Cyber Monday Deal: The Interceptors Club at a great price

Somewhere in the wilds of New Mexico, at a secret air base, they have built the ultimate unmanned stealth warplane.

It embodies artificial intelligence.

It is invisible on radar.

It can fly rings around any fighter jet.

It can fly above Mach 6.

It is armed with exotic pulse-weaponry...

... and it has just been stolen by a 15 year-old boy.



That's the premise behind my novel, The Interceptors Club and the Secret of The Black Manta, a work of fiction, loosely based on my many years of actual experience "stealth chasing" for publications such as Aviation Week & Space Technology Magazine, Popular Science and Aircraft Illustrated.

From young readers and adults, no matter your age, you will like The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta.

It is a fun, intriguing and wild trip into the Black World where five teenage hackers go toe-to-toe with real spies, playing by adult rules.


From page one, you’ll be immersed in a shadow-world that exists secretly, right alongside this one, filled with dark sinister characters, stealth technology and hidden radio-waves that carry on them secret messages for espionage agents hiding in plain sight.


The Interceptors Club & the Secret of the Black Manta is a character-driven, techno-thriller for our times.


It’s also a great book for sons and their dads.


No vampires or witches- but a cool-techie-tale - intended to get young men reading again.


Think - Bourne Identity meets Sneakers -Hardy Boys meets Real Genius - Tom Clancymeets Wargames -and you’ll get The Interceptors Club and the Secret of The Black Manta!


I hope you’ll consider purchasing my e-book!
“The Interceptors and the Secret of the Black Mantra has a story line more like reality than fiction. Personally I never read fiction novels. But of course it's targeted toward a younger generation.

                                                                                                                                        -Steve Douglass


REVIEWS:


I think it would be a good motivator for up and coming engineering / aviation types. The realistic Black World "lingo" is refreshing. If I had this book when I was in the 8th grade, that would have been "Way Cool". - Dan Freeman

Review by: Phil Patton: "This is a thriller with a human side. It is all about secrecy and the mystery of technology and the sinister and the innocent. I would compare it to another novel that might come as a surprise: To Kill A Mockingbird.

Why? Because both books take on deep and important issues through the eyes of kids. In TKAM it is race, here it is the nature of knowledge and suspicion.

As someone who has seen government and organizations at work, I sense truth and insight here. Highly recommended. Many stars!

Just finished reading the book, started this morning and couldn't stop. The book is a very interesting read with some useful technical points about Stealth and how it has evolved. It still has an "Iron Eagle meets Stealth" feel to it. I enjoyed it, the story has more technical accuracies than Iron Eagle.

The Black Projects structure and procedure depicted is a believable concept but who knows? Every project is different with different goals.


It kept me interested. And I agree or enemies should very much consider the capability of our military before they shake a stick at us.

I'm a former F-117A mechanic and I enjoy all books related to Stealth.


- Don Shoemer

BUY THE INTERCEPTORS CLUB HERE

Does leaker Snowden have a "doomsday cache?"

(Reuters) - British and U.S. intelligence officials say they are worried about a "doomsday" cache of highly classified, heavily encrypted material they believe former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden has stored on a data cloud.

The cache contains documents generated by the NSA and other agencies and includes names of U.S. and allied intelligence personnel, seven current and former U.S. officials and other sources briefed on the matter said.

The data is protected with sophisticated encryption, and multiple passwords are needed to open it, said two of the sources, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The passwords are in the possession of at least three different people and are valid for only a brief time window each day, they said. The identities of persons who might have the passwords are unknown.

One source described the cache of still unpublished material as Snowden's "insurance policy" against arrest or physical harm.

U.S. officials and other sources said only a small proportion of the classified material Snowden downloaded during stints as a contract systems administrator for NSA has been made public. Some Obama Administration officials have said privately that Snowden downloaded enough material to fuel two more years of news stories.

"The worst is yet to come," said one former U.S. official who follows the investigation closely.

READ THE REST HERE

China tests RQ-170 like stealth drone

ABC NEWS: China has completed its first successful stealth drone test, according to China state media today.

“The successful flight shows the nation has again narrowed the air-power disparity between itself and Western nations,” China Daily newspaper said. The newspaper attributed confirmation to photographs taken by military fans.

Military expert Andrei Chang told the AFP the design appeared a “little naïve,” but if successful would indeed mark a milestone for China.


Lijian, or Sharp Sword, was reportedly produced by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, but the information office has not yet confirmed the test.

News of the 20-minute test on Thursday in southwest China and photographs of Lijian first appeared on cjdby.net, a popular military forum.

Lijian’s test makes China the fourth nation to fly an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

Online reports suggest it is a delta-wing, single engine drone. It has been compared to both the Northrop Grumman-made X-47 series used by the U.S. Navy and the Russian MiG Skat drone.

Wang Ya’nan, the deputy editor in chief at Aerospace Knowledge Magazine, told China Daily the drone seems to be equipped with the RD-93, a Russian turbofan engine originally designed for a fighter jet.

“The drone, which is capable of flying undetected at high altitudes while providing high-resolution video and other intelligence, will let maritime departments keep abreast of developments in the East and South China seas and will help Beijing make accurate decisions when dealing with territorial disputes with its neighbors, ” Xu Guangyu, a former PLA major general told the SCMP.

The most recent Pentagon report on the Chinese military, published in May, alluded to Lijian.

“The acquisition and development of longer range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles…and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, will increase China’s ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance and strike operations.”

Aviation Week Exclusive- SR-72 revealed ...

click here

Excerpt: By Guy Norris guy.norris@aviationweek.com

Source: AWIN First

Although there has been evidence to suggest that work on various classified successors to the SR-71, or some of its roles, has been attempted, none of the tantalizing signs have materialized into anything substantial. Outside of the black world, this has always been relatively easy to explain. Though few question the compelling military imperative for high speed ISR capability, the astronomical development costs have made the notion a virtual nonstarter.

But now Lockheed Martin believes it has the answer. “The Skunk Works has been working with Aerojet Rocketdyne for the past seven years to develop a method to integrate an off-the-shelf turbine with a scramjet to power the aircraft from standstill to Mach 6 plus,” says Brad Leland, portfolio manager for air-breathing hypersonic technologies. “Our approach builds on HTV-3X, but this extends a lot beyond that and addresses the one key technical issue that remained on that program: the high-speed turbine engine,” he adds, referring to the U.S. Air Force/Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) reusable hypersonic demonstrator canceled in 2008.


The concept of a reusable hypersonic vehicle was an outgrowth of Darpa’s Falcon program, which included development of small launch vehicles, common aero vehicles (CAV) and a hypersonic cruise vehicle (HCV). As structural and aerodynamic technologies for both the CAV and HCV needed testing, Lockheed Martin was funded to develop a series of unpowered hypersonic test vehicles (HTV).

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

Breaking: Syrian Air Defense base possibly destroyed.

A Syrian air defense base near the coastal city of Latakia was reportedly destroyed Wednesday night, with multiple Syrian and Lebanese sources speculating that an Israeli strike from the Mediterranean was to blame.


The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported a loud explosion in a Syrian army base, and Twitter users quoted eyewitnesses who said the blast occurred near Snobar Jableh, just south of the city.


More details soon.


UPDATE:

A large explosion was heard at a Syrian army missile base in Latakia, foreign media reported Thursday.

Eye witnesses told the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights that the explosion took place near Snobar Jableh, south of the city.

It was not yet clear whether anyone was wounded in the strike.

Reports in July claimed that the Israeli air force struck a missile warehouse that serviced Russian and Syrian interests in the area. Later, American officials told the New York Times that the strike in July did not succeed in wiping out all of the targeted Russian land-sea missiles, and that Israel was therefore likely to strike again.

The official Lebanese news agency reported that Israeli aircrafts were sighted on multiple occasions Wednesday in the south of the country. According to the report, which was based on a press statement by the Lebanese army, the airplanes entered Lebanese airspace at around 1:40 P.M. and circled over various places before leaving over the Mediterranean Sea near Tripoli and Naqoura at 5 P.M.

A Facebook page run by Syrian rebels claimed that the strike occurred at around 7 P.M. According to the page, a missile was fired from the sea and struck the Syrian base but did not result in any casualties.

Israeli sources declined to comment on the reports.