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Faster: Meet the Air Force's New Mach 5 SR-72 Spy Plane
National interest ^ | 7/13/2019 | Task and purpose

Posted on 07/17/2019 9:50:59 PM PDT by bitt

"Hypersonics is like stealth. It is a disruptive technology and will enable various platforms to operate at two to three times the speed of the Blackbird,” Carvalho told Aviation Week. “Operational survivability and lethality is the ultimate deterrent. Security classification guidance will only allow us to say the speed is greater than Mach 5.”

The successor to Lockheed Martin’s SR-71 Blackbird, the Mach 3 long-range recon aircraft that once tore across the skies like a Cold-War era arrowhead before its retirement in 1999, may be inching closer toward reality.

According to Aviation Week, a handful of visitors to the SAE International Aerotech Congress and Exhibition at Fort Worth, Texas, this week reported catching glimpses of a “demonstrator vehicle” believed to be linked to the proposed replacement: the SR-72.

(This first appeared in Task and Purpose back in 2017 and is being republished due to reader interest.)

Though the SR-72’s development is (understandably) a tightly-kept secret, Aviation Week reports that: In the early hours of July, an “unmanned subscale aircraft” was seen flying into the Air Force’s Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, where Lockheed Martin’s legendary Skunk Works division is headquartered.

With an “optionally piloted” flight research vehicle test slated for 2018 by Lockheed back in June, and a test flight anticipated to occur by 2020, the presence of the demonstrator at Palmdale seems to indicate that the SR-72’s progress is in line with Lockheed Martin’s timeline.

“Although I can’t go into specifics, let us just say the Skunk Works team in Palmdale, California, is doubling down on our commitment to speed,” Orlando Carvalho, the executive vice president of aeronautics at Lockheed Martin, said at the exhibition, which ran from Sept. 26 to 28. “Simply put, I believe the United States is on the verge of a hypersonics revolution.”

Lockheed Martin has remained tight-lipped on the SR-72 program since announcing the Blackbird successor in 2013, but the aerospace giant wants to up the ante in terms of speed. And that’s saying something: the Blackbird as it's known is not only faster than any other jet-propelled aircraft — it can literally outrun missiles.

“Speed matters, especially when it comes to national security,” as Carvalho put it.

If the recent sightings in Palmdale are tied to the Blackbird’s replacement, then the aircraft really is fast — and not just on the flight line. While still under development at Skunk Works, the proposed reconnaissance plane is expected to hit Mach 6 thanks to advanced new hypersonic tech.

“Hypersonics is like stealth. It is a disruptive technology and will enable various platforms to operate at two to three times the speed of the Blackbird,” Carvalho told Aviation Week. “Operational survivability and lethality is the ultimate deterrent. Security classification guidance will only allow us to say the speed is greater than Mach 5.”

The proposed hypersonic aircraft could fill a space left by the SR-71, which was retired in 1999 due to the proliferation of spy satellites, enemy air defenses, and ultimately, its exorbitant costs — roughly $200,000 per hour of operation, reports the National Interest. Unlike its predecessor, the SR-72 is being designed with strike capability in mind — which means it’s not just a super speedy spy plane: It can reach out and touchobliterate a target, then zip back the way it came.

Carvalho’s comments, while not explicitly linked to the SR-72, mirrored sentiments expressed by Rob Weiss, executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Programs organization, during the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics forum in Denver, Colorado in June.

“We’ve been saying hypersonics is two years away for the last 20 years,” said Weiss. “But all I can say is the technology is mature and we, along with DARPA and the services, are working hard to get that capability into the hands of our warfighters as soon as possible.”


TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: aerospace; aviation; hypersonic; lockheedmartin; mach5sr72; trumpdod; usaf
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1 posted on 07/17/2019 9:50:59 PM PDT by bitt
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To: Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; 2ndDivisionVet; azishot; ...

2 posted on 07/17/2019 9:52:05 PM PDT by bitt (US intel is there to protect the safety and security of Americans. It is not a political tool.)
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To: bitt

With satellites and other orbital vehicles, why in the world do we need an SR-72? I think it is a waste of money.


3 posted on 07/17/2019 9:57:17 PM PDT by Reno89519 (No Amnesty! No Catch-and-Release! Just Say No to All Illegal Aliens! Arrest & Deport!)
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To: bitt

Well, OK, just as long as we don’t break into that dimension where the Nazis won.


4 posted on 07/17/2019 9:57:27 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana ("...a choice between Woke-fevered Democrats and Koch-funded Republicans is insufficient."-Mark Steyn)
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To: Dr. Sivana

:)


5 posted on 07/17/2019 10:00:26 PM PDT by bitt (US intel is there to protect the safety and security of Americans. It is not a political tool.)
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To: bitt

Saw that same (almost) design in a Buck Rogers comic book back in the 40’s...


6 posted on 07/17/2019 10:00:27 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is Sam Adams now that we desperately need him)
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To: Reno89519

Same reason the SR-71 got called out of retirement twice. Satellites and orbital vehicles are tracked by MANY people and organizations on earth (even if you leave governments out of it), there’s no such thing as stealth in space given our current or even reasonably medium term future levels of technology so you can’t ‘sneak up’ on something you want to see on the ground. Literally anyone interested in the matter can go to publicly accessible sites and see where any given satellite is at any time. So you know when to hide your stuff from overhead satellite reconnaissance. Changing a satellite’s orbit is no trivial thing and they use up some of their finite amount of fuel and lifespan every time they do, so it has to be worth the change.

The SR-71 (and any hypothetical successor craft) are not publicly tracked, aren’t where literally every interested party can see them, and can go photo any item of interest without any advance notice, unlike satellites.

And in the event of war, a hypersonic recon bird wouldn’t be shot down in the first 20 minutes by Russian or Chinese anti-satellite weapons. Satellites are horribly vulnerable to being at least mission killed by antisatellite lasers, which the Chinese recently demonstrated their possession of and proficiency in use.


7 posted on 07/17/2019 10:07:57 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Reno89519

You also missed the part that this craft is (supposedly) more like the A-12 than the SR-71 - it is to be armed and strike capable, unlike the improvised plan to stick a bomb on the D-21 drone carrier pylon on the back of the SR-71 that AFAIK never came to anything. So it can not only go over and take pictures of items, areas and people of interest, it can *do* something about it.


8 posted on 07/17/2019 10:12:40 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: bitt

Wow, very cool. Love that they are giving it strike capability. Take that, China! Think you’re catching up to us? You’ve got a loooong way to go.


9 posted on 07/17/2019 10:13:30 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: Reno89519
"I think it is a waste of money. "

Disagree... {:-)

When you consider the REAL waste of money by our masters, this one, at least, provides some security to our Nation...

Simply dump the EPA, Dept of Education, and a few others and we can afford hundreds of this kind of expense...

Better yet, stop (absolutely) the invasion of the Nation from the south and kick every single one of the many (30-40) millions of freeloaders already here and the Nation's financial picture is even rosier... Currently, the worthless criminal scum already here are costing $80K apiece... Paid for by those of us paying taxes...

10 posted on 07/17/2019 10:13:55 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is Sam Adams now that we desperately need him)
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To: bitt
Since the Air Force is announcing it's existence, the SR-72 is obsolete. Same pattern as the SR-71 and before that, the U-2. Should be on the air show circuit in a year or two.

All that's left is to speculate at what replaced it...

11 posted on 07/17/2019 10:17:13 PM PDT by jonascord (First rule of the Dunning-Kruger Club is that you do not know you are in the Dunning-Kruger club.)
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To: bitt

I recall hearing a funny story about one of the last flights of the SR-71, from the pilot, Brian Shul's perspective:

"I’ll always remember a certain radio exchange that occurred one day as Walt (my back-seater) and I were screaming across Southern California 13 miles high.

We were monitoring various radio transmissions from other aircraft as we entered Los Angeles airspace.

Though they didn’t really control us, they did monitor our movement across their scope.

I heard a Cessna ask for a readout of its ground speed. ’90 knots’ Center replied.

Moments later,a Twin Beech required the same. ‘120 knots,’ Center answered.

We weren’t the only ones proud of our ground speed that day…as almost instantly an F-18 smugly transmitted, ‘Ah, Center, Dusty 52 requests ground speed readout.’ There was a slight pause, then the response, ‘620 knots on the ground, Dusty.’

Another silent pause.

As I was thinking to myself how ripe a situation this was, I heard a familiar click of a radio transmission coming from my back-seater. It was at that precise moment I realized Walt and I had become a real crew, for we were both thinking in unison.

‘Center, Aspen 20, you got a ground speed readout for us?’ There was a longer than normal pause … ‘Aspen, I show 1,942 knots.’

No further inquiries were heard on that frequency.”

12 posted on 07/17/2019 10:19:18 PM PDT by AnalogReigns (Real life is ANALOG!!!)
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To: Reno89519


With satellites and other orbital vehicles, why in the world do we need an SR-72? I think it is a waste of money.

orbital and sub-orbital vehicles offer entirely different capabilities and inefficiencies.     SR-72 promises an on-demand spy platform, immune from spy-satellite attack, not to mention potential as a weapons platform.


13 posted on 07/17/2019 10:21:44 PM PDT by 867V309 (Lock Her Up)
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To: SuperLuminal

So do the stealth bombers


14 posted on 07/17/2019 10:23:14 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: bitt

Back in the 90’s, in PW’s experimental airfoil group, we had a joke. “what’s black and manned and flies Mach 6?”. The answer.. “ I don’t know”.


15 posted on 07/17/2019 10:24:15 PM PDT by Waverunner (I'd like to welcome our new overlords, say hello to my little friend)
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To: AnalogReigns

The video of that pilot telling the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7EhdaPo5W8


16 posted on 07/17/2019 10:25:37 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: bitt

for later reading and evaluation.


17 posted on 07/17/2019 10:26:27 PM PDT by VanShuyten ("...that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.")
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To: Reno89519

Because the opposition can figure out when satellites and orbitals will go overhead.

A plane can fly over a target at a time of your choosing.


18 posted on 07/17/2019 10:27:18 PM PDT by Pelham (Secure Voter ID. Mexico has it, because unlike us they take voting seriously)
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To: Reno89519

Exhibit A for “why do we need something that’s not a satellite or orbital?”:

http://stuffin.space/

That’s EVERY g*dd*mn satellite (civilian, military or other) of significant size in Earth orbit, updated in near real time without the backing of a government, available to literally anyone on the planet.


19 posted on 07/17/2019 10:33:26 PM PDT by Spktyr (Overwhelmingly superior firepower and the willingness to use it is the only proven peace solution.)
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To: Pelham

I wonder if it can release a few mirv nukes.....quite a deterrent...but they will probably develop hypersonic SAMs..
Can a laser equipped satellite knock out a high flying SAM?


20 posted on 07/17/2019 10:36:39 PM PDT by Getready (Wisdom is more valuable than gold and diamonds, and harder to find.)
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