Posted on 07/25/2011 6:43:11 PM PDT by Free ThinkerNY
Doubt all you want; there IS no “Next Generation” SR-71.
Not that we couldn’t design and build one; just that you underestimate the power of bureaucracy to kill great ideas in the womb.
The administrative arm of The Culture of Death that brought us the horror of abortion; comprised of mini-minded bean-counters, milquetoast hand-wringers, enviroguilt-ridden dirt-worshipers, and flat headed scaredy-cats of every stripe; this is an army whose only weapon is unending, nitpicking, gutter-sniping, and criticism, steeped in suffocating mediocrity.
There MAY have been an SR-71 successor on a drawing board somewhere at one time, but I will guarantee you it is long dead, and will stay that way.
The Forces of Mundane grudgingly allowed us our space shuttle fleet these past two decades, but still insisted on entwining that program with enough bureaucratic red tape to kill off two crews of astronauts; every last one of whom was a better human being than the sum-total of all government bureaucracies combined. Now they’ve vanquished even that.
The SR-71 was the product of the American post-WWII technological adrenaline rush that was given life and breath when Kennedy vocalized his goal to see us land a man on the moon. That speech electrified a nation, jump-started the imaginations of two generations of engineers and scientists, and got us actually believing that we not only COULD go to the moon; it got us to believe that we really WOULD.
So, because we believed; we did
There will never be enough Viagra in the universe to fire THAT boiler, again; not as long as this bureaucratic mentality persists.
Me? Cynical?
Don’t I wish.
America arguing the meaning of “is” proved me 100% right awhile back, and nothing of any substance has changed since.
Next life. But that’s another story.
“(both of which are 1950’s technology)”
The B-52 is also 1950’s tech. Probably won’t see
that platform coming off the line anytime soon.
While the original U2 design dates back to the 50’s it
has been updated often and you can bet that the current
avionics and photographic technology is state of
the art just like other aircraft.
I’m not an aircraft geek but there is a U2 base down
road and I enjoy watching them T and G from time to
time. Not to make too fine of a point but it is not
quite the whole story to describe that spy plane as
50’s tech IMO.
I am pretty sure that a SU-27 pilot is not going for a collision with the U-2. It's much easier to launch a missile which doesn't care much about the altitude. China licensed and manufactures an ancient (1983) R-27 that has the range of about 100 miles. This missile performs poorly in a dogfight, but will easily take a sitting duck like U-2 - especially if Chinese improved the design with modern components and algorithms.
MI Ping
Clinton!
Doesn’t matter, if the chins were to shoot a U2 down in international waters, it would have been an act of war.
If there are satellites up there which are not "from Earth," we're in a lot more trouble than the PRC could cause.
My daughter was on the F22 program for a while. She had never seen a 71 in real life. I have always been a SR71 buff so we went to the Tucson museum one day a while back to see it. She stood there mouth agape for quite some time. I think the only words out of her were “My God, we did this in the 50s?”
That plane will impress people 500 years from now. There are a ton of stories about it on the net that are mindblowing to read. And if anyone has a copy of “Sled Driver” they’d like to give to a good cause ...... ;)
>>> Part of me just ~has~ to believe that there is something newer, faster and higher that we don’t know about yet.
Despair may be premature. Lots of interesting things fly around and yet don’t get much attention from the public. Blackstar for instance.
Btw I once spoke with a lady out west who swore she saw a UFO. I had her tell me what it looked like and her description matched this:
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=awst&id=news/030606p1.xml
They also lose a key asset in a few months, as Obama's ability to proactively f*** things up, like Krishna Menon 50 years ago in India, begins to degrade along with his power.
What -- no $25,000 workstation full of CAD-CAM software and Chinese chipsets? </s>
That cat needs his own statue in the Smithsonian. Titanium, of course.
I bet they can’t fly at 80,000 feet like a U-2 can either. The “intercepts” were probably laughable.
Offutt in Omaha has one, too, at their air museum. Suspended above the atrium foyer, you can trot up to the second-floor gallery and walk up to and touch the stainless-steel pitot tube on the nose. It's shiny from the thousands of hands that have rubbed it for .... speed?
I wonder, if you rub an SR-71 for good luck, do you acquire a mach number? lol
>>> I bet they can’t fly at 80,000 feet like a U-2 can either. The “intercepts” were probably laughable.
Which does not say the Chinese air to air missiles are. The intercepting airplane doesn’t have to match the U2’s altitude. Just get close enough for the missiles to track the slow target.
Maybe the missiles are advanced enough now. Maybe they are not. But if Chinese air to air missiles can’t do that yet, the time is near they will.
Russian SAMs were “laughable” as well. Until they became good enough they could shoot down Gary Powers.
Even then, the Rooskis had to fire them up into the air all at once, "shotgun style," to hit Powers, shooting down one of their pursuing MiGs as well.
“Those Chinese jets probably aren’t much more advance than 70’s era fighters. They never throw anything away.”
Still flying some pimped-out MiG-21s.
So far I have seen the ones at Tucson, Edwards and March AFB...Gonna collect the whole set eventually ;)
“They are decades away from being a threat to US forces in any theater....”
Five decades to be precise, as in 1951.
“Apparently the SU-27s have a ceiling of 62,000 feet.”
And the solid fueled air-to-air missile makes up the rest. An 80,000’ intercept is quite feasible.
With all that population, you’d think they could take Taiwan.
Million man swim ?
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