In article ,
Pat Flannery writes:


Mary Shafer wrote:

Yeah, not exactly like, but it's pretty obviously aircraft debris. I
mean, it hasn't reentered the atmosphere, since there's no melting and
the paint is still there, so it's not part of a satellite or
spacecraft.


Not necessarily the case; recon satellite film return buckets jettison
their heatshield before landing to lessen the weight the recovery
parachutes have to bear.

Of course, we haven't been doing any return capsule stuff for nearly
30 years.


For some reason, I keep thinking F-4. I don't know why, though.

This may sound a bit odd - but I'm wondering if it isn't the lower
seat/motor structure of an ejection seat. Somebody mentioned
manifolds & nozzles before. Some rocket seats use a system where the
gas generators (motors) feed into a manifold woth a whole slew of
nozzles to give better stabilization on the way out/up, and also make
a thinner rocket, since height is more precious than width in an
airplane cockpit.

RF-4s carried a parachute-dropable film-return pod mounted in the
underside of the nose.

And abandoned it right off the bat. They found that the big time sink
in Photo Recon is Photo Interpretation. (Which takes place in comfy
air-conditioned rooms back at the Big Air Base, rather than some grimy
TOC in the middle of the Boonies. WHile troops in thefield like
timely information, the way to get it turns out not to be dropping
several thousand feet for delicate film into the lap of a Brigade S-2,
which then has to be gone over by magnifier & stereoscope to make head
or tail out of.

I've been thinking about it at work...remote-controlled tail turret
assembly off of a bomber?

I don't think so - it's too small, and not enough wires. Check out
Radio Research (Found through the Thomas Register) for what would be
involved.
Pat - I've already got dibs on the B-47 radar/turret combination.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster