Hypersonic Successor to Legendary SR-71 Blackbird Spy Plane Unveiled
BY JASON PAUR11.01.132:38 PM(http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2013/11/SR-72-Lockheed-Martin-660x529.jpg)
Image: Lockheed MartinQuoteLockheed Martin's famed Skunk Works has finally unveiled the long-awaited successor to the SR-71 Blackbird. Aviation Week and Space Technology's Guy Norris pulled the covers off the project that Lockheed Martin is simply calling the SR-72. The new airplane will be roughly the same size as the record-setting Blackbird, but will be able to fly twice as fast as the jet that still holds the speed records.
The new spy plane will be capable of Mach 6 cruise speeds, making it the first hypersonic aircraft to enter service should it be produced. Only the rocket-powered North American X-15 was able to regularly fly those speeds, and the three examples built were used for research. The SR-71 Blackbird is legendary in aviation circles for its Mach 3 capabilities, and different iterations served as a spy plane for 35 years until its retirement in 1998. It still holds several records, including a flight from Los Angeles to Washington D.C. in 64 minutes, 20 seconds.
The new SR-72 has long been rumored and debated, and is part of the U.S. Air Force's plan for hypersonic capabilities that will allow fast reaction for gathering intelligence around the world. A Mach 6 airplane fills the gap between current surveillance aircraft that can loiter for long periods of time, but don't have the ability to transit to a new area quickly. The SR-72 is also expected to have optional strike capabilities, according to Aviation Week.
The key to the new airplane, as it was with the SR-71, will be the engines. Lockheed Martin told Aviation Week the company has been working with Aerojet Rocketdyne to build an air breathing engine that combines both a traditional turbine and a scramjet to deliver the Mach 6 performance.
Normal turbine jet engines have problems operating at speeds beyond Mach 2. The original SR-71 used a complicated system of a movable nose cone on the engine, along with vents that prevented shockwaves from interfering with the flow, and slowed the air down enough so that it could be ingested by the engine. Though "unstarts" were a regular problem for Blackbird pilots, and caused problems throughout the life of the airplane.
The new SR-72 will use a turbine-based combined cycle (TBCC) that will employ the turbine engine at lower speeds, and use a scramjet at higher speeds. A scramjet engine is designed to operate at hypersonic velocities by compressing the air through a carefully designed inlet, but needs to be traveling supersonic before it is practical to begin with. So far research projects from NASA, the Air Force and other Pentagon entities have not been able to solve the problem of transitioning from the subsonic flight regime, through hypersonic flight with a single aircraft.
Lockheed Martin told Aviation Week it has found a way to use existing turbine engines, and by lowering the operating speed of the scramjet, make a transition to hypersonic speeds possible.
The aerospace company says it may have a scaled demonstrator of the SR-72 technology flying by 2023. That airplane would be smaller, about the size of the current F-22 fighter and would be optionally piloted. The SR-72 could enter service by 2030.
(http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/autopia/2013/11/10608915276_c1212dd438_c-660x748.jpg)
Image: Lockheed Martinhttp://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/11/lockheed-martin-sr-72/
Well its about time LOL... took them so long to release it it has to be obsolete by now :P
Intelgurl at ATS posted this on Aug, 26 2007. I hate to point to those guys but this is a great thread.
SR-72 Confirmed: Mach 6 Project Blackswift (http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread299174/pg1)
intelgurl has in her tag... "Operating within Dod protocol" Yup she works at Tonopah (Area 52) along with her hubby Bios... and she stays within legal limits of what she shares... but that is an awesome thread :D... I should actually save it...
Maybe Sgt Rock& Roll can grab it... it is all pure genuine data :D
Well at least now we can say
WE TOLD YOU SO
Now if they would just stop LOSING them :P
DARPA Loses Hypersonic Vehicle, Goes From $320M to Zero in 2,700 Seconds
By Michelle MacalusoPublished August 11, 2011FoxNews.com(http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fncstatic.com/static/managed/img/Scitech/660/371/HTV-2%20image%202.jpg?ve=1)
Image: DARPAQuotebout $320 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars has gone into two hypersonic aircraft designed and built by a defense research agency -- which launched each experimental vehicle in separate tests and then promptly lost contact with them, as they barreled into the Pacific Ocean.
The latest unmanned Falcon Hypersonic Technology Vehicle-2 -- a test rocket designed to fly at Mach 20, or around 13,000 miles per hour -- successfully launched at approximately 7:45 a.m. PDT Thursday and separated properly from the Minotaur IV rocket that carried it to the edge of space. But after 2,700 seconds of flight, the agency lost contact with the vehicle, which presumably sank in the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean.
In a statement on the mission, Air Force Maj. Chris Schulz, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) HTV-2 program manager, said the agency had learned from the flight. But he also acknowledged that the mission was shy of perfection.
"It's vexing; I'm confident there is a solution. We have to find it," the statement read.
The fate of the test on Thursday is reminiscent of the April 2010 initial test flight, which also ended with the military losing contact with the vehicle after 9 minutes. It too went down in the Pacific.
The military research group began the hypersonic test program began in 2003. It has cost a whopping $320 million, Eric Mazzacone, a DARPA public affairs officer, told FoxNews.com.
Lt. Gen. Tom McInerey, former U.S. Air Force Vice Chief of Staff, told Fox News that the project is designed to let military strikes occur anywhere within minutes. But superfast weapons may simply be too expensive to be practical, he said.
"It costs about 1 billion dollars if we wanted to field about 10 or 20 of them per target ... and that's just not affordable," he said.
DARPA defended the costly test missions, declaring that valuable information was collected while the aircraft was in flight -- despite the unsuccessful end.
"We know how to boost the aircraft to near space. We know how to insert the aircraft into atmospheric hypersonic flight. We do now know how to achieve the desired control during the aerodynamic phase of flight," Schulz said.
At first, the launch seemed to go off successfully, despite the dense Central Coast fog making it hard to see the glider take-off -- only the sounds of the launch resonated through the air. No light from the "Falcon" craft was visible, all that was seen was a whiteout from fog and green hills in the foreground.
When the aircraft was in flight, the latest status reports were broadcast across the Air Force base from a loudspeaker where attendees watched the launch. Over that Countdown Network, the Range Launch Conductor said that it had lost optical site of the HTV-2 at approximately 8:15 a.m. PDT.
"Range assets have lost telemetry with #HTV2," the agency announced via Twitter shortly after the flight. "Downrange assets did not reacquire tracking or telemetry. #HTV2 has an autonomous flight termination capability. More to follow," the agency wrote about an hour later.
After 2,700 seconds of flight, the launch ended.
A Vandenberg Air Force Base spokesman called the launch a success nevertheless. McInerney told Fox News the latest incident cast a pall over the program.
"I think that we've seen from what happened today and what happened last April that there are a lot of challenges in front of it."
"It is a marvelous research and development exercise, we've learned a lot about hypersonic speeds, et cetera. But I just don't see the practicality in it," he said.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2011/08/11/darpa-readies-hypersonic-aircraft-for-mach-20-launch-test/
Hanger for it at Area 51 You can spot it on Google
(http://www.lazygranch.com/images/a51pan/june2007/new_hangar.jpg)
Blackswift: Return of the Spaceplane
Our page...2007
(http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/04images/Blackswift/Blackswift_01.jpg)
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/45jack_files/03files/Blackswift_Spaceplane.html
The story mentioned it can handle weapons, I guess that means bombs. I wonder how much they have to slow down if at all to open the doors and release something. I can only guess that at Mac 6, opening a bomb bay door would not be a good thing.
Deuem
Probably laser, and/or other energy weapons...