Dwayne Day Weighs in on "Blackstar" Secret Spaceplane Story

Pat Flannery wrote:

I know about GUSTO, but what was RAINBOW about? Was this the all plastic
radar transparent design?

RAINBOW has been written up a bit by Miller, Pocock, et al.
It was the attempt to make the U-2 stealthy. The techniques
involved stringing wires on the outside of the aircraft
("Trapeze") or addingRAM to the fuselage ("Thermos").

I don't know about the lifting bodies, but someone else commented
on those.

In the book "Skunk Works" Ben Rich mentions that Kelly Johnson favored a
disc-type aerodynamic layout over the "Hopeless Diamond" faceted concept
for the Have Blue program. Have any drawings of that design ever surfaced?

According to Norm Taylor (Lincoln Labs & SEI), Frank Rodgers
came up with the saucer idea. When he presented it to Kelly,
there was a short, loud argument and Rodgers & Taylor left.
Before long they got back together and the Skunk Works began
to use the idea. The curved edges on the A-12 were the
ultimate result.

Bob Widmer has said that Convair had already figured out the
advantages of discs before Rodgers talked with them. Note the
curved edges on FISH and KINGFISH.

Paul A. Suhler wrote:

Pat Flannery wrote:


I know about GUSTO, but what was RAINBOW about? Was this the all plastic
radar transparent design?



RAINBOW has been written up a bit by Miller, Pocock, et al.
It was the attempt to make the U-2 stealthy. The techniques
involved stringing wires on the outside of the aircraft
("Trapeze") or addingRAM to the fuselage ("Thermos").



Yeah, I remember that now... they also took a crack at an all radar
transparent aircraft design but couldn't figure out how to conceal the
engine or cockpit from the radar.

Pat