www.fas.org/irp/mystery/aurora.htm
Mystery Aircraft AURORA / SENIOR CITIZEN Reports of plans for a high-performance piloted replacement for the SR-71 date back more than a decade. Aurora was being flown from a base in the Nevada desert to an atoll in the Pacific, then on to Scotland to refuel before returning to the US at night. The Blackbird's operation and maintenance costs were very high. Independent aerospace analysts, however, deflated this argument somewhat by pointing to the unique advantages aircraft bring to the reconnaissance arena. Aircraft, for example, are inherently flexible and unpredictable. Though not as fast as satellites, they can fly lower and the interval between over the horizon arrival and time-over-target is just as short. Aircraft have a wide choice of routes, so tracking ships are unlikely to see it on the way in. Another analyst has considered the possibilities of "Aurora's" characteristics and capabilities. A long-range reconnaissance follow-on to the SR-71 would be a blended delta with 75 degree leading-edge sweep and retractable low-speed foreplanes. It would be powered by two regenerative air-turboramjet (RATR) engines of 180 kN sea-level static thrust. It would carry a crew of two and use a synthetic aperture radar with real-time datalink for reconnaissance (Figure 4). It is suggested that this type of platform could be very responsive, much more easily maintainable than the SR-71 and could deliver imagery of most points of interest within six hours of the decision to go. Although these studies have not been linked to actual development efforts, they provide some insight into the potential configuration and capabilities of Aurora. In 1985 McDonnell Douglas conducted studies of a Mach 5, 12,000 km range 305 passenger HSCT (hypersonic commercial transport) powered by regenerative ATR (air turboramjet) engines. Initial research led to claims that this type of aircraft was not only feasible, but remarkably efficient. According to these studies, a ramjet was the best option at Mach 5, and that methane was the preferred fuel. Hydrogen was also considered, but it takes up to five times as much space. The aircraft would be made primarily of titanium with its outer edges constructed of Inconel, a heat-resistant stainless steel. At Mach 5 speed the leading edges of the air-frame would glow red above 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Power for this futuristic airplane would come from four turbo-ramjets. MCH has several advantages over other possible hydrocarbon or cryogenic fuels. It suggests that the aircraft would thus need an accelerator to get it moving. One type of accelerator would be a ducted-rocket cycle into the engine. A fuel-rich, liquid rocket exhaust would be injected into a ramjet duct, pumping air through it even at rest. Budget and Financial Data The first suggestion that these studies might be translated into operational hardware appeared in the Fiscal Year 1986 procurement program document, colloquially known as the P-1, dated 4 February 1985. In the February 1985 submission of the FY 1986 budget, the Aurora line item projected a request of over $2 billion in the FY 1987 budget. But one year later, when the FY 1987 budget was submitted, the Aurora line item had vanished as mysteriously as it had first appeared. Indeed, FY 1987 request for the overall Air Force aircraft procurement account was several billion dollars less than had be projected in 1985, and there were no line items in the FY 1987 request that could have been used to conceal a request for funding for Aurora. Much of the subsequent speculation on Aurora has implicitly assumed that there was an identifiable source of funding for the program. Although this is not obviously the case, there nonetheless remains one tantalizing, and previously unremarked, hint that the Aurora program was in fact funded, though at a significantly reduced scale. As previously noted, the case for the existence of all mystery aircraft, including Aurora, must be predicated on identifiable sources of funding. Thus the proper identification of the programmatic content of the major elements of the black budget is essential to assessing the status of mystery aircraft, such as Aurora. A not-implausible accounting has already been given that suggests an identifiable source of funding that may be attributed to the TR-3A stealth aircraft program. But where in the budget might other aircraft programs be funded? Some have assumed that the funding for the CIA and NRO is entirely hidden from view -- completely off-budget, or widely dispersed among a large number of accounts in many government agencies, or disguised in some obscure accounting transaction of the Federal Financing Bank, or perhaps secreted somewhere among the subsidy programs of the Agriculture Department. Under such assumptions, the billions of dollars appropriated each year for such programs as "Selected Activities" or "Special Programs" would provide more than enough money to finance a vast fleet of exotic aircraft. But a more detailed consideration of the classified budget provides little basis for believing that these line items might provide funding for such purposes. While the structure of the classified budget is obscure, it is not perverse. Line items in the budget may be given opaque names, like Selected Activities, which obscure their programmatic content, but there are no activities that are not included in some budget item, however obscurely. Other line items, such as "Special Programs" (the nomenclature used for the National Reconnaissance Office) may omit the value of the budget. But in such cases, a fair approximation of the omitted value may be obtained by subtracting the sum of those lines for which values are given from the total provided for the budget category which includes the omitted values. It may also be fairly assumed that the multitudinous Navy classified budget items, such as Chalk Coral and Retract Amber, are funding only Navy projects, rather than Air Force programs. And it may also be assumed that Aircraft Procurement accounts fund only aircraft, and that Missile Procurement accounts fund only missiles or space vehicles, though the more generic Other Procurement accounts clearly fund a wide range of programs. The Other Procurement Air Force account includes a line item opaquely labeled "Selected Activities," which typically accounts for about half of the total budget of this account. Analysis of the outlay rates for this and other budget accounts reveals an interesting anomaly. Procurement accounts, which fund the purchase of hardware, typically spend about 5% to 15% of their appropriation in the first year, with outlays rising to 20% to 40% in the second and third years, and declining thereafter. This reflects the contracting process, in which several years are required to complete manufacture of hardware. In contrast, personnel and operations and maintenance accounts, which are largely for payroll and supplies, typically have first year outlay rates of 50% to 80%. Uniquely, the Other Procurement Air Force account has a first year outlay rate that has ranged from over 40% to nearly 60%. The only possible explanation for this anomaly is that the "Selected Activities" half of the Other Procurement Air Force account is in fact not a procurement activity, with a low first-year outlay rate, but rather funds personnel and operating expenses, with their characteristic high first-year outlay rate. Table 2 Classified Aircraft Budget AIRCRAFT OTHER PROCUREMENT PROCUREMENT Aurora Special Update Program FY86 FY86 1980 50 1981 123 1982 554 1983 217 1984 656 1985 -- 928 1986 80 84 1987 (2,272) 851 ( 139 ) 1988 -- 121 1989 126 1990 122 1991 105 1992 162 1993 176 Millions of Dollars Numbers in parentheses are FY86 projections All others are actual appropriations In recent years, the budget for the "Selected Activities" line item has been somewhat in excess of $5 billion annually. This value is consistent with the roughly $3 billion that is the reported budget of the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as the personnel and operations and maintenance budget of the National Reconnaissance Office. It is plausible that this line item inc...
|
http://csua.com/feed/