And while we are on this topic. As Morgan would say... chew on this.... drawn from
http://www.netwrx1.com/skunk-works/v05.n232
"Yes, for the first time anywhere, here's a bib.:
"Northrop Studying Sonic Boom Remedy"; AW&ST, 1/22/68, pg 21.
"Experiments Indicate Electric Charge Could Quiet Sonic Boom";
Product Engineering magazine 3/11/68, pgs 35-36.
"Electroaerodynamics in Supersonic Flow"; Cahn, Andrew; AIAA 68-24
"Recent Experiments In Supersonic Regime With Electrostatic Charges";
Cahn, Andrew, Anderson; AIAA 70-759
The Product Engineering and AW&ST magazine stories prove that the
research was publicized at the time.
The 1968 AIAA paper above, introduced the ideas and talked about work
in fluid tunnels with fluids of different dielectric strengths. The
results were quite promising.
There is a nice picture of what the electric field does to the bow shock
off the model, in the Product Engineering piece.
When they went to a supersonic wind tunnel, they found that arcing occurred
between the model and the walls of the tunnel, due to the high voltages they
were applying to the model. So they had to electrically isolate the walls of
the tunnel from the model. That is where the 1968 paper ends.
The 1970 AIAA paper, reports the results of the supersonic wind tunnel tests
once they were able to electrically isolate the model from the tunnel wall.
I will quote from the 1970 AIAA paper:
"Tests were conducted in Mach 1.5 and Mach 3.0 wind tunnels with 1.5 by 3 inch
test sections. Two-dimensional full span models were used. Up to 100,000 volts
at 10 milliamperes were applied to the model to produce the required gaseous
discharge in the airstream. A Schlieren system provided still and motion
picture data of the bow shock wave ahead of the models. Differential pressure
measurements were taken across the shock waves.
At Mach 1.4, the shock wave moved upstream when 40 kilovolts and 70 watts are
applied to the model. Other test configurations caused the shock wave to
move both upstream and downstream.
In one experiment, at Mach 1.4, the shock wave COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED FROM
VIEW (emphasis added by me)".
So there you have it, complete disappearance of a shock in a supersonic flow!
Quite interesting!"
And I agree. Sticking to the non mystical side of this, All that is left for us to do here is alot of hard work to draw the lines which connect Dr. Brown, Floyd Odlum, these "hand off tests" after the demonstration at Rand in November of 1967....and Northrops skunkworks projects.
My impression is that Internet missing article (which was probably initially very painfully leaked by somebody) is going to finally be useful now, if we all recognize the importance of it.
What else might be in that article? Why is it important? I agree, I don't know why it will be important, I just know that it is .............
Paul wants and needs solid things to point to and I agree, we need to follow this to some sort of conclusion. But other than all of that hard work just don't ask us how to prove how the information just "happens" to arrive in our direction to begin with.... because of course that might just be "mystical BS" <g> Elizabeth