My guess from recent reports, there is already fast planes, Boeing is doing some public catch-up.
Several years back I knew an engineer who’d been at Lockheed and then came to work at Boeing defense. We were sitting around drinking one night and I asked him what he knew about a certain classified program I was vaguely aware of. It was like he was electrocuted - yells, “I don’t know you! I don’t know you!”, and literally runs away. I think he thought I was a Boeing or DOD security guy looking for blabber mouths. I guess my hunch was right.
The ‘alleged’ Aurora hypersonic plane was flying as far back as ‘89, but that probably was the first of a progression of test mules and proof of concept vehicles. The A-12 flew for a couple of years before it morphed into the SR-71, but the capabilities of these things are well more extreme, and it’s a much smaller world today. Harder to keep things secret. Back in the day, they tested the radar signature of the SR-71 by sticking it on top of a pole and leaving it in the wide open in front of god and everybody for a couple of months in Area 51. But thanks to G**gle, you can’t do that crap any more.
This one could just be another feint, more disinformation to keep Pootie-Poot’s piles in an uproar. Then again, Jane Air — the airline that doesn’t exist and only flies between McCarran and Area 51 — does happen to be advertising for fight deck crewmembers again.
It’s not like that’s A CLUE or nothin’.
What is the reasoning behind development of this new bird? They mothballed the SR-71 because they said it wasn’t needed anymore. What changed?
I’m thinking that we’re well beyond this.
The X-15 was carried aloft but that does not diminish the fact that fifty years ago Pete Knight flew over southern California at mach 6.7, 4520 miles per hour.