, the delivery date 0:38:14.080 --> 0:38:18.480 has not been divulged necessarily. I know that it's coming. 0:38:18.480 --> 0:38:20.920 It is listed on Lockheed Martin's website. If you go 0:38:20.960 --> 0:38:23.040 to their skunk Works website, they talk about it, so 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:26.440 you can actually read about it. Um it is able 0:38:26.520 --> 0:38:30.759 to cover five million nautical square miles with surveillance from 0:38:30.840 --> 0:38:35.800 one and then you can locate it relocated anywhere in 0:38:35.840 --> 0:38:38.880 the world in within ten days for something that floats. 0:38:38.960 --> 0:38:41.920 That's pretty impressive. All right, So let's get back I 0:38:42.040 --> 0:38:44.799 talked about the hybrid YAH. Also in two thousand nine, 0:38:45.600 --> 0:38:49.719 they advanced composite cargo aircraft, the A C C A. 0:38:50.440 --> 0:38:53.239 So again this is another look at using composite materials. 0:38:53.280 --> 0:38:56.040 And the idea of using composite materials is finding something 0:38:56.080 --> 0:38:59.480 that has the strength of something like steel but is 0:38:59.680 --> 0:39:02.440 far lighter, so you want something that's really durable but 0:39:02.520 --> 0:39:04.680 very light, so that it ends up making your aircraft 0:39:04.760 --> 0:39:07.239 much more efficient you don't need as much fuel, and 0:39:07.800 --> 0:39:10.440 also reducing the kind of problems that you get with metals, 0:39:10.480 --> 0:39:14.719 like like corrosion and fatigue from those temperature differentials that 0:39:14.760 --> 0:39:16.680 you're going to get going up and down. That's that's 0:39:16.800 --> 0:39:18.880 very true. So this is a way of getting around that. 0:39:18.960 --> 0:39:22.400 And uh, really again, this is one of those programs 0:39:22.440 --> 0:39:24.719 where it's not like the A c c A is 0:39:24.760 --> 0:39:27.759 going to become a leading aircraft. It's more like the 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:32.080 technologies being explored while they're design stuff blue kind of 0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:35.440 thing where it's a working Yeah, we'll find it. It 0:39:35.480 --> 0:39:38.160 will end up emerging in other aircraft, right that Lockheed 0:39:38.239 --> 0:39:40.759 makes and that other companies make. Then we have two 0:39:40.760 --> 0:39:44.680 thousand ten. That's when the Harvest Hawk took flight. So 0:39:44.719 --> 0:39:46.719 you might remember back in the other episode I talked 0:39:46.719 --> 0:39:49.799 about the Hercules cargo plane. I said, it's kind of 0:39:49.800 --> 0:39:53.359 a cargo plane, you know, for for propell our cargo plane. 0:39:53.360 --> 0:39:56.520 It's pretty big, neat, looking sort of useless at the time. Yeah, 0:39:56.600 --> 0:39:59.960 you know, like it wasn't useless, but it certainly wasn't 0:40:00.080 --> 0:40:02.239 like super secret like it wasn't like some sort of 0:40:02.239 --> 0:40:06.160 surveillance craft. Well, now we've got the Harvest talk, which 0:40:06.200 --> 0:40:08.799 is the uh. The reason why it's called Hawk is 0:40:08.800 --> 0:40:12.840 it's the Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit. So it's a weaponized 0:40:13.040 --> 0:40:18.359 cargo transport aircraft. It's armed with hell Fire or Griffin missiles, 0:40:18.520 --> 0:40:22.000 guided bombs, and a thirty millimeter cannon and it's operated 0:40:22.040 --> 0:40:27.120 by the United States Marine Corps. I am terrified of this. 0:40:27.120 --> 0:40:30.680 This is terrifying. And now we're up to current day, 0:40:30.719 --> 0:40:34.440 two thousand thirteen and it's time to talk about the 0:40:34.680 --> 0:40:36.520 s R seventy two. So this would be kind of 0:40:36.520 --> 0:40:40.040 the the black Hawks successor. This is a concept aircraft. 0:40:40.080 --> 0:40:42.319 It's one of those things that it hasn't even been 0:40:42.360 --> 0:40:45.520 funded yet, but Lockheed skunk Works has been working on it, 0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:49.000 and it would end up using two different jet systems 0:40:49.360 --> 0:40:54.360 to have a hypersonic jet. Hypersonic being super wicked fast. 0:40:54.960 --> 0:40:58.040 Here's the problem. So there are to the two different 0:40:58.040 --> 0:41:00.920 types of engines. Would be your standard jet turbine engine, 0:41:01.000 --> 0:41:03.879 which tends to work at speeds at mock two or 0:41:04.080 --> 0:41:07.799 or slower, right, And that that's that's the kind of thing. 0:41:07.800 --> 0:41:10.200 I mean, the thing with these ramjets that we've talked 0:41:10.200 --> 0:41:13.200 a little bit about and scram jets, which stands for 0:41:13.239 --> 0:41:16.920 a supersonic combustion ramjet. Although I just really like the 0:41:16.920 --> 0:41:19.840 word scramjet a whole bunch um is that you know, 0:41:20.239 --> 0:41:23.480 they can't they can't start moving until they're going really 0:41:23.520 --> 0:41:26.560 really fast because of that, because of that air drag 0:41:26.640 --> 0:41:29.680 that they need in order to fuel their Combustiblewise it 0:41:29.760 --> 0:41:32.080 just doesn't work. So you you have to be going 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:36.520 really fast to to operate your scramjet. So this combines 0:41:36.560 --> 0:41:39.000 a jet engine and a scramjet using an over under 0:41:39.160 --> 0:41:41.520 fuel approach because you can't use the same fuel for 0:41:41.560 --> 0:41:44.680 both of these either. It's actually a very complex system. 0:41:44.760 --> 0:41:47.080 But the idea is that the jet engine would get 0:41:47.120 --> 0:41:50.840 the the SR seventy two moving at around mock three, 0:41:51.360 --> 0:41:53.759 and then the scramjet would start to take over and 0:41:53.800 --> 0:41:55.960 then you would get up to your full speed, which 0:41:56.000 --> 0:42:00.319 is mock six, which is twice the old Blackbird and 0:42:00.600 --> 0:42:04.480 is about four thousand, five hundred miles per hour or 0:42:04.680 --> 0:42:06.759 I I recorded the other in meters per second and 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:09.920 it's about two thousands per second. But really fast is 0:42:09.920 --> 0:42:11.759 what we're talking about here. Yeah, And they would be 0:42:11.880 --> 0:42:14.880 armed with high speed strike weapons or h s S 0:42:14.920 --> 0:42:17.680 double US and so you can just think of it 0:42:17.719 --> 0:42:21.280 as a missile that is able to fly at hypersonic speeds. 0:42:21.320 --> 0:42:24.719 So they hope that they'll have a demonstrator program demonstrating 0:42:24.760 --> 0:42:30.040 this technological ability by prototype. Yeah so right now, like 0:42:30.040 --> 0:42:32.000 I said, there's no funding as of the recording of 0:42:32.000 --> 0:42:34.000 this podcast for this particular project, but it's one of 0:42:34.000 --> 0:42:36.160 those things we're trying to do about. Yeah, there could 0:42:36.200 --> 0:42:37.799 be I mean, c I A might be you know, 0:42:37.800 --> 0:42:40.160 maybe an essay. Maybe they're like, we need to get 0:42:40.200 --> 0:42:43.520 away now that we've been looking at everybody's stuff. Um, 0:42:43.520 --> 0:42:46.879 But anyway, this could theoretically hit any target on any 0:42:46.920 --> 0:42:49.799 continent in less than an hour. So it takes off 0:42:49.840 --> 0:42:52.279 and within an hour anywhere in the world it could 0:42:52.360 --> 0:42:55.719 hit its target. Keeping in mind it's both the aircraft 0:42:55.840 --> 0:42:58.400 and the missile, which is HSSW. It goes at that 0:42:58.480 --> 0:43:03.520 hypersonic speed. To big challenge involves actually heat management because 0:43:03.560 --> 0:43:06.000 when traveling at that speed, the friction from the air 0:43:06.520 --> 0:43:09.240 is intense. So they had kind of two different approaches 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:11.600 they could go. They could go with a sort of 0:43:11.800 --> 0:43:14.440 a cool approach, which is where they use some form 0:43:14.480 --> 0:43:16.720 of heat shielding type stuff, kind of like the stuff 0:43:16.760 --> 0:43:19.520 that the Space Shuttle program used, or they could go 0:43:19.600 --> 0:43:22.520 with a warm approach. Warm is a relative term. It's 0:43:22.520 --> 0:43:25.600 actually quite high temperature where it allows the aircraft to 0:43:25.640 --> 0:43:29.400 warm up, but you have the crew um sequestered in 0:43:29.440 --> 0:43:33.799 some way where they are able to operate without being hurt. Cooked, yeah, 0:43:33.880 --> 0:43:37.320 being cooked essentially. So if they go with the warm approaches, 0:43:37.320 --> 0:43:39.640 which is what they said they're going to do, and 0:43:39.719 --> 0:43:42.439 assuming it's going to be a manned vehicle, which that's 0:43:42.440 --> 0:43:44.680 still I hate to use this phrase, No, I don't 0:43:44.760 --> 0:43:47.960 know in the air. It's still up in the air. Um, 0:43:48.040 --> 0:43:50.280 it could be manned or unmanned. But assuming it is manned, 0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:52.719 that probably means that the cockpit will not be a 0:43:52.719 --> 0:43:55.200 cockpit where you actually have a window out to see 0:43:55.280 --> 0:43:58.080 where everything is. They would be flying this thing that's 0:43:58.120 --> 0:44:01.719 traveling at mox six using inst meentation. So it's kind 0:44:01.719 --> 0:44:04.239 of like operating a submarine, except you I'll bring a 0:44:04.280 --> 0:44:08.239 submarine that's traveling at mocks six thousands of feet in 0:44:08.280 --> 0:44:10.680 the air. So um, for those of you who have 0:44:11.000 --> 0:44:14.600 fear of flying, imagine that where you can't see out 0:44:14.800 --> 0:44:17.439 and you're going really fast. Yeah, yeah, again, I'm gonna 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:20.160 I'm gonna respectfully bow out of that particular job. I 0:44:20.160 --> 0:44:23.080 think that podcaster is much better suited for me. Um 0:44:23.120 --> 0:44:26.160 they have. They have also announced, though a collaboration with 0:44:26.200 --> 0:44:28.839 Boeing to compete in the U. S. Air Forces Long 0:44:28.960 --> 0:44:32.840 Range Strike Bomber Program, which is a challenge to deliver 0:44:33.960 --> 0:44:37.719 stealth long range bombers for operation in the twenties, with 0:44:37.760 --> 0:44:41.000 an upper price limit of only five fifty million dollars 0:44:41.000 --> 0:44:45.760 per unit, which I say only but is really not 0:44:45.800 --> 0:44:49.719 gone much for that thing prices people, We're just we 0:44:49.760 --> 0:44:54.000 can't give these things away. Yeah, no, that's so I'm 0:44:54.040 --> 0:44:57.640 excited to see whether they actually come up with anything 0:44:57.680 --> 0:45:01.359 for that this. This was only announced I think in October. Um, 0:45:01.360 --> 0:45:03.600 we are recording this at the beginning of November, and 0:45:03.600 --> 0:45:05.759 who knows, maybe we won't actually see evidence of this 0:45:05.880 --> 0:45:09.080 till because that will be when the CIA declassifies it 0:45:09.120 --> 0:45:11.840 and let's us see it. I hope you guys enjoyed 0:45:11.880 --> 0:45:14.319 that classic episode of tech Stuff. If you have any 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:17.719 suggestions for future episodes, please let me know. Reach out 0:45:17.719 --> 0:45:20.880 to me on Twitter. The handle is text stuff hs W, 0:45:21.560 --> 0:45:29.240 and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff 0:45:29.320 --> 0:45:32.520 is an i heart Radio production. For more podcasts from 0:45:32.520 --> 0:45:36.279 my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:45:36.400 --> 0:45:38.400 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.