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By Phil Patton
For many who track it, the black budget is more symbol
than substance. In it, they hope to unearth a Rosetta
stone that might decypher the mountain of secret
information the Pentagon and intelligence agencies
have amassed in recent decades. McGinnis, like many
others, discovered the black budget through his
passion for airplanes - spy planes and stealth
fighters in particular. Like film or rock stars, these
planes have their own fan clubs and groupies who post
in AOL's aviation section or subscribe to the
skunk-works mailing list, which provides information
and lore about Lockheed Advanced Development Co.'s
famous Skunk Works research center. Skunk Works
created the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, the F-117
Stealth fighter, and numerous weapons it won't admit
to making. The company generally ranks as a triumph of
the black budget world. It, of course, has had its
share of failures - which black budgeting hides.
When he does take some time off from his jobs, he's
likely to be found hiking in the desert, enjoying the
fiowers and the birds, though he'll end up near a
place like TRW's classified radar site in the hills
east of San Clemente, its three white radomes glowing
in the sunlight behind the chain-link fence.