The ultimate vaporware.
“The ultimate vaporware. “
Except it is flying.
https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2020/09/15/the-us-air-force-has-built-and-flown-a-mysterious-full-scale-prototype-of-its-future-fighter-jet/
I’m willing to bet Skunk Works has almost finished the work on the SR-91, Aurora, which is “rumored” to Mach 6, with the same limited maneuverability of the SR-71, (flying that fast takes a while to turn).
The original work on Aurora, started in in the early 1980’s, was for surveillance. They may have made a few changes for armament and weapons. But with that speed and altitude capacity, it is going to be hard to hit and catch.
And to give you an idea, if the SR-71, mach 2 behind this one, was going to drop a bomb on Moscow coming from the CONUS, because of the altitude it would be and the speed it generates, it would turn loose of it over the Bering Sea and it would have to fly all the way across Russia.
But the SR-71 had bugs, like running over it’s own fired weapons. They put great cameras in them however and Charlie has even tried to shoot them down with missiles during the Vietnam crisis and later in Korea. Pilots just dropped the aircraft into overdrive and went over the horizon on them.
rwood