From: stealthman@iglou.com   
      
   On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:08:04 -0500, STEALTHMAN    
   wrote:   
      
   >     I was not aware that the Air Force had hand   
   >carried an application for the Have Blue/F-117 to   
   >the patent office, had two supervisory attorneys   
   >rubber stamp them in, without reading the text,   
   >briefed them on the need for security, and then   
   >took the application and put it in the vault only   
   >accessible in the presence of Air Force guards.   
   >     The Lockheed "Vehicle" patent was dated   
   >February 13, 1979, 45 days later than my first   
   >application for "Electronic Avoidance Configurations",   
   >which I mailed Dec. 22, 1978.   
   >   
   >     I now suspect that the Air Force would not   
   >have allowed Lockheed to file the application   
   >if  they had not found out that I filed for protection   
   >on aircraft having all flat faceted surfaces.   
   >   
   >                           (12)   
   >   
   >STEALTHMAN   
      
          All through 1983 and 1984 I waited for the   
   first office action, and followed any news stories   
   about stealth.   
          The model airplane that was supposed to   
   be the F-19 appeared in hobby stores, and I   
   knew no stealth plane would look like that.   
          I went to see the "Firefox" movie, and   
   got a kick out of the shape of the front of   
   the plane, it seemed like either somebody   
   was talking, or some information was being   
   intentionally leaked to cover what people   
   might have seen out west.   
      
         Then finally in 1985 the office action came   
   by registered mail, restricted delivery, meaning   
   nobody but the addressee could sign for it.   
         I had a Radio Shack Tandy TRS-80 computer   
   and had bought two after market expansion boxes   
   made in Austin, and got one of them working, it   
   just had a wire off the power supply.   
        So I bought a couple of 5.25 inch floppy drives,   
   and wrote a BASIC program that would decode   
   and encode the patent application text, and   
   began to work on answering the office action.   
        When not using the disks, I slit the top, and   
   knowing the iron oxide was on both sides, I   
   turned the disks that had the encoded text   
   around backwards so they would not as likely   
   be seen by my sons.   
      
         I had to go to the University of Texas at   
   Austin library to find references to answer   
   the objections of the examiner.   
         The computer made the work a little   
   easier, I was a little uncomfortable having   
   any of the work in readable form, but there   
   was no choice until I finished and mailed   
   the response in (by registered mail).   
        I then deleted all readable text on the   
   disks, and just kept the encoded text   
   disks turned backwards, and waited for   
   the next office action.   
        I usually don't have much patience   
   waiting, but there is nothing I could do,   
   I was not going to be building any stealth   
   military equipment, and my health made   
   it impossible to think of getting a job in   
   the industry.   
      
                            (13)   
      
   STEALTHMAN   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)