Message posted by Mark McCandlish on June 30, 2006 at 10:39:34 PST:

The disclosure came as a direct result of his frequent harrassment by government officials (supposedly the CIA) and was made to Joseph Jones (author, "STEALTH; The Art of Black Magic") who had finished a biography on Salvay. The manuscript was first delivered to CIA with an inquiry as to whether it violated any issues of national security. The agency refused any comment. Jones then submitted the manuscript to his publisher, where the CIA later showed up and confiscated it.
Salvay had a very illustrious career dating all the way back to his involvement with the development of the F-84 retiring to his home in Encino, California in recent years. The seizure of the manuscript apparently pissed him off, (excuse my french) and it was after that incident that he made the disclosure to Jones. Jones disappeared for a matter of months after that, and said that he felt he was under surveillance by one or more U.S. aencies. His phone was disconnected and he has called me two or three times from payphones in South Carolina, near the location where he used to live. It is my understanding that Salvay had some involvement near the end of his career with a project that has been mentioned by Bill Scott at Aviation Week a few times, a project that has been described as an extremely large "carrier" aircraft. I've heard it referred to by several names, "The Mother Ship", "The Rye Canyon Project", (in reference to a now-closed Lockheed R&D division in Rye Canyon California), "The Super Valkyre" and finally the "M-151".
The aircraft was extremely large, and two witnesses that I've known since 1989 saw the aircraft one late afternoon in 1997 flying north towards Edwards AFB passing over the community of Sierra Madre with what appeared to be a smaller, parasitic aircraft on its back. It appeared to be in trouble, barely clearing Mount Wilson as it flew north. They both said that it dwarfed the two F-15's that were escorting it. That parasitic aircraft looked remarkably similar to the vehicle depicted further down this discussion board index under the heading "patent". This aircraft is actually the second generation Aurora aircraft. The first gen was a very large RPV that was shaped like a flattened out football, having four internal engines, and an external burning mechanism that essentially used the entire rear section or "afterbody" of the aircraft as a kind of linear aerospike engine. The vehicle was covered by heat ablative tiles just like the Shuttle, and had a payload of 121 cone-shaped re-entry vehicles mounted in vertical launch tubes in its belly. The outer cover tile of each weapon would be blown off with explosive bolts, and a very large coiled spring would shove the weapon out of it tube and simultaneously slam a new tile into place right behind the exiting
weapon. The four engines were fed through a number of NACA ducts, with one on the upper side (dorsal) surface and one on its belly (ventral) surface feeding each engine. The exhaust was configured in a similar manner, with an exhaust port above and below for each engine. All inlets and exhaust ports were designed to close as the external aerospike system took over. It was during this transition while the two systems were running at the same time that the aircraft would produce the now famous "doughnuts on a rope" con trail. The "doughnuts" were the result of the result of the pulsed operation of the aerospike portion of the propulsion system. Its function was so erosive to the tiles on the tapered afterbody of the vehicle that its duty cycle was reduced to running for about five seconds at a time with a pause of five to ten seconds in between at its operational altitude. One individual I spoke with who is familiar with this vehicle said it was also capable of going exoatmospheric and had a small rocket motor enclosed inside a clamshell-like compartment at the very center of the afterbody trailing edge. The vehicle's existence was acknowledged by a Pentagon source to Editor Bill Scout at Aviation Week several years ago, with the additional comment that the vehicle was "not very reliable".
I was approached in late 1985 or 86 to do some conceptual art for Lockheed on a new aircraft that was to be the successor to "an existing family of aircraft". They said they could not show me what the aircraft was supposed to look like, but wanted some artwork for a presentation before a Defense Appropriations Committee to pitch the proposal. They said it had to look "fast". The executive I worked with directly informed me that the previous design had two propulsion systems it used for flying within the atmosphere, and one would permit it to take off and land like a conventional aircraft, but would also bring it up to a sufficiently high velocity that it could start another, more sophisticated propulsion system. (Also apparently an air-breather). He also stated that recently, (at that time) a pilot had had trouble transitioning from the high speed propulsion system to the one that would allow it to land as it was coming into Edwards AFB late one night. The pilot was directed to take the aircraft out over the water to sort out the problem or ditch the aircraft. It took him fifteen minutes to straighten out the problem. By then he was "over Hawaii". With a distance from Edwards to Hawaii being 3,000 miles, it means the aircraft had to be traveling at about 12,000mph. (Remember, this was prior to 1985-6). When I went back with my artwork for their proposal, I had created an aircraft that incorporated features of the two fastest aircraft I was aware of: The SR-71 Blackbird and the NAA XB-70 "Valkyre". The drawing featured two box-shaped scamjet type engines each slightly offset from the centerline of the aircraft, under a large delta-shaped wing. The vertical stabilizers were moved out to the wingtips. The wing blended into a long chine that ran the entire length of the cylindrical fuselage extending forward from the wing, up to and terminating at the nose of the aircraft. I also incorporated a pair of cannards extending out of this chine just aft of the cockpit. When I returned to the Lockheed facility to present my artwork, the executive I had been working with explained that there were a pair of engineers there who would be "evaluating" my conceptual art. When I opened up my sketch pad, turned it 180 degrees and slid it across the table to these two gentlemen, I was very surprised by their reaction to my work. They looked, well- stunned. Over the course of just a few seconds, one of the engineers became quite angry. His face grew bright red, and almost immediately beads of perspiration began to appear on his forehead. The guy was very upset. With trembling hands he grabbed the artwork, and began shouting, "what is this chine doing on the aircraft? And what the hell are the vertical stabilizers doing out on the wingtips? They'd be torn off at Mach sevente...!" Then he caught himself for a moment and started in again saying that the cannards were out of place as well. It didn't dawn on me until later that his reaction wasn't about being dissatisfied with my work, it was because it came very close to depicting an aircraft he was familiar with; either under development or in service at that time. My impression based on subsequent events is that it was the former. Once I told him I had simply combined elements of the SR-71 and XB-70, he began to calm down. Several years later, Aviation Week described a near miss of an aircraft strongly resembling my sketch and a commercial airliner. I think that the Testor's Model company even has a model of this aircraft you can buy. Salvay was supposedly involved with some aspects of that program before his retirement according to Jones.
With regard to the East German incident, I acknowledge it is hard to believe. Maybe it is just a nice "yarn". I have no way of determining if it's true or not. At the very least, I thought you would consider it worthy of discussion. Besides, you never know- there might be a reader somewhere out there who does know more and might come forward if he saw its existence being described herein. I don't have an ax to grind here, and it doesn't matter to me whether you believe me or not. I know what I've seen. And whatever these things were, they make jet aircraft look like slugs.

In Reply to: Re: those traingle things again posted by Geo. on June 30, 2006 at 4:34:56 PST:

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