Early 80's Skunk Works project "Vindicator" More secret than the F-117

Built by Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works, the Vindicator system was a highly classified project (rumored to be "more secret than the F-117A," the stealth fighter program) from the 1980s. This patch includes the Lockheed Advanced Development Projects skunk mascot wearing a helmet and scarf. The device emanating a lightning bolt is a laser. The patch depicts a laser anemometer optical air data system, which takes the place of conventional pitot-static probes on stealth or high-speed aircraft where physical protrusions are undesirable. The device is a velocity indicator (or, in aviation parlance, a v-indicator).

cgi.ebay.com...

I know I know Ebay as a souce :shk:

Another item from Trevor Paglen book.

Anybody?

Not sure how reliable the source is? but i found this so far

Mid-1985 Maj. Frank T. Birk piloted the first flight of a "classified demonstrator" at Groom Lake. For his work on the project, the Society of Experimental Test Pilots gave Birk the Lieutenant General Bobby Bond Memorial Aviator Award which "recognizes an AFSC military rated crew member for outstanding contribution to AFSC's test and evaluation mission while participating in aerial duties." Another project involved a laser system called VINDICATOR that was designed at the Lockheed Skunk Works.

area51specialprojects.com...

Here's a link in a post dated 94 about someone who had saw the patch and was asking questions about it.

Date: Sat, 09 Jul 94 15:05:40 -0700 Subject: Re: VINDICATOR Peter Merlin (@@@@@aol.com) writes: > The only > writing was the word: VINDICATOR. The person wearing the patch said he > couldn't talk about it. Any info out there? Weren't the aircraft in "Fail Safe" called Vindicators? :-)

Link

Another link for a picture of the patch looks the same as the ebay one.

Link

[edit on 18-12-2008 by Darthorious]

In 1979, Spectron Development Laboratories demonstrated an Optical Air Data System (OADS) conceptual design for Lockheed. It was based on the laser sheet-pair transit-time approach. In 1984, for Project VINDICATOR, Lockheed Advanced Development Projects (“Skunk Works”) contracted Spectron to provide the electronic processing subsystem, vehicle interfacing software and test support for a series of flight tests of an OADS on the prototype L1011 (registration no. N1011). These tests took place between 2 July and 17 October 1986. Additional testing of optical instrumentation, flow diagnostic instrumentation and a laser velocimeter continued until 1988.

I first saw the VINDICATOR patch in the early 1990s. In my brief glimpse, I recognized the Lockheed skunk mascot and noticed the flying helmet, scarf and lightning bolt, but somehow I missed the device the skunk was holding. Had I seen it, I would have immediately recognized it as a laser (having subscribed to the Edmund Scientific Company catalog in the 1970s). I hoped that VINDICATOR was some sort of exotic aircraft that had yet to be unveiled to the public but someone told me that VINDICATOR was “a system, not an airplane.”

I eventually obtained an original VINDICATOR patch from a scientist who developed the laser anemometer OADS that was tested on the L-1011. Testing of the system took place at Palmdale, California.

VINDICATOR was a laser velocimeter. It is a velocity indicator (or, in aviation parlance, a v-indicator).

a reply to: Shadowhawk

Thanks for the knowledge! You think theres Any chance that the vindicator project could be associated with the rumored bird that allegedly painted targets for the F-117's during desert storm?

Necroposting: Resurrecting dead threads...

Welcome...

a reply to: HomeyKXTA


D-b-posting: Pointing out the obvious just to be a D-Bag.


Anyway, I'm glad you brought this one back. Good read and I haven't seen it before. Pretty interesting that it was a laser velocimeter and it's probably still highly classified. Laser velocimeters can tell you how fast and how long something is. Probably pretty useful in acquiring targeting data. I'll have something to look into while I search aimlessly at night.

Nevermind...