Lockheed_Martin_SR-72
Posted on 01/12/2021 6:13:51 AM PST by Onthebrink
It was over twenty years ago the Lockheed SR-71 “Blackbird” was retired by the United States Air Force, and while surveillance satellites can provide that eye in the sky for intelligence gathering there is still a need for such high flying, ultra-fast aircraft.
Such a platform would complement other manned aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), providing flexibility in how intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) is gathered.
Back in 2013, Lockheed Martin proposed a follow-up to the SR-71. Fittingly, it was the SR-72, which has also become known as the “Son of the Blackbird,” and it was suggested that the vehicle could fly by 2023 – that is unless it has already taken flight.
(Excerpt) Read more at 19fortyfive.com ...
The challenge is not making an aircraft that can go that fast but making the material for the control surfaces leading edges so they disintegrate or melt at those high speeds.....
When they say Mach 6 - add 2 or 3.
Mach Schnell
This means it's been flying at least five years!!!!
>so they disintegrate or melt at those high speeds.....
so they DON’T disintegrate or melt at those high speeds.....
And aren’t too heavy to fly, like tungsten.
They often have to ablate to shed heat to protect internal components and fuel.
It’s not fast, but the Global Hawk can loiter all day long and gather tons more data than a speedy bird.
Soon, the blue prints will be provided to the CCP, after Jan 20.
I think both are needed - GH for its long loiter time, and whatever the name of this thing is for when urgent surveillance is required (where a GH would take too long to arrive at and that’s outside the orbital path of a satellite).
While the SR72 may not be fake, this story seems fake saying Tom Cruise will be first person to fly it ... Cruise couldn’t fly his way out of a paper bag let alone an ordinary fighter jet to say nothing of the SR72:
“According to a report from The EurAsian Times, Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise may have become the first person to fly the next-generation hypersonic SR-72 “Darkstar””
The rest of the Article is pure speculation even fiction. Those that know are not going to say a word. But it is a few minutes of reading entertainment.
At those speeds I would imagine an X-15 “like” aircraft that would skip across the surface of the atmosphere like a smooth stone across a pond. Kind of like the “Antipodal Bomber” conceived by Nazi scientists during WW2.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silbervogel
For launch vehicles and missiles, you can have ablative surfaces, but you can’t do that for a vehicle cruising at those speeds.
Also, you don’t want your control surfaces to change shape due to ablation, as it will degrade the performance of the aircraft.
Soon to be made in China. Amerika’s Big Guy will take care of it.
Without Kelly Johnson and his crew at the Skunkworks, I am hugely skeptical.
On top of that, satellite tracks are very predictable such that one knows when to hide things.
Lockheed is damned good at keeping secrets. It employs more than 3,000 people at the Skunk Works and yet what they are up to is a mystery.
Looks like one of the National Aerospace Plane (NASP) designs of the early 1990’s.
“Cruise couldn’t fly his way out of a paper bag”.
Tom Cruise is a pilot. He owns and flys a P51 Mustang. The P51 is much more difficult to fly than any modern fighter.
Is the P51 more complex to fly than and F-35? F-22? The mythical SR72 would be way more complex than either of those two. I suppose Cruise is G-rated also?
Story is BS.
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