[K5pbem] The Nightsky Dragon is real....

[Mike Surbrook]

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113928028617366870-BKlP9h9idPh1WzJJa3p9JdPbUgk_20070207.html?mod=blogs

I quote:

"Set up in 1943 to create the first U.S. fighter jet, the Skunk Works has 
been at the vanguard of flight. Its name, a registered Lockheed trademark, 
is derived from Skonk Works, a mysterious locale in the "Li'l Abner" comic 
strip where they distilled Kickapoo Joy Juice. Hiding in plain sight in 
Burbank (its factory once was camouflaged as a residential neighborhood 
with help from Walt Disney Co.) and later in Palmdale, Skunk Works 
engineers created the U-2 spy plane, the SR-71 supersonic spy plane and 
the radar-evading F-117 stealth fighter. During a rare visit by an 
outsider to the Skunk Works complex, a factory hall was filled with the 
prototype of a massive helium-filled airship that one day might ferry 
troops and heavy equipment to distant battlefields faster and more 
efficiently than ships -- no port or airbase needed. The blimp would float 
just above the ground on four hover pads, meaning that "you could 
literally pick a farmer's field" to set down in, says program manager 
Robert Boyd. The airship had its maiden flight last week."

-- 
Michael Surbrook
susano at guisarme . net http://surbrook.devermore.net/index/
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Arthur C. Clarke