Message posted by Brian Liddicoat on May 06, 2010 at 16:00:13 PST:

Alan Brown, the elderly but still very spry Chief Engineer on the F-117 project gave a talk at my Rotary club on Tuesday. Excellent talk in his soft voice with proper British accent. He actually made the concept of RCS fun and interesting. Lots of great stories.

A few things of interest that I hadn't heard before:

1) Have Blue name came from a USAF Colonel at the Pentagon whose prize steer was named "Blue"-something. Brown couldn't remember the details. Pete?

2) When Have Blue was flying in 1977-78, the only other major activity at Groom was the Russian aircraft testing at the north end of the field. Have Blue was at the south end of Groom and the two groups mixed very little.

3) Have Blue test flights were made predawn and Groom Lake operated without runway or taxiway lights, which drove the pilots crazy. Is this true? Not even taxiway lights?

4) Brown claimed that Have Blue was the first American test program to combine USAF and Lockheed test pilots rather than having all testing done by one or the other. That doesn't sound right to me.

Other than that, great presentation!

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